(Photo by Gwen Sour) Ryan Patterson, left, and Dan Patterson, right, tend the front counter of Titletown Sports Cards’ opening day on Friday. Titletown Sports Cards is located at 282 Front St. in Marietta.

Titletown Sports Cards opened Friday at 282 Front St. in Marietta.

The store is owned and operated as a part of a family operation between Ryan Patterson and Dan Patterson.

Dan Patterson started a brick-and-mortar sports card shop in south Parkersburg in 1983. He operated the store at that location for 10 years before he relocated the shop to the Rink’s Flea Market in Marietta. At Rinks, the family operated the business for the next 30 years.

“Now it’s time to get back into a store,” said Dan. “It’s just being self-sufficient, working on your own, having your own business … you know just seeing it passed down into the family and hopefully he’ll have it for a lot of years and pass it down to his son.”

Ryan said he remembers growing up with the card shop and that it gave him plenty of fond memories and he hopes to share that with the community.

“I still remember the first card that I got,” said Ryan. “I am still a 10-year-old kid at heart.”

Ryan said he saw opening the business as a risk, but over the last two years he saw the popularity of the sports cards genre expanding and that there was nothing else within an hour’s radius of Marietta, so he took the leap.

Jerseys and other memorabilia line the wall of Titletown Sports Cards and every table and display case contains football, Pokémon, basketball and baseball cards both old and new. Ryan said there are plans to expand the selection.

“We have Pokémon but we don’t have a ton of it yet … we will be expanding and covering soccer, hockey and WWE Wrestling, all that kind of stuff,” said Ryan.

The shop also held a Trade Night during First Friday where customers from across the Mid-Ohio Valley could bring in their cards to trade with other collectors.

For more information on Titletown Sports Cards visit the location on Front Street, call 304-588-7292 or email at TitleTownSportsCardsWV@gmail.com.