Top Swaps
If you were to step into our Virginia home's basement and somehow not get taunted into playing air hockey, you might notice a stack of baseball card boxes resting on a corner shelf. And emblazoned on the top of these boxes in striking red and teal magic marker is the beautiful Top Swaps logo.
Top Swaps wasn't our first business venture - that honor goes to a cartoon firework we made out of construction paper and yarn - but it was our first storefront. Andrew and I were always into baseball cards growing up, doing the whole Little League thing and getting packs at the concession stands. You couldn't beat the cards made by Topps, which included a brittle stick of heavily-sugared gum that was usually already broken into several pieces upon opening. Between the two of us and the donation of some older cards from a neighbor, we had the biggest collection in the neighborhood and quite possibly our whole elementary school. So it just made sense one summer to clean our room up and turn it into a baseball card store.
We organized all of our cards in these narrow shoebox-esque boxes, separated by teams. We took our favorite cards of our favorite players out and put them into plastic binder sleeves (I liked Dwight Gooden and Eric Davis; Andrew prophetically chose Barry Bonds). And for one day a week for about a month, we invited friends and neighbors over to trade and buy cards. I still remember making a special display for our claim to fame, a Bo Jackson rookie card, by scotch taping it (in a sleeve) to my dresser with a note saying "Yup, it's his rookie card!" Every kid had their favorite player and would trade for little else but that player's cards - or maybe someone good on that guy's team.
Top Swaps was pretty successful - I think we made a few quarters here and there, but more importantly we got some great trades out of it from the younger kids. I have no idea if those cards will be worth anything down the road since we collected in heyday of the late 80s, but it's a substantial collection nevertheless. The best trade I ever made was at school in 1990 for an Eric Davis card with T.J. Wilder. My Mom (the best Mom ever, as a matter of fact) baked World Series baseball cookies for our 5th grade class with the Reds and Athletics written in icing. To this day I have not tasted a better cookie in the world than Mom's special occasion school cookies. T.J. seemed to agree, and offered to give me any card that I wanted for two extra Oakland Athletics cookies. So I got an second-year Eric Davis card and T.J. got a sugar high; now that's a great trade.
Thursday, September 23 at 4:36 PM
Okay Samurai Multimedia is Dave Werner's personal site. I'm currently working at Minor Studios in San Francisco. Thanks for visiting! (more...)
Okay Samurai Journal (Subscribe RSS / XML)
Dave Werner's Portfolio (okaydave.com)
Archives (Cardboard Box)
Contact (Mailbox)
My Videos on Vimeo
My Photos on Flickr
Lars Amhoff: Kinkyform Design
Colin Anawaty: Cubed Companies
Chuck Anderson: NoPattern
Haik Avanian: HaikAvanian.com
James Bailey: The Kingdom of Sad Machines
Ben Barry: CarbonFour / Forced Connections
Dimitry Bentsionov: Arthero
Joshua Blankenship: JoshuaBlankenship.com
Casey Britt: CaseyBritt.com
Duncan Brook: Superfreaky Memories
Matthew Burtner: Burtner.net
Jeff Chin: JeffChin.com
Mary Campbell: Mary Campbell Design
Sarah Coffman: Minus Five
John Contino: drawings&co
Angie Cosimano: Angie Unit
Chris and Linda Doherty: Citizen Studio
Anne Elser: Annepages
Neil Epstein: Mediafactured
Bjorn Fagerholm: 3jorn
Dave Foster: Dave the Designer
Justin Genovese: JustinGenovese.com
J Grossen: Sugarcoma Labs
Audrey Gould: Aud's Blog
Greg Hackett: GregHackett.com
Sam Harrison: Zingzone
Todd Hammell: Solid Colors
Leon Henderson: LHJ Photo
Howard Hill: Fascination Streak
Peter Hobbs: Peter Hobbs Photography
Matt Ipcar: Ipcar Design
Michael Johnson: Michael J Rox
Melissa Jun: MelissaJun.com
Jiae Kim: Theme magazine
Zack Klein: ZackKlein.com
Katie Kosma: Flying Conundrum
Peter Lada: Proxima Labs
Josh Levin: Nothing Learned
Larry Luk: Epidemik Coalition
Mike Mates: Urban Influence
Alison Matheny: Life of a Harpy
Turi McKinley: Turi Travels
Alaa-Eddine Mendili: Furax
John Nack: John Nack on Adobe
Allen Orr: Anthem In
Scott Paterson: sgp7
Joe Peng: MacConcierge
Paavo Perkele: Astudios
Brian Perozo: Ephekto
Jason Puckett: Everyday Puck
Kate Ranson-Walsh: Thinkradical
Tania Rochelle: Stone's Colossal Dream
Angela Sailo: Peanut Butter Toast
Mohit SantRam: Santram.net
Dan Savage: Something Savage
Kevin Scarbrough: Thin Black Glasses
Scott Schiller: Schillmania
Jason Severs: JasonSevers.com
Anthony Sheret: Work By Lunch
Nick Skyles: Boats and Stars
Sujay Thomas: iSujay
Joe Tobens: JospehTobens.com
David Ulevitch: Substantiated.info
John Verhine: Verhine.com
Armin Vit: Under Consideration
Ian Wharton: IanWharton.com
Roger Wong: One Great Monkey
Clay Yount: Rob and Elliot Comics
Jack Zerby: Jack Zerby Music