Unique business for collectors opens in Darlington

Edward “Woody” Boyle has a great deal in common with Woody Woodpecker because he is a nephew of the late Walter Lantz, the creator of Woody Woodpecker.
Boyle’s aunt, Grace Stafford, was married to Lantz. She was the voice of Woody Woodpecker. They lived in Beverly Hills, Calif., and were neighbors of Gen. Omar Bradley of World War II fame.
Boyle, 57, is semi-retired and has opened All Star Sports Cards Plus on Cashua Street in Darlington. He’s been a serious collector for 25 years.
“We offer everything from sports cards to figurines,” Boyle said. “We’re the only store of this kind in the Pee Dee area.”
Boyle’s store opened May 5. Although his inventory is extensive, the first two customers were unique.
“They came in, one after the other, and spent I don’t know how long looking at everything in the shop,” he said. “They both bought the same set of Hank Aaron cards. I think the chances of two people coming in, looking through thousands of cards and then picking out the same cards are kind of unusual.”
Boyle is a New England native who avidly collected baseball cards when he was younger. But he did something many others during his era did and pinned some of them on his bicycle wheels.
“I probably had a Mickey Mantle flapping on the spokes of my bicycle that would be worth $3,000 now,” he said with a laugh. “That’s what Mickeys are worth that are in pristine condition because there aren’t that many cards around.”
And Mantle is just a drop in the bucket compared with some of the rarest cards.
“Todd McFarlane is the guy who bought Mark McGuire’s 73rd home-run ball,” Boyle said. “He also bought a Rogers Hornsby card for $441,000. He’s the creator of Spawn Comics and makes toys, actions figures and things like that.”
Boyle doesn’t have anything approaching a Rogers Hornsby card, but he has a great deal to look at. And his inventory is stocked according to each sport in glass cases. Among his cards are a $350 Marcus Allen, a Pro Football Hall of Fame player, and a $350 Mickey Mantle from about 1960.
Although they aren’t on display, Boyle also has original Woody Woodpecker art. Lantz created comic characters of the 1930s, such as Chilly Willy, Andy Panda and Oswald the Rabbit, before he happened upon Woody Woodpecker.
“Uncle Walt used to go to his cottage in the Sierra Mountains of California to be by himself and get inspiration,” Boyle said. “The cottage had a wooden roof and he was pestered by a woodpecker that kept pecking on it. He inserted Woody Woodpecker as the protagonist in one of his comic books. Woody took off and soared above all his other characters after that.”
Boyle said Lantz originally wanted Mel Blanc — the voice of Bugs Bunny and other cartoon characters — to be Woody Woodpecker. But Blanc was too busy. He had his secretary scout for voices. She recorded 15 voices, but there were 16 on Lantz’s desk. He selected No. 16, which was slipped in by his wife, a former Hollywood movie actress.
Boyle and his wife, Sheila, a nuclear pharmacist, moved to Darlington 16 years ago. They and one other person owned Pee Dee Isotopes, which distributes nuclear medicines with medicines used to give cardiac stress tests and others. They recently sold the business, which has satellite offices in Myrtle Beach and Charleston.