PAUL MALC was 8 years old the first time he slid a coin acrossthe counter at a candy store in Jersey City for a stack of sportscards and a stick of bubble gum wrapped in opaque wax paper. Hedidn't like the gum, but he loved the cards, and in the comingdecades he would buy and trade thousands more -- once evenpainting a co-worker's kitchen in exchange for a full set of 1969Topps baseball cards -- until he'd amassed more than 100,000, somedating to 1911.
But unlike countless men whose childhood collections of sportsmemorabilia were relegated to dusty attics or tossed in the trashafter they left home, Paul has turned his fascination with thehistory of sports into framed compositions, studded with rareautographs, photos and tickets, which he sells to private collectorsand at auction. His collages evoke memories of historic sportsmoments, such as Mickey Mantle's record-shattering World Series homeruns and Babe Ruth's 1932 'called shot' into the Wrigley Fieldstands.
'Most of what I do took place either before I was born, or beforeI was old enough to understand what was happening while it washappening,' says Paul, 44, of Oakton. 'You have to become a studentof whatever game you're portraying in your pieces.'
After receiving a psychology degree from New York University,Paul sold real estate and worked at Prudential, helping companiesmove employee retirement savings from one account to another. Hetook a 12-year break from collecting until a co-worker showed him aprice guide to baseball cards. Then he dived back in, buying stadiumseats, a turnstile, timeworn ticket stubs, even a wrapper for peanutbrittle sold at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field in 1952.
At first, he financed his collecting by selling individual itemson the Internet and to collectors he met at sports memorabiliashows. Sometimes a buyer would wonder aloud what the items wouldlook like hanging on the wall. Paul would offer to get them framedand charge $20 extra. 'Then you'd hand the piece back to thecustomer, and they'd say, 'Wow, that's really nice,' '
he recalls. 'I thought maybe I could do something with that. Istopped waiting for a customer to ask for them and just startedproducing them.'
He still sells individual items, mainly through word of mouth toother collectors. But most of his sales are framed pieces. At first,he reached out to auction houses; now they call him. He also has twopieces on consignment at the Scherer Gallery in New York. 'Paul'spieces have shown me that the passion of these pieces, and thememories they invoke in people, are tremendous,' says gallery ownerNeil J. Scherer, who owns several of Paul's compositions.
In 2000, Paul left his job in finance and returned to school toearn his teaching certification. When his wife, Carol Raskin, got ajob at Freddie Mac, the couple and their two children moved toNorthern Virginia, where Paul teaches math and science to giftedsixth-graders at Mantua Elementary School in Fairfax. In 2006, hecontacted Sotheby's and sold one piece through the auction housethat year, five in 2007 and six more this year. Paul says that afterexpenses he made roughly $15,000 from his sports art last year andhas made about $6,000 so far this year.
Paul is often at his basement computer until well after midnight,hunting down souvenirs and composing his sports art. But he's nothoping to supplant his teaching career. He enjoys the classroomhours too much. 'I would feel a sense of loss if I wasn't doing allof it,' he says.
Are you succeeding with a new and unusual business? E-mailvgezari@gmail.com.
