вторник, 18 сентября 2012 г.

Charity in the (sports) cards for one Bellevue collector - The Columbian (Vancouver, WA)

BELLEVUE (AP) Jerry Hatfield gives more cards for Christmas thanmost people 1.2 million last year, 1.3 million this year.

And the charities that receive donations from the sports-cardenthusiast are more than happy to get them.

Last year, he donated a chunk of his nearly 5 million sports cardcollection to the Federal Way-based nonprofit WorldVision. Thisyear, he gave the cards to Value Village, a thrift-store chain thatsupports charities. Next year, he plans to give away another 1.5million.

Value Village will start selling the cards at its four SnohomishCounty stores beginning Saturday. Fifty percent of the proceeds willgo to the partner charities for those stores: the Moyer Foundation,the Northwest Center, and Community Services for the Blind andPartially Sighted.

Besides altruism, Hatfield has another good reason for gettingrid of the cards: His wife told him to.

The couple are going to start splitting their time betweenCalifornia and Arizona after Hatfield, 62, retires as chiefexecutive of a Bothell insurance-brokerage firm next year.

'My wife gave me an ultimatum,' he said. 'She said I wasn'ttaking them with me. She gave me three years to get rid of the bulkof the cards.'

Buyers are unlikely to find Mickey Mantle or Johnny Unitas rookiecards, some of which Hatfield owns, but at least 1 million of thecards will please baseball and football fans. The remainder arebasketball and hockey cards as well as nonsports collectionsincluding Coca-Cola, Harley Davidson and Looney Tunes cards.

Value Village will sell most of the cards in boxed setscontaining 3,000 cards. The boxes will be sorted by sport and yearand will be priced at $9.99. Additional unopened sets will be value-priced.