Two Collectors Collaborate to Make an Amazing Display
Greg Nussbaum and Brent Meyer have created a special bond.
It’s not just because they’re both card collectors; it’s because they share the same vision that a museum-quality collection deserves to be displayed in a museum-quality setting. In August 2020, Nussbaum and Meyer connected via the Facebook group “Vintage Wax and Packs.” Nussbaum sought a carpenter to build a display system for his massive rack packs and unopened collection in his “office.”
Meyer — who along with his wife, Catherine, own 7th Street Salvage, an architectural salvage business in Macon, Georgia — designed a plan with Nussbaum, despite him living 12 hours away in Ashburn, Virginia. What transpired over the next few months was a dream scenario for both collectors.
“It was so serendipitous to be able to find a master builder who’s actually a collector, too, so he understood everything right from the start,” Nussbaum said. “I just let him do his thing. I always tell people, this is by far the best investment I’ve ever made in cards, just outfitting this room with his creations.”
Designing from a Distance
Nussbaum and Meyer were in constant contact, all while having never met in person. Meyer received dimensions and pictures of the room and went to work. He drew half a dozen designs that would best display Nussbaum’s rack packs. The mockups included easily modifiable shelving for Nussbaum to change packs in and out.
“In one of our warehouse spaces, we laid out his square footage and we literally built it as if we were building it in his house so that we could work out all the kinks beforehand,” Meyer said.
The project was finished at the end of 2020 and consisted of 2,500 individual pieces. The specifications from the display cabinets and cases include four rack pack display doors (holding 96 rack packs in rack holders), 27 flat-file glass display drawers, four bottom storage drawers, bookcase stacks (three moveable shelves per stack), a corner cabinet with four moveable shelves, deep cabinets behind each rack display door (with four moveable shelves per cabinet), and a sorting table.
In January 2021, Meyer gathered all the pieces of the project and transported them to Nussbaum’s house. It took Meyer and one of his employee’s nearly 10 hours to install the system.
“I was in awe of his work and I was excited about what this was and what it would become when I filled it up with all of my treasures,” said the 49-year-old Nussbaum. “I couldn’t imagine it would turn out as well as it did. I let him go with it. I trusted his creative process. Even after all the pictures he sent me and everything, I couldn’t imagine how amazing it was until he installed it.”
It’s a breathtaking display that accentuates Nussbaum’s rack packs and wax collection. Nussbaum primarily collects baseball and football rack packs ranging from 1968 to 1989. His range for wax packs and boxes runs from 1978 to the early 1990s.
“I have a 1st Edition Garbage Pail Kids unopened box, which is pretty valuable,” Nussbaum said. “I have a 1971 Topps with the black borders, which is a very sought-after set. I have a rack pack from Series 1 that has both Pete Rose and the Ted Simmons rookie card showing on top. For people who love those vintage ’71 cards, that’s just an amazing piece.”
Adding to the Room
After collaborating on the project together, Nussbaum and Meyer became friends. The two have gotten together a few times since the project was completed. In the winter of 2023, Nussbaum decided he wanted to display his graded cards, which are mostly slabbed by PSA.
“He started talking about not just rack packs, but he wanted to display cellos, wax packs, and then individual cards,” Meyer said. “I said, ‘OK, let’s think about where in the room you’ve got some space.’ We kind of settled on the closet.”
The doors on the closet were removed, and Meyer installed a huge, customizable, adjustable oak display on the back wall.\
“To make this work, he literally had to engineer and invent ways to display these kinds of things that have never been thought of before,” Nussbaum said. “In a lot of ways, I feel like it’s his baby, too.” Meyer designed a complete modular system where — just like the rack pack displays from the first project — they can be changed in and out.
“When I was designing this thing, with all of the different separators and rails and everything you can add to these doors, at one time, I calculated the different configurations. It was something like 22,000 possible configurations in these two doors that you could do,” Meyer said. “Let’s say you got some really cool PSA and BGS and some other encapsulation companies have made it where you can encapsulate 8×10 photos or magazines. Whatever it is, you can start displaying pieces that are much bigger than what we normally think of as card displays.”
It took Meyer two days to install the project in Nussbaum’s “office.”
“I do try to work in there,” Nussbaum said. “However, I don’t typically get a lot done, not surprisingly.”
Filled to the Brim
With his latest addition, Nussbaum’s favorite room of his house is filled to the brim with collectibles — unopened product, graded cards and another wall opposite the rack packs for memorabilia, specifically Star Wars items and football helmets.
“Every inch of wall space is basically accounted for,” Nussbaum said. “The only other place there would be any chance of adding space probably would be on the ceiling. Believe it or not, that’s not out of the question.”
Nussbaum is only half joking with that statement. Besides having available space on the ceiling, the other side of the closet that houses the graded cards is a bathroom.
“I said, ‘Well, how cool would it be if you just took out that bathroom and then created these doors, you capped off the bathroom in the hallway, so the only way you could get in that room is from this room,'” Meyer said. “And the doors that we just built become kind of the gateway — almost like a Narnia closet — to another part of your collection.”
Being able to look at his entire collection on a daily basis is the most satisfying part for Nussbaum. It’s what he always envisioned when he first came up with the idea of having a display system.
“It’s just such a different take on collecting,” Nussbaum said. “For me, it’s made it so much more enjoyable. And so much more has motivated me as a collector to just keep working to make that display awesome.”
Passion Project
Meyer has turned his little side project into a larger scale operation. He started the company BAM Card Displays for his Hobby woodworking projects.
“In a strange way, what’s actually happened is that throughout my path of creating the stuff that I did for Greg’s collection, I have come up with some different ideas for smaller displays for just the everyday collector,” Meyer said. “Someone’s not going to be able to afford a $40,000, $50,000, $100,000 display system, that’s not a common option for people.”
Meyer has designed single-card wooden displays that collectors can put on their desks. They range in price from $10-$20 depending on the kind of wood used. He also came up with a display case that can fit 25 slabbed cards.
Meyer is really enjoying being able to branch out and make his side project more prominent. He considers working with collectors on Hobby-related projects to be more fun than his day job.
“It’s definitely more of a passion project,” said Meyer, who can be reached at contact@7thstreetsalvage.com. “I’m not like a cabinet maker; I’m not a mass producer of doors. Usually, it’s people coming in and saying, ‘Hey, I want this.’ And we kind of take them from 0 to 100 throughout that whole process.”
