On The Bench With Vintage Breaks

Collectibles - June 10, 2020

On The Bench With Vintage Breaks

Ian Semivan

Ian is a content creator at StockX with a focus on trading cards and collectibles.

On The Bench With Vintage Breaks

This week we are partnering with Vintage Breaks to bring you a StockX sponsored sports card break featuring guest breaker, Warren Moon!  Warren will be joining us to open 3 wax packs of 1985 Topps Football cards.  The event will happen live on Thursday, June 11th at 8 pm EST on vintagebreaks.com. He will also be chatting about Football, cards, and his career! The break has 300 total spots available.  The 300 spots will be randomized with the top 50 receiving prizes. Prizes include signed Warren Moon Houston Oilers Jerseys, a 1985 Topps Warren Moon Rookie PSA 9, $100 break credits, and individual cards from the 1985 Topps football packs opened with Warren Moon. The other 250 entries will all get a spot in a 1985 Topps football wax packs that will be opened on air when the Warren Moon event is over. For more information on the break, you can visit the official page on the Vintage Breaks official website here.

On the Bench With Leighton Sheldon, Owner of Vintage Breaks and Just Collect

Leighton Pulling a 1979 Gretzky from a 1979 O-Pee-Chee Wax Pack

Leighton, owner of Vintage Breaks, pulling a 1979 Gretzky from an O-Pee-Chee wax pack

What is your current involvement in the Hobby?

LS: I run Justcollect.com and Vintagebreaks.com. At Just Collect we appraise sports cards for folks and buy cards and big collections.  I like being a baseball card treasure hunter for work.

At Vintage Breaks we bring the card shop feeling to your home and open packs and boxes together as a community.  Some folks just watch while others buy spots in various breaks and wait for the card or pack to be revealed live during our YouTube show.  We run a 21st-century card shop, where you can watch from your phone or tablet.

What’s your earliest memory of Trading Cards?

LS: Buying packs of 1985 and 1986 Topps baseball and football cards.  My first big purchase as a kid was a 1984 Topps Don Mattingly rookie for $35 at the Route 18 Fleamarket in East Brunswick, NJ!

How did you get started in the Hobby? If you took a break, how did you get back in? How did you get into breaking?

LS: I got started because I loved baseball and everything about it growing up.  I wanted to be a baseball player as a young kid.  I also liked collecting cards and then learned about business and making a profit buying and selling cards.  It was really fun doing something I loved and I was able to earn money while doing it.  I realized I wasn’t going to be a professional baseball player, but never gave up my love of baseball and baseball cards.  

I went to Rutgers College and worked at Johnson & Johnson. During this time I bought and sold baseball cards throughout to pay for school.  I graduated from Rutgers in 2000 but did not want a corporate job…so I tried to get a “job” in the world of baseball cards.  I was able to and I made the same money in my first year selling cards that Anderson Consulting offered and I loved it so I thought I was onto something.  I went to work for an auction house after that for 4 years…during that time I learned a great deal and really had the entrepreneurial spirit to work on my own and start something.  

I started Just Collect about 14 years ago.  I got into breaking because I have always loved opening old packs and technology.  I could write forever but I saw an opportunity doing something I loved (opening old packs) and doing it in such a way that I thought others would be interested as well.  I thought, how cool would it be to open an old pack, but only have to pay for 1 card and share the risk with others. And bring your cost down so you don’t have to buy the whole expensive pack. 

We started Vintage Breaks almost 3 years ago and have our new web site rolling out in about a week.  We are providing customers with a dashboard to sell off the current and past breaks they have bought into and will be notified when their break is about to happen!  There will be lots of other new features as well.

The Vintage Breaks Breaking Station

The breaking station at Vintage Breaks

 

What’s your favorite product/set to break?

LS: I like opening stuff from the ‘60s and earlier, like others appreciate fine wine.  My dream is to open a Tobacco pack and pull a fresh T206!  

What is the biggest hit you’ve ever pulled? Personal and as a breaker?

LS: My biggest personal pull was probably a Zion auto basketball card out of my Prizm Fast Break box this year. As a breaker though, it is definitely the “Pack Heard ‘Round the World” the 1955 Bowman Cello Pack we opened a few years ago live on the center stage at the National….we pulled a Mickey Mantle and I went insane!

What’s the coolest moment you’ve had during a break?

LS: I have really enjoyed our series of opening packs with athletes and celebrities like Gary Vee, Pete Rose, Emmitt Smith, Ricky The Dragon Steamboat, and Warren Moon this Thursday! Leighton Breaking with Gary Vee