Cardboard Diamonds — Local services in Tigard

AVOID THIS SHOP IF YOU ARE NEW TO TRADING CARD GAMES

Prices of their singles were higher than market value. Sometimes 30-50% more. The staff member pulling my cards was willing to price match on the specific card I asked about, but didn’t bother to on any others. I’m sure if I asked them to for each single, I bought from the display case they would have been willing to accommodate, but I was pretty tired and didn’t care to.

Prices are on stickers attached to the card sleeves, so likely they priced them upon putting them up for display and don’t check or reprice them beyond that. Cards depreciate in value since they price them, so be sure to check the market value of cards before you check out.

When I checked out, the employee handling my cards was eating a full meal of soup and sushi. I’d expect a little more care when handling cards a customer is purchasing.

I probably wouldn’t ever go out of my way to return to this card shop, but if it’s the closest one to you, or you’re in that part of town, it’s decent for what it is.

EDIT: Came in like twice more since. Store was organized a little better, but still pretty poor experience. You have to be extremely vigilant buying singles here- always record market price of the cards you're getting and then MAKE THEM READ BACK TO YOU how much each one is, otherwise, they'll charge whatever is stickered on first or price from a wrong set. Had to do this with each card, almost got charges 400% of market value because the clerk couldn't take the extra second to verify the correct printing. Clerk then tried to explain to me why he had to charge twice as much on a card, because something about TCG shipping fees- as if I wasn't directly in front of him buying from the case. Sounds like someone made a bad purchase that depreciated and tried to justify it on to the customer.

Also make sure you examine conditions of each card. I assumed all cards were near mint, because that was the market price I was being charged, only to get home and un-sleeve them and realize one was pretty well-played and had gunk/adhesive extremely visible on the backside. This was a dual-sided foil card that was conveniently sleeved backwards in the display case. Lights were turned off on display case when I was looking at cards, around 1pm not even close to open or something. I have to assume this is either negligence from clerk, or because THEY WERE STILL EATING FOOD WHILE HANDLING CARDS- absolutely minimal effort put into the sale and was clearly more interested in their food. I could understand washing your hands between eating and helping guests, but this wasn't happening either.

Also traded in cards here twice now, for trade in credit not cash, and got two wildly different trade in values. When I asked about it, the clerk tried to convince me that the 50% trade in was their going rate and they've never done anything different than that. Reading other reviews and comparing it to the first time I traded in with the same clerk, this is just so clearly not the case. I confirmed when I went next door, and another vendor told me how ridiculous that was and then offered 50% more trade-in on the exact same cards. I went back and explained to the clerk how ridiculous it was, and he doubled down. At least offered back the cards despite also saying they don't sell back traded cards. Perhaps an omission of guilt? Because otherwise why would he violate his own store policy and sell them back to me 5 minutes later. Again, he violated your store policy by selling them back to me but also said I'd never be allowed to trade here again- as if I'd even consider doing that. It's either blatant dishonesty, or incompetence and being distracted by food.

To the owner who reads these: Yes, I deleted most of my original review to make room for the edit. Yes, I came in twice more in a 5-month period, exclusively when I was on this side of town. And my apologies for suggesting a management/ownership issue- this seems exclusively to be an employee issue, employees who are too comfortable and forget all...

The employees are nice and the shop has potential. but the players are toxic and the employees do nothing about it. after defending myself against this toxic clear, I it up to the employees attention. no response. I wish the employees actually did something about it. Unfortunately I will not be going back to this location.

Update. I received a response from the shop and wanted to clarify since they asked why I changed my previous review. I had updated my review because I had provided a far too detailed description of the toxic player that was not necessary for the review of the shop also I was incorrect with one of the statements about the rounds. I updated it to the interaction with the shop.

I had asked for a judge twice, once about a rulling but we never received a reply so my opponent and I just gave up and looked it up online we still couldn't figure it out for sure and went with what we thought it meant. 2nd was about the toxic player and I wanted a judge to call them for poor sportsmanship and coaching since he kept telling my opponent how his deck can be at mine.

I had talked to an employee there was a 2nd employee working with another group in the shop but the statement that no employee was near by was false. Infact the person I was playing round 2 was an employee and I mentioned it to him. He was behind the counter manning the cash register most of the day before the event and only joined the event so we didn't have an odd number of players in our 5 man tournament. If they were not an employee you could see why I was confused based on how I saw them interacting with customers. When I asked do or a judge the 2nd time and my opponent (the person who I still believe was an employee) just sat there staring at me did nothing. THAT is when I decided to get up and leave

I did not make any contradictory comments since both statements are accurate and correct. I called for a judge and brought it to the attention of an employee. I do feel the way the shop has responded to my review by posting my original review in a attempt to be argumentative is incredibly unprofessional. They could have just asked for me to call to clear up any confusion. I have changed my rating to one.

I do apologize for the inaccuracy about mentioning round 3. That should have said 2 since in my retelling it looks as though I skipped a mention of round 2. This being one reason I edited my review to be more accurate and to make the review summarize and was more relevant to the shops performance instead of a complaint...

Response to owner response:

Let’s be clear: your response is full of revisionist nonsense. • You never once mentioned “10x–30x” or offered me “solutions” to flatten cards. That’s a nice story to put in your reply now, but it’s flat-out fiction. • The $15 you offered wasn’t for “a small portion of damaged cards” — it was for the exact stack of only the valuable cards I brought in. Trying to spin it as if you were doing me a favor on warped commons is pure misdirection. • The proof of how insulting that offer was came immediately: a customer in your own store handed me the same $15 for just one of those cards — with your permission. Everyone in the room saw what that meant. • Another shop down the street valued my cards at $200 on the spot. If you honestly believed they were “worth 10–30x more fixed up,” you’d have bought them yourself instead of lowballing me. Your actions contradict your excuses. • And as for my missing cards, they were there before I sat down in your shop and gone when I left. Saying “we have cameras” doesn’t change that fact.

The reality is simple: my experience was shady, your offer was dishonest, and your response is an attempt to rewrite what actually happened. My review stands as a warning to others — do business here with extreme caution.

Original post:

I walked into this shop with a large Pokémon card collection, hoping for a fair offer. The owner told me to take a seat while he “got me a price” for the stack he wanted. Just a few minutes later, he came back and said he could do $15 for everything as a “bulk buy.” That’s when things started to feel off.

While I was still sitting there, one of his customers saw my cards and offered me $15 for just one of them. With the owner’s permission (because I have manners), I sold that single card right there on the spot. You could see the embarrassment on the staff’s faces — they’d just tried to buy my whole collection for the same price.

I left and took the rest of the collection to another card shop down the street. They valued it at $200 and bought it immediately. On top of all that, I noticed a couple of my cards were missing after visiting this shop.

Overall, it was a shady, unpleasant experience, and I would strongly recommend caution before doing any...