There’s a living, breathing collectors’ culture in Central Oregon.

Be it sports or Pokémon cards, action figures, comic books or Hot Wheels cars, if it exists, someone out there wants to get their hands on it. And they just might find what they’re hunting for at events like the Central Oregon Cards & Collectibles Show

A card collector himself, Adrian Thompson, of Redmond, organized the first Central Oregon Cards & Collectibles Show in late October at the High Desert Music Hall. Despite having a limited marketing budget, the event drew 350 people.

“There was enough of a response, and there were a lot of vendors who wanted to get in last minute that we didn’t have room for, and I just thought, next year I’m going to try to go bigger,” Thompson said.

‘Nerd culture-type stuff’

Not quite six months later, the event returns, bigger and brighter in just its second iteration: Whereas the first show drew 15 vendors, Saturday’s event, which will be held at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center, boasts more than triple the number of vendors, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50.

“I wanted to open it up to all the niches,” he said. “I didn’t want to only focus on cards and risk having a smaller audience, so I opened it up to anybody who sells or is interested in collectibles … kind of just in the umbrella of nerd culture-type stuff.”

Collecting and organizing the show is a labor of love for Thompson, a motion graphic animator by day. As a child, he collected and traded mostly football cards, along with some San Francisco 49ers memorabilia as a fan of the team.

“Past age 10, it completely stopped,” he said.

Or went dormant. What reawakened his collecting bug? YouTube, which began recommending Thompson videos of garage sales during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

“YouTube just recommends you random stuff,” he said. “I’m into video games, and this YouTube channel specifically was about this guy who goes garage sale-ing, and he looks for retro, vintage video games. I just thought, ‘Ah, that’s cool.’ … There was this nostalgic bug that started happening. Pokémon was blowing up again, and I was watching videos of people pulling out their old Pokémon cards. I just started connecting with the nostalgia factor of it all. As lockdown lifted, I wanted to try my hand at garage sale-ing.”

The thrill of the hunt

The card-collector in Thompson came humming back to life, soon thrilling himself with discoveries at garage sales and making discoveries rooting around in people’s barns.

“I’d go to garage sales every weekend and the thrill of that was really surprising to me,” Thompson said. “The thrill of the hunt hit me hard.”

The first Central Oregon Cards & Collectibles Show “was really encouraging. The energy in the room was just really fun,” Thompson said.

Dropping In: Trying to understand a collector’s mindset

Though Saturday’s Cards & Collectibles Show is still in the offing, Thompson has already begun planning another show for May 25. Going forward, he’d like to present two larger events annually, larger meaning heavy marketing and a big venue a la the fairgrounds, with smaller, more locally focused events, in small spaces with lower entry fees for attendees and vendors.

“I’d love to keep doing them. I’m doing it selfishly” he said, laughing. “Because I want to be at these events and participate. Eventually, I don’t even want to vend anymore. I just want to be an attendee and see what everybody is selling.”

Collector of everything

Like Thompson, Rocky Morgan is both a collector and dealer. Morgan has a couple of spaces at the Redmond Farmer’s Co-Op Antique Mall as well as a display case at Geek Geek Nerd Nerd, also in Redmond. He said he’s been waiting for this weekend’s event since the previous one in October. Morgan will again be on hand selling a wide variety of cards, comics, Hot Wheels, action figures, toys and more.

He said he was looking for a hobby when he bought a single Hot Wheel car at a now-defunct toy store in Portland.

“That started all of it. From there, just as a collector, I started going to different shows, where we were able to show what we had found in collections. I started finding people that (said), ‘Oh, if you ever see any more of those, buy ‘em for me,’” Morgan said. “And they started paying me extra money for the cars I was finding for them. I thought, ‘Oh, this is kind of fun. I can make money doing this.’ It just kind of grew and now I’m a little bit of a collector of everything.”

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On Saturday, he’ll have an array of collectibles, including Hot Wheels, “which is still my biggest passion,” he said. Additionally, he’ll have sports and non-sports cards including Pokémon, Magic the Gathering, and Yu-Gi-Oh! and even Marvel super-hero cards from 1966. He’ll probably bring his Nerf gun collection too, and Barbie items as well.

“Once you start collecting little things, you find different things all over,” Thompson said. “I try to cater to a little bit of everything because you’re never sure, going to a show, what people are going to buy. … I try to make sure there’s something for everybody in there.”

Keegin Kornowski will have a space at Saturday’s event. He’s been immersed in the collectible world for decades, having grown up with parents involved in antiques and collectibles shows. Kornowski has run his own Double K Collectibles for seven years. He also worked retail until three years ago, when he was able to make Double K his full-time job. He has four spaces he sells out of: the Redmond Antique Mall and Geek Geek Nerd Nerd, as well as two in the Portland area.

As for Saturday’s event at the fairgrounds, “There are going to be so many different types of cards and toys and video games and other paraphernalia,” Kornowski said. “If it sounds interesting at all, make it down there because you will find something.”

Hector David Jr. to attend show

The Central Oregon Cards & Collectibles Show will host celebrity guest Hector David Jr. Stop by his booth for a unique meet and greet with the actor, creative director, dancer and producer, known for, among other accomplishments, roles in “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” “Power Ranger Samurai,” “Power Rangers Super Samurai,” in which he brought to life Mike, the Green Samurai Power Ranger. David Jr. was also a guest star in 2015’s “Super Megaforce: The Legendary Battle.”

If You Go

What: Central Oregon Cards & Collectibles Show

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday

Where: Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center, 3800 SW Airport Way, Redmond

Cost: $5 per person or $15 for families of up to 8

Contact: centraloregoncardshow.com