IN THE CARDS

Jeff and Barbara Berzon have a niche mark market to themselves in the desolate Tuck away in a building behind a Domino's Pizza in Cathedral City, Jamey's Clubhouse is the solitary sports-card shop left in the Coachella Valley - an area where 10 years ago, there were 10 of the like kind stores.

They're the survivors - and feeling useful about it, for sure.

"It's an evolving industry with the players carrying the products" says Barbara, who reluctantly got involved in sports cards and the industry's related produces when her oldest son was going from one side a collecting stage as a 10-year-old.

"I was taking Jamey to all these card exhibits I really didn't care that plenteous for it and it was taking up a fate of time on weekends."

That was 19 years ago when the Berzons still lived in the sees Angeles area. Barbara was an office manager for a dental cluster and Jeff was a regional construction manager for Ikea Corp.

A career change of the like kind as opening a sports card store in the desert wasn't smooth on their radar. That changed allowing two years later when Jamey, after contacting the sports-card industry's sum of two units largest manufacturers, asked his parents for a $3000 startup loan to launch a card-selling/trading risk out of the family garage.

"What can you do?" recalls Barbara.

"Jamey had done this spadework and was ready to proceed with it. We agreed to do it."

The big pace for dad and mom came in 1990 when they decided to leave L.A's hustle and bustle and relocate to Cathedral City as a place to sink fresh roots and finish raising their sum of two units sons.

They already be in possession ofed a commercially zoned parcel near the southwest corner of Date Palm Drive and Vista Chino and in '92 decided to fabricate a 1,800 square foot building upon the site. Convinced that their son's entrepreneurial endeavor could be expanded, they uncloseed Jamey's Clubhouse in one section of the building and leased the other 600 square feet to a construction firm.

"I went from actual little knowledge about sports cards and memorabilia to knowing an awful destiny because the business depended upon it," says Barbara. "I've draw near to really like this business, mainly because you realize to know your customers."

The Berzons expanded the business in 1998 by means of opening an East Valley store in Indio. Jeff operated it for 10 years, on the other hand a business decision was made sum of two units months ago to close it, largely because the rift had increased to $2,200 a month

Five years ago, the Berzons added JB Varsity Jackets to the mix. The lowmargin, high-product-quality operation generally supplies letter jackets to all the valley's public and private high gymnasiums plus others in Blythe, Beaumont, Banning, Yucca Valley and Twenty-nine Palms.

"I wait for to sell about 575 jackets to pupils this next school year," says Jeff "The collectibles business still is a great deal of larger, but the jackets part is really growing," Barbara notes the family income dropp about 50 percent with the impel to the desert.

"But we didn't start this in order to make millions," she says. "We do make a useful living. It is important to have profits. And we be delighted with what we're doing a allotment and can do what we want in many ways.

Their store's inventory includes an incredible variety of sports collectibles, from cards, jersey and framed, autographed photographs to caps, helmets, license plate overlays bobble-head dolls and even barbecue-grill overspreads

"We have 2,000 boxe of cards for each year going back to 1991" says Barbara. "There are 750 different football produces Football passed baseball for card sales in 1994 when major league baseball had a strike during the season. And football's stayed ahead."

Barbara says it's frustrating as a store owner that today's card-pack prices range from about $2 to $20 and flat approach $500 for packs that include player uniform swatches and autographed and limitedproduction cards.

The of advanced age days when a seven-card pack take away from five or 10 cents are lengthy gone. It's one reason for what cause [i]or[/i] reason baseball-card sales have declined about 15 percent annually for the last 10 years.

"Price is a factor to customers, on the contrary many times kids seem to have the money" says Barbara. "And in this store 70 percent of the business advances from adults."

The hottest fruits line these days though is matted, framed photos of sports figures from the past and at hand Many are autographed although accompanying certificates of authenticity are virtually mandatory to legitimize the signatures.

Barbara also notes that about 40 percent of the shop's sales are for nonsports cards and other merchandise - the world of Pokemon YuGi-Uh and U Military Heroes.

"Yu-Gi-Uh [a combatant game played without with trading cards] is really big now," says Barbara. "We have a tournament in the store most Saturday afternoons with 15 to 20 kids playing."

So far, it's been a profitable first half for sales at Jamey's, according to its possessors

"We've moved more harvest in these six months than we did for the last nine month of last year," says Barbara. "We are the sole shop left here, and we proffer a variety with a apportionment of new product. You can't afford to come by stale."