Our story at The Local Card Shop

Our Mission: Long Live the Hobby

The Local Card Shop is owned by three Sevier County residents who all share a common interest: we are hobbyists.  A “hobby” is not just buying and selling and collecting.  It’s a form of expression.  It is how I tell you who I am and what I love.  I grew up with a father who loved sports and a mother who loved games, and more importantly, they loved my sports and playing games with me.  Some of my fondest childhood memories are of sitting around a table playing Rook, Rummy, and a board game called aggravation with my family in the midst of a cloud of cigarette smoke engaged in the kind of trash talk you can only get from your family because you played a trump card too early.  Or sitting at my friend’s house and laying all of our football cards out to have a “draft” and see who ended up with a better team, which we would of course never agree on.  Sports and card games are about more than just who wins and who loses: they are about the passion we share for the game and the moments we spend around a table or in a stadium with the people we love.  

In the same way sports or trading cards can have fantastic photographs, impressive artwork, or a low serial number, but the real beauty of a card is found in what you don’t see when you look at it.  I was always overweight, a little “nerdy” and a little introverted as a kid.  I often felt out of place or anxious when I was at school or participating in sports, which I was never particularly good at.  I was always most comfortable and felt the most like myself when I could disappear into baseball statistics or the intellectual challenge of a game for hours at a time.  For me, when I hold a Ryne Sandberg card, I’m not just holding someone who was “2B – Chicago Cubs.”  I’m holding a memory of my childhood hero, a real life superhuman that I could pretend to be, and someone that I could watch on WGN almost every day who provided a source of comfort and hope during a sometimes-tumultuous childhood.  A Jameis Winston card is a relic of the guy who brought my favorite college football team back from the pit of despair, and threw a touchdown pass in the first NFL game I ever attended with my wife, which caused me to touchdown signal so aggressively that I knocked her barbecue nachos all over the front of her shirt.  He’s a guy that reminds me that nobody stays down forever.  Alela, Artful Provocateur was the first commander my daughter ever picked when I was trying to teach her how to build her own deck.  She represents the legacy of expressing your love through time spent in a shared activity that my mother passed down from me that I’ve continued with my daughter who has always been my best friend.  Timesifter is the salty card I love to play to mess with my friends at our (almost) weekly commander nights, so they never know who takes the next turn.  A Tony Tony Chopper card is a symbol for me of the time I finally got my wife to break down and watch one of those “nerdy” shows I like.  Every hobby I have is representative of the things and people that have meant the most to me.  

As I have gotten older, the games and the cards have changed, but their significance in my life has not.  Many of the best moments in my life have been spent in a stadium or around a table, with the people who I love and who share the same passions that I do.  My hobbies are what bring me joy and provide me with comfort in an ever-changing world.  They serve as a reminder of the relationships that have made me who I am, and they provide a way for me to keep the bonds that mean such to me now.  My mother is no longer with me, but I think about her every time I get to playfully trash talk a child of my very own in the midst of a game.  Playing a turn one Sol Ring to the groans of all my best friends takes me back to the smoky family kitchen where I’m holding the Rook and about to be the “problem” at the table.  

The appeal of sports lies as much in the soul of the fans and the communities around their teams as much as it does in the players themselves.  The real appeal of Magic is in the “gathering.”  The soul of Pokémon is just as evident in placing that long-desired grail in your binder as it is in the cards themselves.  As the world has changed, we have become less dependent on true community.  You don’t have to cook your own food or leave your house to get a meal.  You can game with your friends from thousands of miles away.  You can have someone else open that pack of cards for you and ship them right to your door.  There is value and legitimacy in convenience, but it has come at the price of sacrificing the essence of what made us all love these hobbies in the first place.  There is no virtual experience that can replicate what I felt when I walked into Wrigley Field for the first time after seeing it on television my entire childhood.  There’s no virtual gaming experience that can match sitting around a table and playing a game that I love.  Truly enjoying sports cards and trading cards lies in the emotional link between those cards and what they mean to us in the real world. 

We have chosen to be The Local Card Shop because we want to protect that link.  Our focus is and will always be on building and participating in the community where we are located and the community we hope to build up around us as we begin our journey as hobby shop owners.  We want you to feel like this is “your” place.  We want you to find your grails with other people who can share the experience with you, and we want to provide a place you can feel comfortable and be yourself while you enjoy whatever hobby it is that you love.  It is our sincere hope that our card shop will be a place that becomes a part of you the way our hobbies have become part of us.  As society becomes increasingly virtual and disconnected, sports and card games are one of the last vestiges of true humanity that we have left.  You can touch and admire a card; you can trade it with your friends and other collectors.  You can use it to win a game or merely aggravate your buddies for an hour.  You can hold a piece of history, or a sketch of your favorite cartoon character that takes you back to your childhood.  You can use it as a ticket to entry into a community of individuals who share the same passion as you, or you can hold it as a memory of someone or some thing that brings you joy.  So many of the great moments in my life have revolved around something that can be represented by a card, and it my hope that our shop can help others have that same experience.  Long live the Hobby. 

 

Travis McCarter    

One of the Locals