Northwest Sportscards — Local services in Tacoma

TLDR: One of the best card stores in Tacoma, and I suspect the greater Puget Sound - best prices, best staff, and a great scene for Pokemon/MtG.

Disclaimer - The contents of this review will be constrained to the gaming/TCG side of the storefront since I have no experience with the sportscard part of the store.

Prices - The store has some of the fairest and most reasonable prices for product in the area - I have not found a better value for buying sealed product for Pokemon or Magic the Gathering in the area. They don't upcharge, and their prices often reflect the lower part of the current market. They have good inventory, and oftentimes even for in-demand sets, they'll receive enough product for you to have access to packs.

There is no other way to say it: at least for TCGs and as of this writing (and the past two years I have been coming here) the prices here are best among LGS's.

Environment & Games - The store is bifurcated - with the entrance opening into a large sportscards and sports memorabilia section. I don't have much experience with the sportscards side, but my friends who do enjoy it and have pulled some big hits here. The back side of the store is recently renovated, clean and well-laid out with gaming products (Pokemon, YuGiOh, MtG, Star Wars, One Piece, etc.) The store has a few boxes of cheap MtG singles at any given time as well as a few labeled and stickered high-price singles. Where it shines for MtG is that they have very good access and fair prices for MtG sealed product.

The store really shines in Pokemon - it has a very active Pokemon League with people of all ages in a very family friendly environment. The store stocks meta-relevant singles, singles binders, slabs, and a lot of Pokemon sealed product. There is a robust trading scene and a growing tournament scene led by the Pokemon Professor on staff (more on staff below).

The store has other game product too, and I regularly see folks playing Lorcana, Star Wars Unlimited, and occasionally YuGiOh as well (though Pokemon seems to be dominant.) There is not much of a Commander/MtG playing scene, but in my opinion the store remaisn the best place to buy MtG product.

Staff - This comes last because it deserves the most attention. The staff here are all excellent human beings - and whatever management and ownership are doing to keep these folks at the store should continue. Special shoutout to Ian, Jordan & Steven. The staff here look out for the kids during Pokemon League, form personal connections with the regulars, and are always fair. They're genuinely great people - and I find myself popping into the store sometimes just to say hi to them.

Great store, great staff, great prices - support this store, they deserve...

I wouldn’t do business with these guys. I took in the best of my collection no commons minus rookies. I have tons of good cards low number Star autos. They offered me 500 for 3.5 k cards I estimated at atleast 10-12 grand. I want to open the negotiations at 5k the gentleman by the front door was like 500. I was like for everything ?🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️ what’s in the picture is at least 1k in value. They could easily get their money out of what’s in the picture. I guess all the 1/1’s judges to /25 Jrod #659 were just supposed be freebies because let’s support our LCS sorry man not me. They were just looking to rip me off was like no thank you. Their loss

P.S. The owner was nice enough to give me a call. Still not sure how he got my number seeing I did not give it to them, but in all fairness it was 600.00 I was offered and not 500.00. I offered to post more pictures so he could see yes maybe it was an intentional lowball offer. Needless to say it turned into a heated argument because I wouldn’t let him convince my why my cards really aren’t worth what I think they are. The owner even stated he would post video even if his guy did say 500 at first I did not hear what he was saying. I’m a a disabled vet that has really poor hearing do to my military service. There is no way I would even agree to sell all those cards for 600. Not in a million years.

I just read the owners response. No I don’t value the Soto at 1k and it surly is worth more the the 167. You quoted. The 4 cards in the picture are. 2020 update reverence joe mauer auto /5, Ke’Bryan Hayes bowman chrome green refactor auto /99 2019 gold label golden prospects relic Shohei Ohtani, and that Soto Auto to /25. I think it’s a reasonable assessment that you could get 1k for those cards alone. Just saying all together it’s about 3000ish cards just like in the pictures. There is also a 350 count box with nothing but chrome refractors. 100+ autos 100+ relics I think 12 350 estimated count box’s not sure how many they hold. Clearly no one in their right mind would agree to 600. It is what it is I’ll sell them myself on eBay until I get the 3.5 -5k then save the rest for next time I want to cash in a little of...

I live in Colorado, and visit the Tacoma area often for business purposes. I have recently regained my old love of baseball card collecting over the past year. In addition to the various newer & more collectable products from Topps, I still have a sentimental love for the cheap worthless stuff from the early 90's.

And sure enough, right there on the center table area - tons of stuff cheap, just waiting to be organized and collated. Not quite the $2 each I paid for a huge pile of complete box sets at Mike's stadium cards in Denver, but hey, northwest still has great prices on that stuff and WAY more sets to pick from. I think I must have walked out of there with maybe 15 boxes, all sets I haven't seen (cause if I had, I would have already bought them)

And something I've yet to see elsewhere - complete sets in binders, in display pages, with the price already as low or lower than the ones in boxes AND were on sale. Objectively a better deal in every way (since putting them in binders is exactly what I do anyway...) but somehow doing the work is all part of the fun. Buying it already done, I felt cheated even considering it.

So lucky me! Lots of boxes too! And I didn't even care that I'm spending way more when considering the sale prices and additional supplies I've still yet to buy.

Thats why I'm so, so impressed with this store. Tons of space, and I saw products that cater to all different types of people with different collecting goals. Amazing store. Plus a bunch of game cards that I didn't care about in a different room that seemed to have more people. Whatever. They had exactly what I was looking for, and a lot of it. Zero...