Small Business Owner Spotlight: Jeff Smallidge of Sports & Cards

I'd say "the dream" is to run a sports card and collectible shop part-time and then play music full time - basically what I'm doing now. – Jeffrey Smallidge, Owner of Sports & Cards (in the Manchester Mall at 811 Main)

Sports & Cards is actually a result of the pandemic! I started out collecting when I was a kid, just for fun. Once COVID hit, I found myself with a lot of extra time. As a full-time musician I didn't really have too many music gigs, so collecting and selling became a hobby once again. From a hobby it turned into an investment. I reached out to Brandon of Retro Junk to see if I could consign stuff through his shop and he said, "Well, I've got another shop, it's opening in same building. So why don't you just open your own?" And that’s exactly how this came to be.

The shop is pretty much anything sports card or sports memorabilia related. When you walk through the door, you're going to see a huge collection of sports cards -football, baseball, and basketball. We also have a decent amount of memorabilia – clothes, jerseys, baseball jackets and even a basketball signed by Larry Bird & Magic Johnson – the gem of the shop!

I'm also focusing on curating customized gifts for people. For example, if they have a favorite team or a favorite player, I can make custom posters, or take jerseys and put them in a shadowbox frame with a bunch of the player’s rookie cards.

I’m excited to open a store downtown. I've lived in Manchester for almost 20 years.  I was the bartender over at the Main Pub for seven of those years and I've been in a bunch of different bands.  It's astounding to see so many familiar faces coming in the shop - people who have seen me play or people I have served drinks to over at the Main Pub. Now, they are coming to my own business.

On a sentimental note, my wife and I placed the first lock on the fence next door! We used to be huge fans of the Great Harvest Bakery, which was right here, right next door. When that burned down, they put that fence up. It was right around the time that we got married, so we wrote our initials on a lock and put the lock on the fence. Then we did another one for our cats. These were the first two locks on the fence, and I didn't know if it was going to catch on or not.  I posted it to a few different Facebook groups and now the fence is covered in locks.  Yeah, we plan on living here for the rest of our lives if we can, so it's nice to be able to walk down here and open the business and meet more people.