The Card Cellar

Downtown Fredericksburg's original sports card shop since 1991: hobby boxes, football and baseball singles, Pokemon packs and signed memorabilia.

Bart Goldberg opened The Card Cellar in 1991 with a box of sports cards and a corner booth in the Four Mile Fork shopping center. Thirty-plus years later it fills nearly 5,000 square feet of the Wilson building on Caroline Street, and it remains the Fredericksburg card shop that longtime collectors in the region point newcomers toward first.

The card side of the store leans sports. Football, baseball, basketball and hockey wax is stocked by the hobby box and by the pack, with a case of singles and a growing wall of authenticated autographed memorabilia that was added recently. Pokemon cards in Fredericksburg are easier to find here than most visitors expect: booster packs and sealed product sit alongside the Topps and Panini shelves, and reviewers regularly mention the pricing being fairer than big-box retail. The shop buys as well as sells, so bring a collection in if you are thinking about moving it.

What makes the visit memorable is the other half of the floor. The Card Cellar doubles as a gift shop stuffed with novelty socks, Warmies, quirky home goods, apparel, toys and bobbleheads of pro and college teams. That mix means a spouse or kid who is not into cards still has plenty to browse while you dig through boxes, and it is why the store shows up as a stop on downtown walking itineraries.

Hours run 10AM to 6PM Monday and Tuesday, 10AM to 7PM Wednesday and Thursday, until 8PM Friday and Saturday, and 11AM to 6PM Sunday. Parking is on-street metered spots along Caroline Street or in the nearby city garages, so weekday mornings are the calmest time to spread out at the counter. Bart and the staff are known for remembering regulars and talking baseball with kids, and there is no tournament room here, so this is a shopping and browsing stop rather than a play space. Call ahead if you are hunting a specific hobby box release, since new-set allocations move quickly.