Trading card business geared toward cars

Baseball, football, Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh — all trading cards of the ages. But there has never been a trading card business about cars, until now.

J&S Car Cards is bringing the new idea to Rio Rancho and surrounding areas for the benefit of the car community, car education and local business promotion.

Jeff Schlindwein, founder and owner, and his wife Samantha started the car cards to get people at car events to interact with each other more.

"I've been into car shows, car memorabilia, automotive stuff since I was a kid. I've always had a fascination with vehicles. I mean, there was a stint where I was really into biking for a while, but I always had like a big love for cars, especially like the old-school muscle V8s, like the Camaros, the Chargers, the Challengers and the Mustangs," Schlindwein said.

He noticed that people would get into their own cliques at car events. The foreign tuner cars would gravitate toward each other, off-road vehicles would group together and other groups would just remain with their own people.

"One of the things that always kind of takes me out of the car scene is, especially lately, that the car scene has gotten very standoffish in terms of people wanting to actually interact with each other. People get into their groups. Maybe they'll reach out and they'll bring somebody into their group every once in a while, but it is very noticeable and very prevalent whenever you go to, especially, some local shows," he added.

The car cards were an idea to remedy that. He explained that the cards are a way for people to learn about other rides, collect some of their favorite cars and, more importantly, start up conversations between people.

"So that's where the design and the style of these cards really came from was getting people to actually interact and start having a reason to interact, design meetups and do other fun things," he said.

The Schlindweins started to make the cards and bring them to Tacos and Rides at Cafe Bella in Rio Rancho last November. When they saw how excited people got, they knew it would do well.

Since then, Schlindwein has seen an increase in interaction among car enthusiasts. The cards have been popular with kids as well.

"When we go through shows, the amount of people that collect the cards now that actually make a concerted effort to go look through the book and see the new cards that have been created since the last time that they've done theirs, especially the kids or the younger people that don't necessarily have an automobile that they can latch onto themselves. They just go crazy. They go gaga for it," he said.

"It's so fun when you get to meet adults and kids alike who are leaving a car show with great memories. They've supported a great cause and they have a handful of cards from different people, and they're all cars from the community, and that's just crazy."

The cards are a traditional playing card size: 3 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches. It's designed to fit in standard trading card collection packs like the Pokémon card sleeves or card holders.

"That way you get the benefit of the entire aftermarket of the card scene in general. If you need card holders, card sleeves, whatever, you're not looking for weird off-sized things; the whole point was to make them a size that makes sense," he explained.

The cards will have a photo of the vehicle, the owner's social media handles and details about the vehicle. The card will also have a symbol in the corner representing the state people are from. For now, most of them have the Zia symbol for New Mexicans.

Schlindwein also uses local car photographers' photos for the cards. He says it helps to promote their skill within the community as well. He also brings attention to veterans by including a veteran-owned signifier in the corner.

"We specifically include whether or not they're a veteran. I am a veteran, so that's really important to me is to acknowledge the veteran status," he said.

All of the cards are designed to look like they belong in a set as well.

However, the challenge the Schlindweins face is time as both work full time outside of the car cards business. They are also trying to gain traction with it because introducing a new concept can be tricky.

"This isn't something that I've seen really anywhere else. It's not something that I've seen anybody else do and some people, when they don't get to see the cards getting traded, people go, 'Oh, well, that's kind of cool,' or, 'Well, I don't like trading cards,'" he added.

He wants potential customers to know that the cards aren't just for the owners or car enthusiasts in general. Schlindwein says the point is to have some sort of memorabilia from an event people enjoyed or an event that went toward a good cause. They work closely with the car clubs in the area like New Mexico Motor Sports to donate items to prize raffles and other things.

"We focus on sponsoring charity, donation and awareness drives as well as groups that make anything automotive accessible to others. We provide what ever help we can to these events and groups because they are a fundamental pillar in every community," he said.

They also make business cards for photographers and other car-related positions or clubs.

Schlindwein hopes this new idea can become the next big thing for car lovers.

For more information, visit jnscarcards.com.