Grand Forks, area sports cards experts seeing national trend of pandemic-inspired booming industry

Jun. 25—Bill Tyrrell of Grand Forks had never put on a sports card show before this summer.

In fact, some veteran collectors and sellers in this area predict the show earlier this month at the Grand Cities Mall was the first show, at least of this size, in Grand Forks since the late 1990s.

So, why now?

"We did it because we knew cards were hot," said Tyrrell, who owns Rumors Bar & Grill in the Grand Cities Mall. "During the pandemic, it caught fire."

Tyrrell and some friends decided now was the time to strike. They drew 16 vendors to the show, which operated out of the old Christian Bookshelf space in the mall.

Experts, both nationally and locally, say the pandemic has helped spark a resurgence of buying and selling sports cards. Sports fans, at home for lengthy periods of time during the pandemic, rediscovered past hobbies. And some have been passing those experiences on to another generation.

The auction website eBay reported in February that U.S. sales of trading cards grew 142% from 2019 to 2020, and it had sold 4 million more cards in 2020 than in the previous year.

Andrew BlackLance, 32, was one of the vendors at the Grand Forks show. The Thief River Falls native and current Duluth resident has been traveling to card shows since 2017.

BlackLance is a vendor at about 30 card shows per year.

Back when he started in 2017, BlackLance said cards and boxes were going for one-fifth or one-eighth of what those items fetch now.

BlackLance, who played college football at Northern Iowa, is a general manager of an industrial supplier, but he turned his hobby into a business — Subzero Sports Cards.

"I would say the pandemic definitely shot the arc straight up, but I would say probably back in 2017 was the start of the rise," BlackLance said.

To showcase the point, BlackLance said in 2017 he bought a 12-box case of Prizm football cards for $1,300. The case happened to have Pat Mahomes rookie cards.

Back in 2017, you could sell them for $20 or $25 per card. At one point, he owned four or five of them. He sold a couple for $400 and recently received $1,200 for them.

Grand Forks' Barry Branvold was also at the show at Grand Cities Mall. He has had a shop in Grand Forks that started in 1979, which he believes was the first in North Dakota.

"I think the pandemic put people at home and they started looking through what they have and there was a resurgence," Branvold said. "There's a new generation looking at stuff."

Brandvold said the 1980s were the glory years and there was a glut of product in the 1990s that diminished card value.

He said he noticed most collectors at the Grand Forks show were looking at vintage baseball cards, eyeing old Harmon Killebrew cards or Willie Mays.

"Some guys were trying to fill out old 1950s sets," he said.

With the boom in interest has also produced some negative impact. Target and Wal-Mart have recently stopped selling cards in some stores after a dispute in Wisconsin where a shopper allegedly pulled a gun during a dispute over cards.

And now that sports cards are big business, large collectors are eating up a lot of the new product in order to turn it for bigger profits.

"People are getting priced out of the hobby," BlackLance said. "You put 20 packs on the shelf and instantly someone buys out the entire shelf and sells it on EBay for four-to-five times what you pay for it. When you buy the entire stock, it's not allowing a cheaper option for anyone without a massive sports card budget."

BlackLance, who routinely attends shows in the Twin Cities, said he hasn't been in the North Dakota region since going to a show in Fargo a few years ago.

"I thought if Grand Forks hasn't had a show in so many years, to bring the quality and quantity in my case would be a good opportunity to open up to the market there," BlackLance said. "When I was a kid, my dad would take me to the armory in Thief River Falls, but there hasn't been anything around there in a long time.

"I'll definitely be back. I know with most shows when they first start there's a growing phase. People aren't sure what'll be there. Once people can plan for the consistency, they start showing up more."

Local collectors say the new buyers range in ages.

"What I've seen from all my shows are the (customers in their) 60s have always been there," BlackLance said. "There's an influx in 24 to 32 but the most common I've seen is 33 to 40. Your dads are bringing their kids to the show and saying this is what I used to do when I was a kid."

Tyrrell said he plans to continue hosting card shows.

"We got one underneath us and we'll see what happens," he said. "You find out a lot of people really do like cards."

Tyrrell is shooting for a Sept. 25 date for his next show. Show organizers are hopeful for a strong turnout as the date coincides with bye weeks for both the UND and North Dakota State football programs.