Ready Set Sort hobby and collectibles store opens Saturday
The newest small business in Lexington offers trading card games, a wide variety of collectibles, and events for trading card collectors to play games.
Ready Set Sort will have a ribbon-cutting and grand opening starting at noon Saturday in the store at 110 Cotton Grove Road, Suite M, in the Van Mar Plaza shopping center. There will be food and drinks, raffles and auctions, T-shirts and gift bags as well as well as a game event for up to 32 players.
Zachary Flink of Lexington is the owner/operator of the new business, which is in the same space as the former Dragons Lair store, which was a similar business. A large dragon mural commissioned by the previous owners of that store remains on one of the walls.
Flink said he collected trading cards as a kid, but got back into seriously collecting about 10 years ago and began buying and selling online while working in the restaurant industry, where he honed his business management skills.
He said he helped the owners of Rocket’s Hideout, which relocated from West First Street to the Lexington Shopping Center on Highway 64 West this past spring, set up a similar business a couple of years ago and ended up buying some of their inventory for his own store.
“I didn’t plan to open a store this soon but I couldn’t pass up the location and price,” he added.
The trading cards the store carries include Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, Disney’s Lorcana, Yu-Gi-Oh and Konami, among others. Flink said players and trading card collectors he has dealt with range in age from eight to 63.
In addition to the trading cards, the store carries prop replicas from movies and video games, such as a functioning Iron Man mask from Hasbro. He also carries action figures and toy collectibles from Hasbro. He’s expecting some Power Rangers merchandise soon.
The store has one shelf of consignment items, such as swords, from various video games and movies.
Flink also has some collectible watches and autographed memorabilia for sale in the shop and on eBay. In fact, he can sell just about anything on eBay for people for a percentage of the sale. A sticker on the window says “We sell for you on eBay.”
“And we do more than trading cards and collectibles,” he said, noting he has sold coin collections and designer handbags for people on eBay.
Flink’s also excited about possibly becoming a Legos distributor. He’s waiting to hear back about an application to do so. The entrepreneur noted the closest distributor is in Concord and most Walmarts and Amazon carry only basic merchandise lines.
“If that happens, it might take up about half of my space,” he added.
Game events will also be held several nights a week, with Friday nights being the most popular.
Business hours are noon to 9 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, noon to 11 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. The store is closed Tuesday.
The website is readysetsort.com, which has a link to the Facebook page. The phone number is (336) 309-9352.
