The story of 1 million baseball cards located in St. Louis is one that began with a dream and blossomed into one of the largest private baseball card collections in the world. At the heart of this massive hobby is a lifelong fan named Bill Chastain.
As a child growing up in the 1950s, Bill became enamored with baseball and started collecting whatever baseball cards he could get his hands on. He spent hours looking through his small collection, studying the stats and photos on the back of each card. This initial spark of interest soon grew into a lifelong passion for the sport as well as the business of collecting baseball cards.
After graduating college in the late 1960s, Bill decided to pursue his passion more seriously. He began regularly attending card shows and auctions, searching for deals to grow his collection. In the 1970s and 80s, when the collecting hobby first started to explode, Bill was there making important finds. He amassed boxes upon boxes full of cards from the early 20th century all the way up to the modern era.
It was in the 1990s when Bill’s collection truly started ballooning in size. This was the height of the speculative baseball card boom, where investors were snatching up unopened boxes of cards, hoping to make a profit down the road. Bill took a different approach – instead of sealed product, he focused on building complete sets through diligent hunting at shows, auctions, and through online dealers. His collection grew from only a few boxes into an entire room dedicated to storage.
By the late 90s, Bill’s collection had grown so large it encompassed multiple rooms in his suburban St. Louis home. He had assembled complete and near-complete sets from the 1910s all the way through the 90s. His most prized cards included Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, and several 1910 Tobacco cards in pristine condition. With over 500,000 cards now in his possession, Bill realized he had one of the largest single-owner collections in the world.
In the early 2000s, Bill made the decision to turn his massive private collection into a full-time business. He converted part of his home into a large warehouse and retail space, which he named “Chastain’s Baseball Card Shop.” Here, potential buyers could browse his enormous inventory in person. He also ramped up his online sales presence on eBay and through a fledgling website. Word began to spread nationwide about Bill’s seemingly endless supply of vintage and modern cardboard.
Through the 2000s, Bill’s business boomed as the collecting hobby continued growing rapidly. He was purchasing entire collections on a regular basis to fuel his growing inventory. By the late 2000s, Bill’s card count had exploded to over 1 million individual baseball cards housed in his St. Louis warehouse. It had become one of the largest organized card collections under one roof anywhere. Visitors traveling from across the country specifically to see Bill’s famed warehouse collection.
In recent years, as the hobby has matured and modern card production has slowed down, Bill has transitioned his focus. He now mostly runs his multi-room warehouse as a museum and research library for other lifelong collectors and scholars of the hobby. People can schedule appointments to peruse his meticulously organized collection and research sets from different eras. The collection is truly a love letter to the history and allure of baseball cards from the early 20th century boom all the way to today.
So in summary – what started as a childhood dream for one St. Louis native named Bill Chastain became a reality through decades of dedicated collecting. His amassed collection of over 1 million individual baseball cards stands as a landmark in the hobby. Chastain’s famed warehouse has become a sort of mecca for collectors worldwide, preserving the past, present, and future of our national pastime on cardboard. It remains one of the most impressive private collections in the sports memorabilia field.
