always in my life I've collected things you know sort of just a part of me since
I was a little little boy started with baseball cards coins rocks all sorts of
things and I remember being a little kid thinking you know one day this is gonna
be valuable for whatever reason I don't know why just you know I'm six years old
thinking it's good you know who knows why open quake in in June of 94 over on
Southport Avenue by the music box and in March of 2000 moved over here to the
neighborhood which I live in which is Lincoln Square I've been here almost 13
years it's a great neighborhood it's a you know it's one of the few really
pedestrian streets in Chicago that you really want to walk around and it really
feels like a good neighborhood Lincoln Square almost feels like a you know a
little European city with restaurants and little small mom-pop shops so you
know location location location is key to any business but especially a
business like mine where there's you know high exposure and just feel for a
lot of families you know I can almost always tell the first time somebody's
been in here you know they sort of have a wow look on their face which is to me
just it's a great moment every day you know I enjoy every compliment that I've
ever gotten from the store and and hopefully I'm humbled by it yeah it means
I'm doing my job well and it makes me want to work harder when I first
started doing this there was nothing called the internet eBay it was sort of
the Wild Wild West where you were going by kind of price guides and experience
experience was huge you really needed to know your stuff with the advent of eBay
you can immediately go and find out what something's worth what something is
sold for what people are asking for things to get a better sense of the
current market value right now oftentimes people will come and say oh you
know this is worth a hundred bucks and I'll go online and you know what it's
selling for 20 bucks so what do you know so and that's this that's just the way
it goes right now the decade that seems to be the most popular in the 1980s it
was the decade of the Transformers G.I. Joe Star Wars He-Man
Thundercats Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears for Girls it was sort of an
explosive decade for toys and marketing and stuff and my average customers in
that range of when they were growing up ideal and stuff in the 50s 60s 70s 90s
and 2000s of course but the 80s seems to be what's most popular right now
Star Wars has been for 22 years my number one seller every single year and
with Disney now buying Star Wars and making three more movies it's you know
for as long as I choose to do this that it's it will probably be my number one
seller so you know there there is one particular Star Wars figure that was
only made overseas that is really sought after for people that are complete
it's the one to collect all 110 figures it's called Yak Face I had it mint on a
card several years ago I sold up for $2,000 that that that that was the the
holy grail for me for Star Wars my star seems to attract you know A to Z in
terms of characters but specifically you know you definitely get a more male
dominated clientele and obviously you know everyone has a different kind of
personality but but this sort of attracts a lot of geekdom cool geekdom cool
whatever but you know I've I sometimes feel like a bartender you know I hear
all of people's problems you know I seem to hear more than I want to hear
sometimes you know and sort of being aware of that makes it makes you more
prepared to deal with all sorts of people you know I mean I'm buying stuff
almost on a daily basis so you know you have to sort of you know assess someone's
personality you have to sort of assess you know where they're coming from making
them feel comfortable you know sort of like what you're doing with me in this
interview I do I probably I would say I know a couple hundred people by first
name I probably know several hundred more people by face for sure I have a
really really good memory not necessarily for names but for faces and
what they kind of collect and stories and whatnot you know each week I see the
same people over and over again it's really it's great you know some people
kind of come in and out of my store's life you know where I see them
intently for where I see them very often for you know a year or two or six
months and then kind of go away they come back to it or they might then sell
their collection back to me over time it's also been a great way to make
friends you know I I married a customer you know I met her in the store 14 years
ago and I married her and had a little girl so yeah yeah yeah so that that's a
cool story. Richard Le Parmentier aka Amal Mahdi from Star Wars was actually
the first person to ever do an official signing here at the store he was an
original Star Wars character from the first movie who lived in England who
called me out of the blue he was coming through Chicago to do a Comic Con in
Detroit and said hey you know I read really great reviews about your store
online and it might be a really fun place to do a signing for the day so we
set it up he came to Chicago and we had a full day of sort of people gawking over
him and questioned answer sessions and just just it was a fun day.
The most interesting thing about day to day is that every day is different you
know there's never a day that I don't want to come to work you know you never
know what's gonna walk on the door you never know what kind of phone call you're
gonna get just always interesting to see you kind of get a glimpse into people's
lives you know this is stuff they grew up with it's stuff they collected it's
part of their personalities you know and for whatever reason you know they
need the money or they're just kind of done with that kind of stuff but it's
just it's really interesting you know I see stuff almost every single day that
I've never seen before and I've been doing this for 22 years so it keeps me
on my toes you know selling stuff is really fun too I enjoy making people
happy I enjoy seeing little kids smile adult smile you know something they had
when they were growing up you know makes me happy you know I sort of pride
myself on you know always having the store changing and and having prices
that people can actually afford I truly love it because it makes people happy
you know I think for our lifetime our childhood is the most innocent obviously
that we have it's a time where we can you know grow and learn and these sort of
things remind people of growing up and you know you know it's never a bad
thing to have toys around you know you never quite grew up you know we still
have that sort of innocence upon us and beyond that it's just a cool fun thing
to do
