Online trade and memorabilia business makes Canton home to lone hobby shop

May 12--CANTON -- Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton is unknowingly the foundation for a new trading card and memorabilia store that opened in the village Thursday.

LiveCaseBreak, an online trading card case break company founded in 2011, broke its mold when it decided to open its lone brick and mortar shop at 39 Main St., according to its owners, Larry Franco and Tim J. Harmer.

"Right now, 65 percent of trading card sales are accounted for as online group breaks, whereas six, seven years ago, it was an unheard of thing, resisted by the manufacturers," Mr. Franco said. "And for the first time in 25 or 30 years, the trading card industry is growing."

Fast forward to today, and he says the trading card industry has more customers than product, meaning there is more demand than supply.

"So, the only way to get more allocation is to open up a brick and mortar store," Mr. Franco said.

The shop is decorated in a variety of movie and pop culture posters, autographed sports jerseys and memorabilia, limited edition toys and statues, and boxes upon boxes of trading cards ranging from sports to pop culture.

Mr. Franco, a 43-year-old probate and estate planning and litigation attorney from Plantation, Fla., said he and Mr. Harmer, 33, a Black River native who moved to Canton in 1999 and has made a living in the trading card industry, are going 100 percent with the shop.

"Tim and I are like minded and whatever we are going to do we are doing 100 percent and it is going to look great and we are proud of what we created," Mr. Franco said. "Tim worked hard in finding a location. He has worked very hard to help build our business."

A glass showcase is shelved with trading cards that range in price from hundreds to thousands of dollars in value, including a Babe Ruth card with cutout from one of his game jerseys, a Reggie Jackson card with a carving from his game-used bat and a one-of-a-kind Derek Jeter Card selling for $3,000.

Mr. Harmer said they sold a Babe Ruth card when they first started out for $12,500, which had portions of a game-used jersey and baseball bat.

This is the way of modern sports cards, Mr. Harmer said.

"It is kind of a blend of memorabilia, autographs and there are still the common base cards that came out back in the day," Mr. Harmer said. "There is a lot of money in this hobby now. It is making a comeback and not a lot of people know."

Mr. Harmer said the store hours will be posted on their Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/LiveCaseBreak/

Mr. Franco said he will remain in Florida as the behind-the-scenes man, running the books, handling the banking, lining up credit, while Mr. Harmer will run the shop, handle online scheduling and handle consignments for customers.

In addition to the hobby shop, Mr. Franco and Mr. Harmer still do live case breaks six nights a week, which can go into the early morning hours, to satisfy customers that live in different parts of the world, they said.

In describing case breaks, Mr. Harmer walked to several shelves that divided the front of the store from a live broadcast area with three high definition cameras and multiple computer monitors. The shelves housed cases of trading cards that he said he opens during a live broadcast on their YouTube page, and website, https://www.livecasebreak.com/, revealing the cards inside.

Customers pay a flat price for either the whole case or in a "group break" where they pick a team in hopes of finding autographed and valuable player cards.

That's how the two men met. Mr. Harmer was selling cases of cards, online, split up by team with each box having a guaranteed four autographed cards.

"If someone pays, let's say, $100 for the Yankees, they get every Yankee card in this case, blind, without us knowing what's in there," Mr. Harmer said. "So say we are breaking and a $500 Aaron Judge card comes out, that customer is going to be thrilled."

Mr. Franco said his first encounter with Mr. Harmer was when he was on the hunt for autographed Cam Newton cards for his son.

After becoming Mr. Harmer's loyal customer, Mr. Franco said he offered to become his benefactor and pushed for the live case breaks every day.

"I do that two nights a week, Tim does it two nights a week and we have a fella that works with us that does it two nights a week, probably a total of 25 or 30 hours a week live" Mr. Franco said. "The thing that we didn't foresee was the community that we would build, of people. They become our friends, so that's really to me the best thing that has come out of this."

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