I’m a wrestling collector. For the most part, I buy, I collect, I build my collection. But sometimes, when you start to run out of space, you have to make room for new additions to the collection, so when that happens, I’m happy to do a little trading and selling. I do sell some trading cards on eBay, but that isn’t very fun — it’s cold and impersonal. Every once in a while, I like to set up a table at a local trading card show.
Living in Michigan, and specifically Metro Detroit, there’s no shortage of monthly card shows, but the one I prefer to do business at takes place at the Laurel Park Mall, in Livonia, Michigan. I wouldn’t call it the best card show in the area, but I prefer this one because it’s close to where I live, the table fee is reasonable ($40), it’s only one day a month (Saturday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.), and it’s inside a shopping mall.
Being the age I am, 45 years old, I have a fondness for shopping mall card shows, because that’s the type of card show I most often frequented when I was growing up in the 1980s and ’90s, and while shopping malls have drastically changed since I was 13 (RIP Orange Julius and Kay-Bee Toys), I still get a whiff of nostalgia when I see a line of tables in the middle of a mall selling trading cards … especially at Christmas time.
Being primarily a wrestling collector, I’m usually only one of maybe two or three tables selling wrestling cards, which means I have a niche market, and therefore I don’t typically make too many sales at card shows, but my philosophy tends to be, if you cover your table fee and leave with less than what you came with, it’s been a good day, and this past Saturday, December 7, I had a good day.
Before I made my first sale of the day, an older man walking through the mall stopped to look at my table. He wasn’t at the mall to buy trading cards, but my table of wrestling items caught his attention. This is another thing I enjoy about tabling at mall shows. I appreciate the serendipity of catching “normies” who aren’t there to buy trading cards.
As a lot of older Detroit-area residents tend do when they see something related to wrestling, he started talking about going to Big Time Wrestling shows at the “air-conditioned Cobo Arena” (as common as going to Tigers games back in the day) and asked if I knew if The Sheik — the Original Sheik, Ed Farhat — had any wrestling cards. I admitted to him that I didn’t know, at that time, but I would definitely look into it, and soon as he left my table, to do some Christmas shopping, I posted the question on X, and almost immediately received a reply from Verb Abrams (@VerbAbrams) with a picture of an awesome 1976 Yamakatsu All Japan card (which is now on my wish list).
A little later in the morning, I saw the same man walking by, shopping bags in hand, and I got his attention and showed him a picture of this card. He thought it was incredible, and thanked me for taking the time to find it.
Not long after the older man left my table, another man who was probably about my age stopped when he saw my wrestling cards for sale. He was a self-confessed “wrestling nerd” and was excited to see my selection of cards. He had lots to say about the current state of WWE and NXT as he looked through my selection of WWE Panini inserts and refractors. He was clearly picking out cards of younger NXT talent. We probably talked for a good 15-20 minutes, and he ended up buying a stack of 20 or so assorted WWE Panini cards and a Tatum Paxley NXT autograph.
Before my next sale, another somewhat older man (yes, it’s mostly men at card shows) stopped at my table to ask a wrestling question.
“Do you know Heather Feather?” he asked, and when I told him I didn’t, he began to give me the backstory of the 350-pound Heather Feather, from Allen Park, Michigan, and eventually got around to asking if she had any wrestling cards. Well, I wasn’t able to find any cards of Heather Feather, but I did learn that she appeared in the film I Like to Hurt People, and I promised him I would definitely look her up. These are the type of random questions I love to get at card shows.
Allen Park, Michigan, pro wrestler Heather Feather, circa 1973. Photo by Brad McFarlin
Not long after this, my friend Jeremy came through to shop and chat. Jeremy moved to Michigan from Kingston, Ontario, this past year, to teach in Detroit, and sometimes we get together to go to GCW shows at Harpo’s in Detroit, among other non-wrestling activities.
Jeremy had a copy of Tim Hornbaker’s The Last Real World Champion: The Legacy of “Nature Boy” Ric Flair to lend me, as well as a gift of some baseball cards, and I had a Detroit Pistons poster for him. Jeremy enthusiastically attempted to sell my autographed Buff Bagwell card to several people who stopped by my table, but nobody bit (so drop me a line if you’re interested in “The Stuff”).
Jeremy had some Christmas shopping to do, as well, but before he left for the day, he bought a 1987 Honky Tonk Man Circle K Supermatch card.
Right around lunch time, a couple of younger men stopped at my table when they saw my set of Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant mugs. These were heavy, glass mugs, produced in the mid-’80s. I found them several years ago at a flea market in my hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and while I had been displaying them in my office, ever since, I decided it was time to make some space and let them go.
The young man who was most interested in the mugs wanted Hogan, more than Andre, but I told him he needed to get both, so his friend could use one too when they have a beer later, and that sold him on the pair.
Before the end of the day, I had one more small sale of wrestling cards, a couple more inexpensive WWE Panini cards, then I called it a day. I sold some non-wrestling cards, as well, but since my table is about 75% wrestling cards, toys, and merch, most of my sales were wrestling items.
By 3 p.m., I made back my table fee, and some, and went home with a new Ric Flair book and some football cards I bought from a table next to me. Plus, I saw Santa Claus.
I don’t expect to ever get rich (or even make a profit) from selling wrestling cards at the mall, but it’s a fun way to spend a cold Saturday, while making a little money to buy more wrestling cards.
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