Card Collecting

BY ADAM GROBMAN

Roxanne Toser, center, stands next to Sam Gras as Adam Bomb. At right, a special edition Topps card featuring Sam's "Adam Bomb" costume.

Growing up in Uptown Harrisburg, Sam Gras was an avid collector of Garbage Pail Kids cards.

“The former Family Pharmacy on 2nd and Lewis was our go-to place to buy twenty-five cent packs of cards,” he recalls. “They were incredible.”

The infamous humor of the series – and the artwork – struck a chord with Sam. “Among comic books, nothing was at that level of artistry – even if it was potty humor, it was exquisite.”

So by the time Sam had a child of his own, he wanted to share the spark of creativity that he experienced. He began to bring his daughter, “Tiz,” to comic book conventions (comic cons), and would create costumes for the two of them based on popular characters. Together, they’ve created costumes based on Lex Luther, SuperGirl, Bat Girl, and others.

“It was all about my daughter and I doing something fun together,” Sam says. “She expected me to be Batman to her Robin.”

As he attended more and more conventions across the country, Sam got to meet and become friendly with the artists who had captured his imagination in his youth. He also met some of the people running the shows, like Roxanne Toser of Harrisburg, a legendary card seller and magazine publisher who has run the Philadelphia Non-Sports Card Show with her family for about fifteen years. The show is held at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, PA.

“I met Roxanne at the show and found out that she was from Harrisburg – we played Jewish geography, and of course she knew my dad, Norman,” Sam says. “From there, we had a friendship – she’s somebody who is highly respected in the card community.”

Roxanne, a collector herself with eclectic taste, has for a long time been one of the few, if not only, women in the card-selling industry. She’s sold and collected cards from the Beverly Hillbillies, Hogan’s Heroes, and even ‘Torah Personalities.’

“I was told not to sell those on Shabbat,” she remembers. “We showed them to Rabbi David Silver, and he knew a lot of the rabbis!”

While COVID brought challenges – like the cancellation of conventions and shows – it also spurred resurgence in collecting and value of cards.

“In the 1970s, kids threw these things away,” Roxanne says. “Then all of a sudden, they see them again and want them back – it brings back happy memories of trading with friends in school.”

While many can remember feeling enveloped in the world of their collections, very few actually become a part of it. Through Sam’s costumes and a special collaboration with card company Topps, he has carved out his own unique place in the world of Garbage Pail Kids.

“My friend Joe Simcoe – one of the artists for Topps – asked me one day, ‘What’s the next costume?’ and I kind of scratched my head,” Sam says. “Making an Adam Bomb costume would be a dream come true – I’d never seen anyone make him before.”

Roxanne says that Adam Bomb is “the most iconic Garbage Pail Kids character.” Cards featuring his image are listed for hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on eBay.

Sam says that he met with Joe and Topps (with licensing requirements, special permission is needed to attend shows as proprietary characters), and was asked to make his costume within about four months.

“I worked every night on this costume – it was a lot of trial and error,” he says. Eventually he hit the ‘con crunch,’ the last week or so before a convention when blueprints go out the window and cosplayers follow their muse to finish the costume in time.

The costume was a masterpiece – one that Sam has worn to the New York Toy Fair, New York Comic-Con, and the Philly Non-Sports Card Show.

“Sam’s costume is just fantastic,” Roxanne says. “How he made a costume to look like that is beyond belief.”

But, Sam says, the story didn’t end there.

“One of the challenges of being in the costume is that, while it’s nice to be there, people want to commemorate,” he says. “Everyone wants a card.”

Sam worked with Topps and their artists to create a card featuring his version of Adam Bomb, which was presented at Roxanne’s show. The card even features a shout out to Roxanne, with one of the characters holding a sign reading “This Rox.”

“To be able to work with the artists to make the card, the layout, design – it’s something my eightyear-old self would be running up the walls if he ever knew,” Sam says. “There’s no money in being a collector – but to be able to take something that I grew up with, that had an impact on my life, and that I still love to this day and be able to make it my own is a dream come true.”