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T L BASEBALL CARDS HILLSBOROUGH TOWNSHIP NJ

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T&L Baseball Cards: A Hillsborough Township Institution

Located in Hillsborough Township, New Jersey, T&L Baseball Cards has been a mainstay in the baseball card collecting community since 1977. What started as a small hobby shop run by Tom Zarzycki and Larry Schuman out of Zarzycki’s basement has grown into one of the largest and most well-known baseball card stores in the entire country. For over four decades, collectors from around the world have made pilgrimages to T&L seeking rare and valuable cards to add to their collections.

In the late 1970s, Tom and Larry were avid collectors themselves who enjoyed sorting through boxes of newly released cards and discussing the players and stats. They started buying and selling cards out of Tom’s basement to support their hobby and were surprised by the interest from other local collectors. Word of mouth grew their basement business to the point where they needed a storefront. In 1978, they opened their first brick and mortar location on Route 206 in Hillsborough.

The 1980s were a boom time for the baseball card industry. More kids than ever were getting into the hobby thanks to television exposure of the sport and accessibility of packs of cards. T&L’s customer base grew rapidly to keep up with demand. They stocked the latest releases from Topps, Donruss and Fleer and also bought collections from people looking to cash in on the surge in popularity and rising card values. T&L became known for having the most extensive vintage inventory in the area for collectors seeking older and harder to find cards.

Another key aspect of T&L’s success was their personalization and expertise. Tom and Larry got to know their customers not just as buyers but as fellow fans. They enjoyed discussing players, trades, and the state of the game. Their encyclopedic knowledge helped guide newcomers and long-time collectors. They also offered fair cash prices which kept collectors coming back to sell-off duplicates or older unneeded cards. On weekends, the store would be packed with people of all ages trading and chatting baseball.

The baseball card boom came crashing down in the late 80s as the market was flooded with overproduction. But T&L adapted and solidified their reputation. In the lean years of the 1990s, they doubled-down on service and selection. New releases remained front and center but T&L also acquired entire collections that individuals were eager to unload. Their vintage selection grew to be the most extensive on the East Coast. Important vintage rookies from the 1950s onwards could always be found alongside oddball issues and obscure regional sets that many other stores didn’t carry.

The 2000s saw another renaissance in the hobby. New collectors rediscovered the fun of the pastime and rising stars like Ken Griffey Jr. and Chipper Jones drew fans to packs again. The boom also attracted speculators who changed the landscape. Prices rose significantly on modern stars while vintage gems reached unprecedented levels. Despite turbulence, T&L maintained focus on fun over frenzied investing. Their friendly, low-pressure atmosphere kept the shop a gathering spot.

During this time, Tom made the difficult decision to retire and pass the reins fully to Larry. However, Tom’s influence was still felt as Larry carried on the store’s tradition. In the 2010s, the digital card era took hold yet T&L adopted internet selling smoothly without losing their core local business or personal service. Online allowed access to even more collectors worldwide but many still visited hoping to find that one special vintage card only found through years of acquiring entire collections.

Today, Larry’s son Marc has become an integral part of continuing the family lineage at T&L into its fifth decade. Renovations in 2022 expanded the storefront to better handle constant crowds swarming card release days. The shop now sees multi-generational families as grandchildren inherit their parents’ and grandparents’ love of the hobby. In a highly corporatized sport card sector, T&L Baseball Cards remains passionately independent with small-town values placing the customer experience above all else.

For over 40 years, T&L Baseball Cards has been more than just a store – it is an institution and gathering place for the Hillsborough baseball card community. Through multiple industry booms and busts, Tom, Larry, Marc and the entire staff have kept their focus on fostering new collectors while also ensuring those with collections dating back decades always feel at home. For many, T&L Baseball Cards holds memories of first discovering the hobby and will remain where the next generation comes to build their collections for years to come. The shop continues flying the flag for old-school personalized service in an increasingly digital era.

BASEBALL CARDS AND JEWELRY BRICK TOWNSHIP PHOTOS

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Baseball cards have long been a popular collectible item among sports fans across America. Originally included as an insert or promotional item in packages of chewing gum in the late 19th century, baseball cards grew to become a beloved pastime for children and adults alike to assemble complete sets showcasing their favorite players and teams. Over the decades, some of the earliest and most rare baseball cards have become extremely valuable, with mint condition cards from the 1910s and 1920s sometimes fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction.

While the collecting of baseball cards remains a popular hobby today in the digital age, the secondary market for vintage cards reached new heights in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Fueled partly by the rising prices of real estate and other investments during this time period, many adults who collected cards as kids started taking the hobby more seriously and were willing to spend significant money tracking down rare cards to add to their collections. This surge in demand helped skyrocket the values of iconic cards like the 1909-1911 T206 Honus Wagner, widely considered the “Mona Lisa” of baseball cards due to its rarity and subject matter.

Around this same time, sports card and memorabilia shops began popping up in shopping malls and downtown areas to cater to this growing collector base. One such retailer was Mike’s Cards, which opened its doors in 1989 in the central New Jersey town of Brick Township, located just over the border from Staten Island, New York. Brick Township was the ideal location for such a store, as the surrounding communities were home to many sports fans and former card collectors looking to relive their childhood hobby. Mike’s Cards became a popular destination where people could browse inventory, discuss player stats and trade rumors, and occasionally find rare cards to add to their collections.

While running his thriving sports memorabilia business in Brick Township, owner Mike Ferraro also became an avid collector himself, amassing a huge holding of vintage baseball cards which became almost as renowned as some museum collections. Ferraro was particularly interested in high-grade examples from the earliest decades of the 20th century. Some highlights of his personal collection included a PSA-graded Mickey Mantle rookie card from 1952 in gem mint condition, a rare 1913 Baltimore News Babe Ruth card, and arguably his most prized possession – a T206 Honus Wagner card he purchased in the late 1980s for over $100,000, a small fortune at that time.

Ferraro’s collection became locally famous in its own right, and he occasionally showed pieces at card shows, museums, and his own store to help educate the public about the history of the hobby. In the early 1990s, a photographer named Robert Jones from nearby Neptune Township approached Ferraro about doing a photo shoot of some of the crown jewels from his collection. Ferraro agreed, and Jones spent a Sunday afternoon in Ferraro’s home meticulously photographing treasures like the Mantle, Ruth, and Wagner cards against a simple black backdrop to really make the vintage imagery pop.

The photos Jones took that day in Ferraro’s house went on to gain their own fame within the baseball card and sports memorabilia community. Black and white images of the historic cards were printed up and sold as high-quality prints by Jones, with a portion of proceeds benefiting local Little League programs. Many of the photos also found their way into magazines like Beckett, Sports Collectors Digest, and other hobby publications of the era. Today, the photos are still regarded by many collectors and experts as capturing the essence of some the most iconic baseball cards ever made. While the cards themselves have all been sold off over the years, the photos live on as a snapshot of a pivotal time for the hobby.

Ferraro’s store, Mike’s Cards, remained a popular fixture in Brick Township through the late 1990s before he made the difficult decision to close up shop as the sports memorabilia market began to cool off from its speculative highs of the early 90s. Many longtime customers were sad to see the store shuttered after over a decade of business. However, Ferraro’s impact on the area lives on, as does the photography of Robert Jones which helped spread awareness of this famous baseball card collection from New Jersey. Today, photos of Ferraro proudly displaying his prized cards in his Brick Township home in the early 90s continue to circulate among veteran collectors, serving as a reminder of the golden age when the hobby seemed to reach new heights on a regular basis.

While current card values have pulled back from the unsustainable levels of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the allure of vintage baseball memorabilia remains as strong as ever. New generations are always discovering the cards of childhood legends like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Honus Wagner for the first time. This ensures the collectibles will retain their significance both financially and culturally for decades to come. The photographs capturing Mike Ferraro’s famous collection from his store in Brick Township all those years ago are a testament to both the history and enduring appeal of the hobby. They provide a unique window into a special time when one local shop owner’s passion helped spread appreciation for these treasured pieces of American sports history.