Gig Harbor shopping center that’s been in the spotlight has a new tenant
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- Big Nate’s Trading Cards relocated to a larger space in Peninsula Shopping Center Aug. 12.
- New location enables the business to host more events, such as athlete signings.
- Store remains only official Topps dealer west of the Tacoma Narrows in Washington.
A shopping center in downtown Gig Harbor that’s been in the spotlight for potential redevelopment in recent years got a new tenant last month.
Big Nate’s Trading Cards, a hobby store that sells an array of collectible cards including sports cards and trading card games, moved into the Peninsula Shopping Center Aug. 12.
The business at 3006 Judson St. Unit 102 is the only official Topps trading card store in the state west of the Tacoma Narrows, according to the Topps store locator. Topps is a historic company that “has been the industry leader among baseball card companies” for decades, getting its start selling chewing gum, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Topps also supplies trading cards featuring football, soccer, wrestling and other sports as well as entertainment brands like Disney and Marvel.
Besides Topps and Bowman-branded products, the store also carries trading card games like Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon and Disney Lorcana, according to owner Nathan Ullevig. (His friends started calling Ullevig, who’s 6 feet 5 inches tall, “Big Nate” to avoid confusion with another Nate in the same friend group, he said.) The store also carries a variety of canned beers for sale along with soda, water and snacks.
Ullevig’s entry into the world of trading cards started when he was a kid, he told The News Tribune.
“As a kid, my mom was an apartment complex manager and a unit had been left vacant, and they had some cards in there,” he said.
The discovery got him into card collecting until he was around 18 or 19 years old. In 2012, he got a gift card for a shop in California that led him back to the hobby, though it had “changed quite a bit from when (he) left it in the late ‘90s to the early 20-teens,” he said.
While visiting South Carolina with his wife, Ullevig visited a card shop and “just loved the atmosphere,” he said. He left the shop thinking he wanted to start one of his own.
In February 2020, Big Nate’s Trading Cards opened its doors on 56th Street in Gig Harbor. The trading card company spent a year at its first location before moving to an attic space behind Gig Harbor Audio on Judson Street.
Ullevig began to explore a move to the Peninsula Shopping Center after observing how much the business had grown in the last couple of years. Their previous space behind Gig Harbor Audio “was just a little on the small side,” he said. “Couldn’t really host events or quite a few people in the shop at once.”
Now, in a space that’s around twice as big with more wall space, Ullevig looks forward to welcoming more people inside. One of their big goals is hosting more athletes in the shop for signings or photograph sessions, and he hopes to hold an event by the end of the year and host players regularly in the future, he said.
They’re also excited about the additional exposure, letting people know that there’s an option for local card collectors this side of the bridge, Ullevig said. The next closest Topps store is Northwest Sportscards, at 5510 Sixth Ave. S. Suite A in Tacoma.
Big Nate’s Trading Cards is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. The store is closed on Mondays, Ullevig said.
He also confirmed the store will host a “Grand Opening Trade Night” on Saturday, Sept. 20 with food, giveaways, opportunities to trade and games to win more cards.
