SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Gone are the days when kids would affix baseball cards onto bicycle spokes and ride around with a motorcycle-like sound emanating from the wheels.
In 2025, kids put their cards into clear resin or plastic containers to preserve and protect them from scratches or damaged corners. Some will put them into safe deposit boxes because of the value. No kid in this era will mumble to himself in 40 years, “I shouldn’t have put that Aaron Judge rookie card in my spokes …”
As a hobby and an industry, buying and selling printed pictures and statistics of famous athletes on cardboard has never been hotter. The global sports cards trading and memorabilia market is estimated to be worth $11.5 billion and to grow to $23.4 billion in 10 years, according to Zion Market Research. Card shops have popped all over the Sacramento region, and those that were around for the last big boom in the early- to mid-1990s are expanding into bigger brick-and-mortar sites to complement owners’ online businesses.
Imran Poladi, 48, owns True Sports Cards & Collectibles in Rocklin. His suite is 2,200 square feet and opened on Black Friday in 2021. Poladi said he does 85% of his business in the card shop and hopes to jump to 25% online sales in 2026.
He also rents a nearby warehouse to store overstock card collections as well as his huge memorabilia collection that includes signed jerseys, helmets, baseballs, basketballs, footballs, posters, framed pictures – just about any piece of sports equipment that can hold a signature of an athlete.
Legends and locals
For the past four years, Poladi has been the organizer and promoter of the Sacramento Autograph and Sports Card Expo at the Grounds in Roseville. The three-day event brings hundreds of sports cards dealers and thousands of hobbyists who will buy, sell and trade cards and memorabilia – as well as pro athletes who will sign them.
Poladi late last month brought in Sam Worthy, Anthony “Spud” Webb, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine of pro wrestling fame and National Football Hall of Famer Fred Biletnikoff, a Roseville resident. Five current Athletics players were signing, as well, including Tyler Soderstrom.
The Expo allows hobbyists, young and old, to create new memories by chasing cards of their favorite athletes playing now, or relive memories of cheering for their favorite athletes who may be long gone.
There were plenty of Jared McCain cards for sale, an autographed one for as much as $900. The Sacramento-born, 2024 first-round draft pick by the Philadelphia 76ers had been a favorite to win the NBA’s Rookie of the Year Award before a knee injury derailed his debut season.
Also displayed were a few cards of New York Giants rookie running back Cam Skattebo. The Rio Linda High, Sacramento State and Arizona State product has had a quick start to the 2025 season – exploding for three touchdowns against the Philadelphia Eagles last Thursday in prime time. Will his card appreciate on the same trajectory as his popularity with the Giants’ faithful? One card for sale at the Expo was priced at $40, unsigned, and the rookie’s signature performance on Thursday Night Football could only have increased that card’s value.
None of those cards had been sent in to be evaluated and graded, which is the industry standard for establishing real value and comparisons. Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) is the leader in the hobby, and the company’s services are not cheap. It’s an investment in your investment to get them graded. The cheapest cost per card for grading and authentication is $18.99 and there’s a 20-card minimum.
A score of 10 is the best, and every collector wants their cards to be PSA 10s for maximum collectability and possible profit.
From eBay side hustle to booming business
Poladi co-owned an East Bay-based real estate company and still owns a title company in Kansas. He said six years of driving between his hometown of Stockton and Pleasanton wore him down, and when he and his wife, Jessica, wanted to start a family, Poladi divested from his companies, moved to Roseville and opened True Sports Cards & Collectibles.
“I barely graduated high school and I didn’t go to college,” Poladi said. “But I always had a work ethic, and I was successful in real estate. I was flying all over the country opening offices, coaching other Realtors and building my business. But I was working insane hours.”
Even while he was a successful real estate broker, his side hustle was buying and selling sports cards on eBay like they were commodities on the stock market. He earned the tag of eBay Super Seller by averaging a minimum of 1,000 transactions a month. He was on several other sites buying and selling cards and, soon, two of his three bedrooms at his Stockton house were filled with his own collection and the cards and memorabilia he needed to send out to customers all over the world.
“My wife finally said that I couldn’t sell out of the house any longer,” Poladi recalled. "I said, ‘Fine, I’ll open a baseball card shop.’ "
Limited space was one motivation to open the shop. The other: Poladi is a people person. Always has been. That trait helped him excel in real estate, and it’s helping him excel in the sports card business.
“I wanted to see my customers,” Poladi said. “You can’t do that on eBay or the WhatNot app. Baseball cards raised me and was a huge connection with my father. I’ve shared many tearful and emotional moments with my customers at the shop. This is why I’m doing it.”
Family bonds
Shortly before baseball Hall of Famer Bob Uecker died in January, a family came into Poladi’s shop with a large collection of Uecker cards. Included in the collection was a 1966 PSA 10 Bob Uecker, who was in the St. Louis Cardinals organization at the time. Poladi knew collectors loved not only the former player and announcer, but his cards, too, because Uecker rarely signed.
A woman from Wisconsin told Poladi that she inherited the collection from her father and drove 22 hours to Rocklin to see if Poladi was interested. He was. He asked how she knew of Poladi and the shop. She told him that she did hours of research and found out that Poladi had the best online reviews from customers.
“I tell that story all the time,” Poladi said.
He and his own father, Hassan Poladi, bonded over baseball cards. Hassan died in 1989, when Imran was 11. His mother, Doris, died when Imran was 5. Imran was placed into orphanages around the Central Valley until he became an emancipated minor at 16, he said, and he credits his tough childhood with giving him his work ethic and drive.
While Poladi has chased and captured sought-after cards, including several Michael Jordan rookie cards, he said his “holy grail” is to get every card in the 1987 Topps Major League Baseball set autographed by as many of the 792 players as possible. Among that set’s rookie cards: San Francisco Giants greats Barry Bonds and Will Clark, and Oakland Athletics slugger Mark McGwire.
Poladi and his father secured 60 signatures before Hassan died. That number is now 560 out of 792, Poladi said.
Some will never be signed as players have passed away or refuse to sign, including Rickey Wright, a journeyman pitcher with the Texas Rangers. Poladi said the story goes that Wright was upset that Topps printed a mention of his daughter on the back of his card that year and would only sign cards made by Fleer, a major competitor.
The 1987 Topps set is very popular with collectors because of the rookies that debuted that year, but also because the aesthetics of the cards, which featured a wood-like border emblematic of a baseball bat.
‘Breaking’ – and a touch of gambling?
Poladi has the money to chase after the cards for his set and to keep a constant stock of graded card cases, boxes and packs in his shop.
But the child hobbyists and their parents are dealing with a new issue that wasn’t around the last time the hobby was this popular: the internet. The endorphin rush that comes with buying and selling cards can now be just a click away.
“Breaking” is a newer term in the hobby. It has nothing to do with damaging the cardboard. It’s a way that online collectors can purchase a portion of an expensive box of sports cards without having to buy the entire box themselves. A breaker – usually an experienced and trusted collector – purchases a sealed box or case of sports cards. Spots are sold to participants and those spots include specific teams, players or type of card that can include autographs.
Once all spots are sold, the breaker opens the box live online, revealing which cards go to which participant based on the predetermined assignments.
People who purchase the spots – and there are no rules against kids buying into the break – may come out with a card worth more than what they paid. But that’s certainly not everyone.
“Someone may sell 32 spots for $40 apiece of an expensive box of, say, football cards that may cost $1,000,” Poladi said. “That’s gambling.”
Poladi said he attended Gamblers Anonymous for years, dealing with a sports betting addiction. He sees the risk to youth and cautions parents to pay attention to what their children are doing online.
Javy Valdivia and his 12-year-old son, Niko, were sitting on the concrete steps outside during last Saturday’s session of the Sacramento Autograph and Sports Card Expo. Both were busy tearing open individual packs of cards from a box of Panini Mosaic NFL football cards they purchased inside from a vendor.
This is called “ripping.” For many hobbyists, the excitement – and gamble – of ripping packs is the best thing about the collecting experience. It provides the thrill of chasing rare and valuable “hits.”
Many hobbyists record and post videos of themselves ripping packs online, especially younger collectors. A big hit can generate hundreds of thousands of page views, which in turn can earn the ripper money from social media sites, which fuels more boxes and packs to rip.
“(The Expo) brings back those memories of collecting as a kid,” said Javy Valdivia, a Roseville resident. “Now, it’s a whole different ballgame. These things aren’t 25 cents anymore. Kids absolutely will not be putting these things into his bike spokes. When (Niko) started collecting a year ago he’d buy a $5 or $10 card. He’s not doing that now. He sold a card the other day for $400.”
Niko says he collects all sports, but football cards are the current passion. He keeps them in a locked black case with foam inserts inside for maximum card protection.
“My biggest sale was $600 for a Josh Allen Uptown PSA 10,” Niko said. Allen is the Buffalo Bills starting quarterback and last season’s NFL Most Valuable Player award winner. "I bought it and graded it myself. Bought it for $180, sent it out to PSA, got it rated and sold it right away.
“The funnest part is to buy, sell and trade. Oh, and opening boxes.”
The Valdivias appreciate the hobby for the attention and discipline it requires to collect in a healthy manner. Javy said he watches transactions to make sure Niko isn’t getting taken advantage of, and he sees how his son is learning to take care of his collection and see it as an investment.
“The hobby is great for the kids, it gives them something else to do,” said Javy, a Spanish teacher and an assistant athletic director at West Park High School in Roseville. “There are a lot of life lessons to be learned from being involved (in the hobby).”
Like the Valdivias, Fred Biletnikoff said sports cards shows give him “something to do.”
“I like to get out and have a good time,” Biletnikoff said. “You meet some nice people. You don’t realize how many families are involved in the hobby and that’s great.”
The Oakland Raiders great charges a fee for his autograph, depending on the item, and signed hundreds of helmets, jerseys, posters and footballs backstage before his appearance at the Expo.
“There’s a little arthritis in these hands,” the Super Bowl XI MVP said. “A few years ago, we got a helmet signed for one of our events and I looked at it and I can’t even read them. It was too embarrassing to put it out there. So, I took it out of the silent auction. It’s amazing that, at age 82, people still want my autograph.”
Biletnikoff said he has some of his own cards and of former teammates at his Roseville home, but his family is helping him find and curate his collection.
“It’s good to be reminded of that stuff, and we’re still searching.”
©2025 The Sacramento Bee. Visit sacbee.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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