Father and son duo Trey and Tyler Gratwick seemed to have found a winning formula at Leawood’s Town Center Plaza.
Their sports card and memorabilia business, The Art of Sports, now has a new home on the north side of the outdoor retail complex, and the industry — booming since the pandemic — continues to show growth and renewed interest from multiple generations of collectors, the Gratwicks say.
Now located at 5211 W. 117th St., the Gratwicks have found a permanent home at Town Center after occupying temporary spaces in the shopping district since 2021.
“We’ve always wanted to stay inside Town Center,” Tyler Gratwick said.
The Art of Sports’ new store opened Nov. 1
On their first day at the new location, a longtime customer came through with a very special item to sell: a signed Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls jersey.
“He was someone who is just not a Jordan collector, so he was willing to sell it,” Tyler said. “He wanted to move into more Chiefs and Royals (items). So now we have our first signed Jordan jersey.”
The framed jersey sits high up on the wall next to a host of other sports treasures, but could find a new home any moment now.
The cost of that Jordan jersey, as well as the signed Derrick Thomas Chiefs jersey isn’t cheap, though the Gratwicks don’t like to reveal the cost of such items, preferring to only discuss numbers with serious buyers.
“We are hesitant to print or promote prices on certain items because of market fluctuation,” Tyler said.
The Gratwicks went into business during the pandemic
The Gratwicks opened The Art of Sports in April 2021 after they saw a dearth of sports card trading options in Johnson County.
Tyler collected sports cards as a kid, but there was only one place in town he went to regularly: The Baseball Card Store, which still operates in Overland Park on 87th Street.
“It was always closed on Sunday and Monday, and those were the days my dad was off,” Tyler said. “I knew that a store further out south would have a lot of kids who would be interested and could just ride their bikes here.”
Just as predicted, those kids on bikes started showing up to Town Center, along with moms dropping their sons off while they went shopping at stores nearby.
Trey, now retired from his work at Argosy Casino, had also envisioned a similar environment after visiting card stores around the country with Tyler while on family vacations.
“I had an idea of what the card shop could be, we wanted it to be different from others we’ve seen,” Trey said. “I still (underestimated) how many people would want to come in and sell their old cards.”
They’ve faced some early challenges
The Gratwicks say they did miscalculate how difficult it would be to establish direct partnerships with industry leaders in card manufacturing.
Repeated emails and phone calls to the biggest names in the business, including Panini and Topps, went unanswered or were met with lukewarm responses.
“I thought we could just call them up and get the product sent to us,” Trey said. “It took over a year to find a relationship with Panini, and over two years for us to have a (relationship) with Topps.”
There was a decline in the sports card industry in the 1990’s, which caused big card makers like Panini and Topps to scale back production and create licensing guidelines.
The industry has started growing again the past two decades. Tyler says the COVID-19 epidemic is at least partly to blame for price inflation in 2020 and 2021.
Since then, the market has seem to correct itself and prices have started to settle.
“The popular players like LeBron James and Michael Jordan still have the (same) value,” Tyler said. “It was those players like a ‘sixth man of the year’ from years ago (in the NBA) who’s cards peaked too high and have come back down.”
What cards are hot right now?
Tyler says cards of three players make up a huge percentage of their card-selling business right now: Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelcie, and Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson.
Mahomes and Kelce are obvious, but Jefferson’s popularity here in Chiefs Nation is a bit difficult for the Gratwicks to explain.
“Well, he’s probably the best wide receiver in the NFL,” Tyler said. “He just seems like a cool guy to the young people who come in.”
For football collectors it’s mostly about the quarterbacks, like Mahomes.
“They drive the hobby,” Tyler said.
Ben McCarthy is a contributor to the Post and other publications in the Kansas City area. He can be reached at ben.c.mccarthy@gmail.com with questions, comments and story suggestions.
