Andy Kimball stumbled upon sports cards when he was 8, using money that was dedicated for Halloween candy.
“My mom and stepdad had some crazy idea that my sister and I weren’t going to go trick-or-treating, and instead, we were given $10 to buy candy at the store,” Kimball recalls. ” I’m not sure why, but for some reason I ended up buying a couple football packs.”
Exactly 30 years later, Kimball estimates he owns “3 million, maybe 4 million” cards. And any day now, Kimball (user name trauty) will become the 10th COMC seller to ever reach $100,000 in total book value (of cards listed).
Kimball, who was born in Ohio, moved to Indiana when he was three months old and lived there for 10 years. Due to Kimball’s father being a store manager for Kroger, relocating would be a staple of Kimball’s life.
After spending a year in Kansas (which explains the fact that his favorite professional team is the Kansas City Royals), Kimball lived in Nebraska for the next decade and a half and worked various jobs following high school while also doing several card shows annually.
After a brief stint in Oklahoma, Kimball moved back to Nebraska and bought his friend’s card shop. “That didn’t work out so well,” recalls Kimball, who went back to Oklahoma after about a year.
The Sooner State is where Kimball still resides, with his wife and two children. But during Big 12 football seasons, there’s only one team he’s rooting for: his Cornhuskers, of course.
Kimball, who lives in Talihina (with a population of about 1,500 in the southeast corner of Oklahoma), was a seller on Beckett Marketplace from 2002-04 but stopped because he “hated the shipping and having to deal with all that”. Kimball’s cards sat, for the most part, for the next five years before becoming a seller on COMC 10 months ago.
“I think I’m about $1,000 away (from reaching 100K),” said Kimball when we spoke earlier this week.
If his current pace continues, Kimball will be there in no time.
Posted by Tim Getsch 
