I've been busy lately trying to broaden the card selection at Sandlot Cards. Sometimes it doesn't make sense what direction I'm going. For instance, I've been working on adding a bunch of 2003/04 Topps Basketball cards online. Not sure why I chose these cards other than I found a nice selection in the mountain of cards I have yet to add online. In addition, we're nearing the NBA Championship series so I thought it would be nice to simply add some basketball cards.

While I was in the middle of this set and my shipment of 2011 Bowman hobby boxes arrived. I wasn't quite ready to start adding this but who can resist opening new boxes. So I opened box 1 and nothing exciting happened. So I set up the video camera to film the second box break. Good thing I did because it may be the best break I've had so far.......

First, I opened a pack that had the basic Bryce Harper Bowman Prospect card............

Next I opened a pack with Bryce Harper Bowman's Best card.

Finally, I came across this beauty, a chrome refractor serial #'d to 799

I've added the basic set to my inventory and plan to add the prospect cards and post the video this weekend on my YouTube channel. If you're collecting Bowman cards or Bryce Harper check us out.

To Tape or Not to Tape

As baseball season kicks into full gear it's been tough trying to keep up with all the little things surrounding our website such as blogging. So I thought I'd take a few minutes today to give a little more insight into what it's like running an online card store.

When I started SandlotCards I thought the concept was pretty simple; put cards online, take orders, and send out the cards. Little did I know something that seems simple, like packing cards, would take a lot of thought. For many orders I would put the cards in a penny sleeve, pop them into a top loader, and put a piece of tape over top loader to keep the card from slipping out.

Then one day I was on the Sports Card Forum and I read a post regarding putting tape over the opening on a top loader. Seems like many people did not like it when it was done. I never got a clear reason why but more than one person posted in the forum that they did not like this practice. I had never received a complaint about it but I decided to stop the practice and pay the extra few cents to seal the top loader in team bags.

This isn't any big insight as to what it's like running an online store but it should give you some idea as to the many decisions that have to be made when running a store, even on something as simple as putting a card in a top loader. How to package the different varieties of orders is a whole other ball game!