About GrailWear
Like many of you, something about the pandemic ignited an old passion I had for sports card collecting. As a kid, I was obsessed. At night I'd be under the blankets with a flashlight flipping through my binder, arranging and rearranging my cards in endless permutations then admiring them in their new order again and again. The back of the bus was like the main floor of wall street on Monday morning, where we traded cards and I learned the basics of negotiating and the harsh finality of an unfavorable trade - nowadays a familiar theme in fantasy football lmao! One time we even held an auction with bidders offering their lunch money and snacks (I remember the winning bid included a nickel minted in 1945 which we were all convinced was worth a small fortune lmao). But in time my friends and I grew out of it and, although I always kept my shoebox close by, I went almost two decades without browsing my collection.
During that time, I finished college, managed to string together a career, a marriage, had a daughter...and then the pandemic happened. The sports card hobby blew up as a generation of millennials, confined within their walls, got reacquainted with their childhood collections. Suffice to say I was a hearty data point on that trend. One by one, I examined each of my cards and fell back in love with them. Its a nostalgic and humbling experience reminiscing how much I used to treasure the most random cards like a 1996 EXL Mutombo. Now a grown man with income, I began chasing every grail card that was unobtainable in my youth - Jordan Scoring Kings, Griffey's Upper Deck rookie, Iverson's Star Date rookie, etc. It took twenty years but one by one, I brought them home.
At the height of my obsession, I always wanted some cool card apparel. I don't get it - there's literally nothing out there! Well its about time someone addressed this serious problem. I began putting my vision to paper and GrailWear was born. Clean, minimalist designs built around the hobby's sickest cards - so simple...YET SO BRILLIANT!! Step aside Gucci because we are about to disrupt high fashion...just kidding haha I'm actually pretty new to the retail/design game so still learning the controls. I hope you like the look and please reach out with any feedback.
I've also kicked off an Instagram to share my cards, their stories, my memories with them, and just random hobby/sports related thoughts. Please consider giving me a follow @grailwear23. Thank you for stopping by.
- Hubert
