u/forgotthefrog

A month or so ago, I asked this sub for LCS recommendations, and I have gotten a chance to visit almost all of them. Wanted to share my takes on each shop to hopefully help other folks who may be looking for a good spot!

I have primarily been looking for lower-end cards and enjoy digging through value boxes, so keep this in mind

What did I miss/where else do I need to go?

Art of Sports
- Very beginner-friendly shop. Focus is on modern cards, and they are organized by team
- I have had a lot of good luck finding parallels here, as the collection feels more curated than other shops
- Shop feels very well put together, and I definitely see it as a regular place to revisit moving forward
- Good selection of higher-end cards

Unopened Packman
- Great collection of cards- this shop hit a sweet spot of organization and quantity for me
- Cards organized by teams and some by star players i.e. BWJ
- Had a dedicated storage box to extra Royals cards, which i loved
- Had a large selection of old unopened packs

The Baseball Card Store
- Unsure if I went on a bad day, but I was disappointed here, given the name
- Cards were extremely unorganized, with every box I looked through being a mix of baseball, basketball, and football. There were also stacks of cards and ripped packs strewn over the tables. To note, this could have been due to them having a busy day and impolite customers
- Pro: this shop seemed to have a lot of vintage inventory

Collectors's Cache
- Small collection of modern and vintage cards, organized by teams.
- Felt like this shop was more geared toward TCG but was worth the stop. Probably won't visit regularly for baseball cards
- Higher end selection felt meh

The Warehouse
- Probably the biggest singles collection in the KC metro area? This place blew me away. If you visit, make sure you have an hour or two (or more) to dig
- Cards are organized by sport, but not by team. Takes some digging to find what you want, but it is well worth it. I have found some gems for cheap
- Has both modern and vintage
- Good higher-end selection

Fan's Only
- Easily the friendliest shop I've visited- there seemed to be regulars who were hanging out. They were interested in me find what I was looking for.
- One of the regulars was extremely friendly and introduced himself to me and another customer at a table i was sitting at, and we chatted about card shows, PCs, etc. He took it upon himself to ask about what we collected and gave away multiple cards from his personal collection just because he could. Shout out Ron!
- Good mix between modern cards organized by teams and older cards in boxes to flip through
- Collection was great, but the atmosphere was the highlight here

Can anyone recommend shops in the KC area that have lower tiered cards, like inserts, foils, etc?

I'm not a big ticket collector by any means but would like to upgrade some of my bulk/find cool variants for my Royals collection

I have had a few different PM roles and have had vastly different managers in all three positions.

Makes me very curious- what does a good manager of PM's look like? Would be interested to thoughts on hear ideal vs. reality as well