HOULTON, Maine – Not counting big box stores, Maine’s top seller of one of the nation’s leading brands of sports trading cards is a small shop located in Aroostook County.
Houlton-based Shiretown Coins on Market Street has come a long way since owner Galen Wilde first negotiated with Topps to sell the trading cards in 1983. He worked out a deal that required an upfront payment of $10,000 with a 30-day waiting period before he could sell the cards, which feature photos of professional athletes.
At the time, he did not have that kind of cash, but he was determined to secure the funds and did so. Since taking that risk, his business has grown more each year, he said.
Topps, a well-known seller of trading cards, actually started out as a chewing gum company based in New York City in 1938, adding a baseball card series in 1951 as a way to get kids to chew more bubble gum. The cards actually took off and the gum was removed from the packs in 1992.
Fanatics, a company which sells sports apparel and memorabilia, purchased Topps In 2022.
This year, as of early November, Shiretown Coins had purchased over 300 cases of cards from Topps for about $450,000. The numbers make the shop the largest Maine hobby shop account in terms of volume, said Keith Gentili, the hobby sales operations manager for Topps.
Hobby shop sales do not include large retailers like Walmart, according to Gentili.
Shiretown Coins was at the forefront of a trend that started as a marketing ploy to sell more chewing gum to kids and evolved into a collectors’ and investment haven. Today the hobby shop is among the top 200 Topps sellers nationally, said Gentili.
There are eight authorized hobby shops that sell Topps cards in Maine, he said.
Topps reports about 700 hobby shops nationally. And the sports trading card business is currently an $8 billion industry, according to Indiana University Kelley School of Business researchers.
“It seems to continue to expand over the years and the sports and nonsports cards are a major business in the U.S. and worldwide,” said Tim Wilde, Galen’s son who has been working with his Dad since he was a kid. “We can send a card as far away as Australia, or Hong Kong, we send them all over the place.”
Tim shared stories of cards and sports memorabilia that can bring in several million dollars at auctions like the $12.6 million sale of a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card or the recent Los Angeles Dodger’s Shohei Ohtani home run baseball that sold at auction in October for $4.4 million.
Both father and son have been collectors of many things since they were kids.
Galen said his was pennies and stamps.
“I was six years old collecting stamps, and I was a collector my entire life,” he said. “Then when I was 40 years old I put all my collections together and started Shiretown Coins.”
Tim followed in his father’s footsteps and from the time he was a kid Galen was taking him to coin shows. At one show Galen bought a rare Lincoln penny for $100.
“When we got home the first thing he told his mother was, ‘Dad paid $100 for a penny,’” Galen said, laughing. “And we needed curtains in the living room and furniture.”
As a kid, Tim started collecting baseball cards before the store had opened and back then he was looking for Boston Red Sox players like Carl Yastrzemski.
“You could buy those back in those days at the Monticello general store in a box behind the counter,” Tim said, adding that the cards were 10 cents for a pack and he had several hundred cards in a dresser drawer.
Cards have changed significantly since that time, he said.
“Back then a pack of cards only cost 10 cents, then they went to 15 cents and 25 cents. And now a box of cards can range anywhere from $10 to several thousands per box. There is a whole collecting and investing aspect with cards,” he said.
The cards may have evolved and gotten more expensive, but the lottery-like excitement of never knowing what will be in the pack remains.
“It’s the fun of not knowing,” said Teadora Wilde, Galen’s granddaughter and Tim’s daughter who also works in the store.
As an enticement, sometimes packs will have guaranteed autographs, or parallel cards, she added.
Parallel cards are a different version of the base card that might be produced in lower quantities and are often worth more money.
Hot this season is the Topps Chrome Update Baseball cards, a fairly new release of this year’s baseball rookie class along with the Topps Major League Baseball Rookie Debut Patch Autographs.
A bit like looking for the Willie Wonka Golden Ticket hidden in a candy bar, trading card collectors and investors are searching for the one-of-one Paul Skenes card located in only one of the debut patch packs.
“That particular card is going to be worth a lot of money, six figures,” Tim said.
Skenes is a Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher and his card has a piece of his uniform from his debut game.
To make the search even more interesting, the Pittsburgh Pirates are offering to have the owner of the card sell it to the team in exchange for season tickets for two behind home plate for the next 30 years.
“It depends on who pulls that card. If you have the right person they might take the Pittsburgh Pirates up on that, but somebody else might prefer to keep it,” Tim said.
Unlike her father and grandfather, Teadora is not a collector, but she really likes helping at the store to spend time with her grandfather. And trading cards have always been part of her life.
“When I was little we would open up boxes of cards and take a breather, kind of like stepping away from homework and having a lot of fun,” she said.
