House of Cards: Dalark man displays baseball cards in rare way

By JOEL PHELPS | The Arkadelphian

DALARK, Arkansas — In a fit of despair, a grieving Jeremy Dunson randomly slapped a baseball card against a wall in a room where his mother had recently died. Somehow, the card momentarily stuck to the wall, long enough to ignite an idea. It was time to give the room new life.

“I didn’t like walking in here,” he said of the room. Both his mother and father, as well as a stepfather and stepmother, died of cancer. He decided to make the room into a “monument” in honor of his parents.

With boxes upon boxes of baseball cards on deck, Dunson chose to display the expansive collection that his parents helped him start, and in an unusual way. He lined all four walls, a closet and the ceiling with cards. It was a tedious task, but he saw it through. “There were times when I just lost it and didn’t come in here for a couple of months,” he said. “Then there would be other times when I’d get motivated and do a quarter of a wall.”

The project took about three years to finish.

He recently added a finishing touch to the room by painting the floor a bright shade of green and adding markings to give it the appearance of a baseball diamond. He plans to eventually add a billiards table and the “biggest TV I can find” to enjoy the space. “It’ll be somewhere I can watch my Yankees games,” he said.

Dunson’s collection of baseball cards started as a young boy when his father, a truck driver, would often return from days on the road with a 665-card set. “By the time I was 10 years old I already had 20-30 boxes,” said Dunson, now 39. “Many of the cards on the walls are the ones he bought me when I was young.” His stepfather, too, would later help Dunson’s collection grow.

Dunson has Major League Baseball cards that date to 1952. Many of the cards on the walls are currently valued at pennies, though some of them are worth $10 or more. His more valuable cards — particularly the ones New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, Dunson’s favorite MLB star — are displayed on a special shelf in the room.

He estimates that at least 10,000 baseball cards line the room’s interior. He’s in the ballpark, according to Fred Worth, a Henderson State University math professor and baseball aficionado. Provided with the dimensions of the room (15’4″x13’3″x9’7″) and the size of a baseball card (2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches), Worth calculated there to be 12,355 cards “minus doors or windows.” Given that both sides of the door are plastered with cards, and there are three windows, at least 10,000 cards is a safe bet. Dunson, however, will likely be too busy shopping for a pool table to count the cards anytime soon.

And, Dunson said, he’s got thousands more stowed away in boxes and albums — the project may spread to other rooms of the 100-year-old Dallas County home. “I’ve thought maybe I’ll do the living room in football or basketball cards,” he said.

Even if he were to call it done with one room, Dunson feels certain he has set a record. “I looked all over online, and the biggest card wall I could find was 1,600 cards,” he said. Dunson is referring to an Idaho family that discovered a surprise card wall during a home renovation in 2022. He took to social media with photos of his card room, and the New York-based Dave & Adams collectibles store shared the post, asking followers to take a guess at the number.

Dunson, however, isn’t concerned about setting a record — although it would be pretty cool, he admits. “This [project] is about being happy,” he said. “It’s about having the right energy in the house again.”

The Arkadelphian’s Kelly Stiles contributed to this story. Know someone with an odd collection or unbelievable-but-true story to tell? Email editor Joel Phelps at editor@arkadelphian.com.