Collecting Sports Cards and Sports Memorabilia Represents a Tangible Link to the Nostalgia of Childhood

Before he was a mega famous seven-time Super Bowl winning MVP quarterback, Tom Brady was just a kid who loved collecting baseball cards.

Westhampton Beach resident Mike Variale had a long and fulfilling career as a teacher, and then went on to create a successful entertainment business as a second act post-teaching, but also began a different second act, creating a new side job that’s more of a hobby, related to buying and selling sports cards and memorabilia.

On the surface, Brady and Variale don’t have much in common. But what they represent is a universal desire, among many sports fans, to reconnect with their past through the nostalgia of sports cards.

On May 22, Brady arrived in East Hampton Village, setting off near pandemonium, for the grand opening of CardVault by Tom Brady on Newtown Lane. The East Hampton store is the fifth location for the sports card, trading card, and memorabilia retailer, which was created in 2020 by business partners Ed Kane, Randy Greenstein, Chris Costa, Tim Bonito and Scott Heigelmann.

CardVault — which also has locations at TD Garden in Boston (home of the Celtics), Gillette Stadium in Foxborough (home of Brady’s former team, the New England Patriots), Foxwoods, and the American Dream Mall in New Jersey — bills itself as an “immersive” retail experience, with a showroom that has a selection of sealed boxes and packs, and individual cards and authentic memorabilia from top brands like Topps, Panini, Upper Deck, Pokémon and Fanatics Authentic. Customers can also walk through the store’s signature vault door to find highly sought-after signed jerseys and equipment, limited edition CardVault by Tom Brady merchandise, and a specially themed Pokemon experience. The store also includes a customer lounge where shoppers can open packs, trade and enjoy the hobby.

Customers can also submit their cards for authentication and grading through CardVault’s grading service in a dedicated grading submission area.

Variale’s business, “Sports Cards - The Hobby,” offers a more localized version of what CardVault brings to the table, but the common thread of a passion for sports, sports heroes and card trading runs through both businesses.

Sports Cards - The Hobby

Variale turned what had been a lifelong passion for collecting into a new side business within the last 10 years. Seven years ago, when his mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Variale said he got back into collecting sports cards and memorabilia, as a way to take his mind off the painful reality of his mother’s declining health during the moments when he was not by her side. After her death, he began listening to the sports card collecting podcast, the Great American Collectible Show, by Tom Zappala and Rico Petrocelli of Boston.

Variale takes the same approach to his business as he did during his job as an elementary school teacher in the Miller Place School District — it’s all about education.

“I help educate people on their collections and where they can maximize their value,” he said.

His most solid piece of advice for people he works with is simple.

“Collect what you love, first and foremost,” he said. “There’s also the financial aspect of it. There’s some hot cards that can mature, and as some of my friends in the business would say, they’re like blue chip stocks.”

Variale’s love of collecting and trading cards started when he was young. He loved the thrill of buying and opening packs of cards when he was a kid, “just like any other kid,” he said.

He’s a huge Mets fan, although he admits, with a laugh, that “there are no valuable Mets cards.”

In that regard, the Yankees dominate, thanks to Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and, more recently, Aaron Judge. (Variale personally collects Wayne Gretzky and Ken Griffey Jr. cards).

Over the last few years, Variale has built up strong connections with many of the big auction houses, and he’s built a solid reputation, he said, because he gives it to people straight.

“When I go to [trade] shows, people come to me to get an honest opinion,” he said. “Sometimes, I’m very honest and other dealers get upset. The hardest part is telling someone that their collection is not worth as much as they want it to be.”

Someone might think they have a great card, he said, but upon closer inspection — magnifying glasses, UV lights are tools of the trade — the value they think it has might not hold up.

The wide range of variety that exists with more modern cards can complicate matters too. There’s an almost endless variety of card trim designs, sticker autographs and signed autographs. The same goes for memorabilia, like sports jerseys. A game-worn jersey, for instance, is worth more than a player-worn jersey — a jersey or uniform can be stamped as “player worn” even if the player simply puts the jersey on and takes it off in a matter of seconds while sitting in the locker room.

That’s why a lot of what Variale does is based upon educating people. He does short video tutorials on his Instagram page, to help people learn.

There are three key factors that go into determining the value of any sports card, Variale said — the rarity of the card, the demand for it, and the condition it’s in.

“If it meets all three, then you’ve got something,” he said.

The pandemic had a big effect on the sports cards and collectibles industry. Being at home during lockdown, many people had the time to dive back into collections that had maybe been in the attic or basement in a box. Then they started sending cards in to be rated, which caused values to skyrocket initially, Variale said. Then, due to the surge in popularity of cards being rated, the values came crashing down. They started creeping up again within the last two years.

As so many aspects of life have become digitized or obsolete over the past few years and decades, it’s notable that the hobby of collecting sports cards and sports memorabilia has not only continued to survive but has thrived as well. Variale ruminated on what’s behind that continued allure.

“You accumulate some disposable income at a certain point in your life, and you’re able to say, yeah, I want to reconnect with my childhood,” he said. “It’s almost like a midlife crisis, but in a good way. Instead of spending your money on a sports car, you’re spending it on sports cards.

He laughed. “It’s old school, it’s as simple as that,” he added. “This whole thing with collecting, you’re collecting because it’s something tangible. It’s tying you back to history.”

CardVault by Tom Brady

Personal history was a big part of the story behind the creation of CardVault for one of its founders, Chris Costa. While sitting in his office in Boston, clutching a football while speaking, with a framed Jason Tatum Boston Celtics jersey on the wall behind him, Costa reminisced about visiting Slapshot Sports Cards on Route 1 in Boston when he was 5, 6, 7 years old.

“I’d go with my mom and dad and sit in the backseat and open packs of cards up, and if I hit it big, I’d go back and trade for more packs,” he said. “That kind of story holds true for so many people.”

“Sports cards and trading cards have been around for well over 100 years,” Costa said. “It’s a really important part of American history and Americana, and it draws back to the nostalgic component. Every generation has the ability to look back and think about their childhood and collecting their favorite players.”

Before partnering with Brady, Costa and his business partners set out to build a company that would represent the next generation of places like Slapshot, the local mom and pop hobby and card shop.

CardVault caters to both new and novice collectors, as well as those with serious collections that have high value.

“We have a system and team that have the ability to bring cards to the masses, but we also have the skillset to support advanced collectors,” he said.

CardVault is in an era of rapid expansion, with a goal to add a new brick and mortar location every month going forward. While many of the other retail locations are venue adjacent, Costa said the company also wants to focus on certain “iconic” destinations, and East Hampton fit the bill.

“It’s an iconic destination, meets neighborhood meets community vibe,” Costa said. “It checks a lot of boxes.”

Kane, one of the founders, has a home in East Hampton, and Brady also spends a significant amount of time there.

Bringing Brady on as a partner obviously has been a big boost, with the cache that comes with his world-famous name and reputation.

Costa said that Brady is “arguably the most famous collector in the world at this point,” and spoke about how sharing what might be a little known or lesser known fact about the All-Pro quarterback is part of the company’s mission.

“We think Tom’s collector journey and the story of his collecting was a story that needed to be told and was worth the world knowing about,” he said.

Brady has spoken publicly about his childhood “obsession” with baseball cards, and how, as a child growing up in San Mateo, California, he was a regular at the Who’s on Second? card shop in the town.

“He’s so passionate about it,” Costa said. “It’s surreal to see in real life, how interested he is in the industry and how much of an opinion he has in it.”

Starting CardVault was something of a career pivot for Costa and his partners, including Kane and Greenstein. Together, they had owned Big Night, the largest hospitality company in New England, with 21 venues including music halls, restaurants and bars. That business was drastically affected by the pandemic, forcing them to close doors and lay off employees. Costa has always been a collector, with Brady cards making up a big part of his collections, and they decided to redirect some of the resources from their hospitality company into creating CardVault.

The timing, it turned out, was perfect.

In 2020, during the pandemic, the sports cards and collectibles industry went “on a crazy roller coaster ride to the moon,” as Costa put it, while the nightlife and hospitality business was basically doing the opposite.

“It created a window for us to come together and come up with this idea,” Costa said.

If the long lines and huge crowds in the cold and wet weather at the CardVault by Tom Brady location at the end of May were an indication, the business will continue to grow.

“People will find the East Hampton location really appealing when they walk in,” Costa said. “It’s an incredible experience when you walk into the shop and then walk through the vault door into the vaulted room of memorabilia and merchandise, and into the back store of the lounge, where we have couches and tables and a Playstation. We take a lot of pride in our design and as a leader in this space.

“We’re going to be opening a store every month until further notice,” Costa added. “We want to get to 100 stores, and be in every major market.”