We stopped by San Antonio’s Sports Cards Plus to check out all the Victor Wembanyama memorabilia in their collection.
SAN ANTONIO — “We have something for everyone,” said Sports Cards Plus’ Charlie DiPietro.
I’ll tell you this much: They have a new customer in me. I’m like a kid in the candy store now every time I stop by Charlie’s store.
He’s right as far as I can tell. There is literally something for every sports memorabilia collector.
Charlie has been in business for years serving San Antonio’s avid sports card and memorabilia collectors. As you might imagine, he’s seen some items and can tell some stories.
“This man came in who was an antique furniture dealer,” he said. “He said he didn’t know anything about cards and asked me if they were valuable. He had the Honus Wagner T206 Tobacco card. At the time it was worth about $3 million. I guess I made his day!”
But our main reason for visiting Charlie on this day was to talk about the red-hot Victor Wembanyama sports card and collectible market.
“I went out and bought everything ‘Wemby’ I could get,” he said. “It has all gone pretty quickly.”
Just name it! From cards to collectibles to signed items, you can find it all at Charlie’s shop.
“Predominately cards, but I think everyone wants to have at least one Wemby autograph,” he said. “We’ve got cards that are as reasonable as ten dollars to the cards that are thousands of dollars.”
Wembanyama items are obviously trending up after being selected as the No. 1 draft pick in 2023 to receiving Rookie of the Year honors to whatever comes next, which is the expectation in the not-so-distant future in the form of another Spurs NBA Championship.
“When he won ROTY there was a jump,” said Charlie. “When he eventually wins MVP it will jump again.”
Charlie’s most prized possession is the “Wing Span” photo.
“Fanatics told me they were making them, and they had five available, so I bought two of them sight unseen not knowing what they would look like.”
Charlie told us he sold so many Tim Duncan rookie cards back in the day that he never thought he’d see anything like that again, until now of course.
“Wemby has brought it to another level,” said Charlie. “What do I buy? I just about buy everything Wemby.”