Jackson sports card store brings fans, family together

Tony Baliva collected his first baseball card when he was 5 years old. That one card started a passion spanning decades and generations.

Now, that passion has led him to open his own sports card store in Jackson.

On Jan. 2, Baliva opened 573 Card Vault at 1204 E. Jackson Blvd. It's situated within the same building as Jackson Gun & Coin, a business he manages.

The store primarily sells basketball, baseball and football cards, card sleeves and a selection of other sports merchandise.

Baliva is open to including other cards if the demand is there.

"I want to make sure that we have something everyone wants," he said. "A guy asked me for golf (cards), I found a box of golf (cards). I have some Elvis Presley boxes up there and you can actually get signed Elvis stuff out of them."

Before he opened the store, Baliva hosted card-auctioning livestreams on the online marketplace Whatnot. In six months he gained more than 1,000 followers.

Feedback from followers and other streamers led to him fine-tuning his products, and over the months he amassed a sizable amount.

Baliva said he doesn't want to overdo his inventory, but he is looking to stock quite a lot of it. He buys from wholesalers, which he said could help customers avoid scalpers.

"I had a guy come in here a couple days ago and he said we had better prices than Walmart. So I was just like, 'Yeah, that's awesome,'" he said.

Baliva plans to offer grading services in the near future. He also said he will overhaul two shelves to fit some new products.

Collecting with family

Baliva had stopped collecting when his son Vinny, now 17, was born. Vinny helped reignite his father's passion for sports cards once he grew older and became interested in sports.

"He's big into basketball and football. Me, I'm more into baseball. But with our knowledge combined we do pretty good," the elder Baliva said.

Baliva regularly takes his son to Memphis Grizzlies games for his birthday and has oftentimes bought him packs of sports cards as well.

Vinny had long suggested his father open up a sports card store, and before long that's what he did.

"This is definitely something we've wanted to do, both me and my boy, and now it's no longer a dream. It's reality, and were highly stoked about it," Baliva said. "I've had a lot of people come in here and say we've needed this for a long time."

573 Card Vault is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays to Fridays and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays.

Do you want more business news? Check out the B Magazine email newsletter. Go to www.semissiourian.com/newsletters to find out more.