For decades, shops exclusively selling trading cards were typically cramped, dingy affairs, often run by one guy in a T-shirt and jeans.
But with the card business booming in the past decade, Atlanta’s Geoff Wilson saw an opportunity to do something far more ambitious. A year ago, he teamed up with two other partners to open CardsHQ in a former Pier One space encompassing 14,000 square feet. The store, near Cumberland Mall and Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, is one of the largest dedicated card shops in the world.
“There were a lot of skeptics,” Wilson said. “My favorite was that our store would be turned into a Spirit Halloween by October.”
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho
There were no ghost or nurse costumes for sale in the space last October. Instead, the store has thrived. Wilson, who has become a social media influencer on the subject of sports card investing, said CardsHQ pulled in $15 million its first year of operation, doubling expectations, and now employs 80 people. It’s Google review rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars.
“We’re giving collectors a unique experience that isn’t available anywhere else,” said Wilson, 46.
CardsHQ, given its vast size, boasts rows and rows of cards and sets available for sale from a few dollars to thousands of dollars, whether it’s vintage Star Wars cards, imported Japanese Pokémon cards or brand-new Topps baseball sets. There are dedicated shelves just for cards of Atlanta athletes such as Hank Aaron and Trae Young.
“This is like a baseball card place on steroids,” said Leon Jobe, an Atlanta resident who stopped by recently out of curiosity and purchased a 1967 Willie Stargell card for $40. It was a nostalgic purchase because he had met the late Baseball Hall of Famer as a child. “I remember going to card shows at a Courtyard Marriott as a kid. This brings back so many memories.”
The operation is also diversified for the digital age: There are multiple studios where employees livestream card auctions and box openings and where Wilson records podcasts and tapes his popular YouTube show. There’s also a table for customers to “rip” boxes they just purchased in front of YouTube cameras in hopes of finding a valuable Shohei Ohtani or Luka Dončić card.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
At the same time, CardsHQ is structured for face-to-face interaction with couches, bleachers and chairs. They host trade nights for collectors to barter cards and socialize. Four nights a week, the store holds tournaments for gamers who play card games like Disney Lorcana and Star Wars Unlimited. When Collect-A-Con was held downtown in early February, CardsHQ partnered to hold a special postconvention trade night party with free pizza.
“There’s nothing else like CardsHQ,” said Jeff Wirz, who oversees Collect-A-Con out of Dallas and hosts 18 such pop culture and animé conventions a year. “I wish we had one in Dallas.”
Three co-owners run CardsHQ. Wilson is the amiable spokesman, the strategic leader who creates a steady flow of digital content on YouTube and podcasts. Carter Musgrave handles day-to-day operations with low-key aplomb. Ryan Van Oost oversees a crew of trained buyers who travel to card shows almost every week.
And they go out of their way to cooperate with existing rival card shops.
“Geoff used to shop with me and when he started his YouTube channel, I decided to help him by being a guest,” said Joe Davis, owner of GotBaseballCards, a long-running baseball card shop in Loganville, “Now he helps me. He’s been a huge blessing for us.” CardsHQ outsources grading the value of cards to Davis’ team of experts.
“Our primary goal is to grow the industry and help shops elevate themselves,” Musgrave said. “There hasn’t been much to push shops to be better. We feel like we’ve already done that. At the end of the day, we’re all collectors and we really want the industry to be better than it has been. The shops are on the front lines.”
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
CardsHQ draws celebrities who buy cards, sign cards and break open boxes live for the streaming audience. On Feb. 22, Atlanta Braves Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz came for a Topps-sponsored “Rip Night.” A few hours later, Atlanta Hawks No. 1 draft pick Zaccharie Risacher stopped in. Two weeks earlier, rap legend Waka Flocka Flame stopped by on a busy trade night and purchased several Pokémon cards to bolster his collection.
“This is fire!” Waka Flocka told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s like a nightclub for trading cards. All that’s missing are hookahs and bartenders!”
Dylan Gravel, a student who drove two hours for trade night from Milledgeville, watched the celebrity hubbub nearby with bemusement while trading cards, which he considers a side hustle. “I came the first day they opened,” he said. “They had a line into the lower parking garage. I was blown away with how much stuff they had.”
Credit: RODNEY HO
Credit: RODNEY HO
Five-year-old Braxton Hallewell sat at the YouTube “ripping” table gleefully opening packs of NBA minor league cards. “The boxes are just $9.99 each,” said his father James Hallewell, a teacher who brought his three sons. “They’re good for kids to rip and you can get autographed cards.”
Like Gravel, the Cumming resident came opening day and has returned numerous times since, always excited to see Wilson in the store. “We love coming here,” Hallewell said. “For the kids, it’s like legalized gambling.”
D.J. Demjanik of Smyrna, standing nearby, dubbed CardsHQ “the best shop in the world. They’ve got so much variety. The worst problem is the shelves are sometimes empty. But everybody here is straight and honest. I feel they’re very fair. I can find cheap cards here.”
Musgrave said the store doesn’t mark up card prices the way many smaller shops do to pay the rent. “Our biggest value is pricing,” he said. “We’re trying to do volume. We’re not trying to stretch margins. We don’t want people to feel like they got screwed and don’t come back. Sadly, that’s been the norm in this industry.”
Employees encourage customers to comparison shop. “We promote transparency,” Musgrave said. “We try to avoid negotiating, but we know card prices can be volatile so we’re happy to adjust.”
Wilson started a subscription-based Market Movers app and website that tracks 3 million cards and sealed products like stocks in February 2020. He now has 100,000 users a month including 15,000 paid subscribers.
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While there is no official tracking of the trading card business by a credible third-party source, the largest collectibles and sports gear company, Fanatics, which purchased Topps sports cards in 2022, said its revenue grew 15% in 2024 and is up 60% since 2021.
Topps said store openings and expansions are sprouting nationwide. “We expect more and more shops to follow the example that Cards HQ has set,” said Avery Jessup, chief commercial officer for Topps. “They offer one of the most modern collector experiences in the country.”
Celebrities have helped fuel the coolness factor. Famous YouTuber Logan Paul in 2022 purchased a super rare Pikachu Illustrator card for over $5 million. Rapper and singer Post Malone in 2023 bought a one-of-a-kind “Magic: The Gathering” card for $2 million. DJ Steve Aoki starred in the 2022 documentary “Behind the Card” about sports card collecting.
“The market is super hot for both sports cards and trading card games, particularly Pokémon,” Wilson said. “All the card shows we’ve been going to have been heavily attended.”
Wilson, who used to run a business management consulting firm, acknowledged that trading cards may be a frothy bubble situation that could burst. But he cited several factors that could help sustain the business long term. Not only is Fanatics investing in marketing and product innovation, he said, but liquidity has improved, card collecting is growing overseas and social media is keeping collectors engaged and excited.
The pandemic, Wilson noted, fueled the growth after millions of bored adults stuck in their homes rekindled their childhood love for cards. Wilson, who is married with three kids, said his own interest in the business was sparked in 2018 after his mother Vanda Bayliss purchased a pack of football cards at a Target for his 7-year-old son Reaves. “She remembered how much I loved those cards as a kid,” he said.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
CardsHQ isn’t the only local store tapping into this demand. A few months before CardsHQ opened, Jon Butts, a 43-year-old former owner of a marketing agency, launched Giant Sports Cards, a 3,000-square foot space in Alpharetta off Windward Parkway with high ceilings, bright lights and a massive wall of cards as well as an epoxy-floor embedded with cards from his childhood.
“CardsHQ hasn’t impacted our business in any way, shape or form,” said Butts at a recent Saturday night event sponsored by Topps that featured free giveaway cards of baseball stars like Ohtani and Bobby Witt Jr. “Year over year, we’re up tremendously. It’s good to have people that are doing right by the hobby and expand the collector universe. There’s definitely more than enough to go around.”
For CardsHQ, success means good problems. They are already running out of space. (One of the streaming studios was temporarily converted into an office.) About one-third of the cards they post online are sold within 24 hours, many never even reaching the retail shelves.
Any given day, a half dozen employees are in the backroom boxing and shipping 1,000 to 1,500 packages a day purchased by people online from around the world. This represents about one third of their business.
And while the founders say Atlanta will always be the headquarters, their eyes are set beyond the city. They plan to open a second CardsHQ in a yet undecided second city in 2026 with more to come.
“We’re thinking big,” Wilson said. “My ultimate goal is to have a CardsHQ in most major U.S. cities, then look to Europe and Asia for international expansion.”
BASIC TRADING CARD TERMS
Base card: A common card that is part of a product’s main set.
Breaking: The practice of opening multiple boxes or cases of a product at the same time and then distributing the cards to a larger group of paying customers.
Chase card: Highly coveted limited edition cards inserted into packs or boxes such as autographed cards, rookie cards and relic cards.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Graded card: A card that has been evaluated by a third party and assigned a grade that indicates its condition and authenticity, usually ranked from 1 to 10. This usually increases the value of the card. Grading a card is also called “slabbing.”
Junk wax era: A period in the late 1980s and early 1990s when card manufacturers flooded the market with product that is worth less than cards from other time periods.
Hit: Finding one of those more valuable “chase” cards when going through a box or pack.
Parallel card: A card with the same design and photo as a base card but offers a different, higher-end color scheme with limited copies. “Chasing the rainbow” is seeking all the colors of the same card.
Prospecting: Collecting cards of young players who have yet to reach the big leagues.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Raw card: A card that has not been graded.
Relic card: A card that contains a piece of memorabilia embedded in the card itself such as a swatch of fabric from a player’s jersey or a piece of game-used baseball.
Ripping: Opening a sealed box of cards.
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TCG: Trading card games such as Pokémon, Star Wars Unlimited and Magic: The Gathering.
Toploader: Thick, plastic encasings used to protect and store valuable cards.
Trade night: An event where card collectors can trade cards, packs and boxes with each other.
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
Credit: RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com
IF YOU GO
CardsHQ. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. 3101 Cobb Pkwy SE Suite 100, Atlanta. 678-741-7618, www.cardshq.com
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