(KWNO)- A brand new store is coming to Winona, and it provides a unique opportunity that the city doesn’t have. Open from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily, this shop provides the only place for ‘cardies’ to come and buy and trade cards in Winona.
Northland Breaks, under the ownership of Ty Styx, held its grand opening last Friday at 91 Harvester Ave. Styx is born and raised in Winona and owns a concrete business by the name of Styx Construction.
Northland Breaks is the only spot in town where you can buy and sell trading cards of all varieties. Baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and even trading cards like Pokémon cards are available for purchase. Northland Breaks is also willing to buy, sell and trade any card a customer is willing to.
Northland Breaks is more than just cards. Partnering with Pill Box in Winona, they have the walls lined with special Pill Box designed bats. They’re also partnering with Fanatics which allows them to have sports memorabilia galore, like the signed Dalvin Cook jersey that hangs on the wall.
Ty said that the idea came to him out of complete chance, and it all came together because he wanted to be a good dad.
Ty told the story about his son coming to him with an interest in sports trading cards. So, Ty decided to look around his house and see if he can come up with any old cards or recent cards he might’ve purchased or accidentally came across. Funny enough, in looking through those boxes of cards he already had, Ty and his son struck gold.
Under his son’s bed there was a shoe box containing many random things that he had passed on to his son, including a bunch of trading cards. Within those cards was a Patrick Mahomes Rookie Card. Ty thought that it might have some value to it, so he checked it out. Turns out, this card is valued between $300 and $400. He couldn’t believe it. Him and his son then got a little deeper into the card game.
Ty said he bought his son a simple advent calendar that had trading cards dispersed in it. Within the advent calendar they struck gold again, acquiring a Pokémon card valued over $900.
Ty then thought it would be fun to gather the neighbor kids with his son and as he put it, “Play Trading Card store.” With the neighbor kids and his son, he opened a mock store for them to have fun with, in his home. Ty said he spent around two weeks setting this up. From there, his interest continued to soar.
Ty did some more research and realized the potential this business had to offer, and it’s much more than a hobby.
The trading card industry has boomed over the last couple of years. Many believe that a big reason for that was the COVID pandemic. Nonetheless the numbers prove the boom. Topps, a popular card trading company, recorded record-breaking sales in 2020 at $567 million, a 23% increase from the year prior, according to an article from the New York Times. Ebay says they saw a 142% increase in domestic trading card sales, from 2020 to 2021. According to marketdecipher.com, a research firm, the trading card market was valued between $12-13 billion in 2021 and their projections see the market value exploding to close to $50 billion.
Ty, being the businessman that he is, saw these numbers and knew he couldn’t pass up the opportunity. He began doing more research and found websites like whatnot where you can host live ‘card breaks’ which are live auctions for cards. Ty realized that the trading card market was another form of investing, he even compared it to E-Tabs and pull-tabs, but more along the lines of investing, rather than just gambling. Putting all of this together, and realizing that on top of it, it’s something he can share with his son, he was hooked.
Early in the process of creating this business, he went to card stores in La Crosse, WI to further his research and that’s when he met Cam Jones, one of the collectors that Ty has brought on to help with the business. Cam is an expert in card trading, spending 22 years of his 28-year life around trading cards, and the last seven to eight years actually in the business, he likes to think he knows everything there is to know about cards. Ty said that he and Cam had a 10-hour conversation on the phone about potential avenues, potential ideas, and everything they could think of to discuss. After the conversation, Ty knew he had to bring Cam on.
When asked about why he chose to leave his last job to work with Ty, Cam said, “It wasn’t a me choice, that was destiny.”
Cam and Ty have quickly formed quite the team, and they believe the opportunities with their store are endless. Ty said that they mesh perfectly, both possessing different ideas that fit together for one common goal. That common goal, as Ty said, is to make a difference in the hobby, however they can.
Ty ended our conversation by saying, “The store will only get better, and every time, every week you come in here, it’ll be better, more things, more knowledge, just better.”
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