Sports Memorabilia

National Sports Distributors has been in the sports memorabilia business for over 25 years. We would like to inform you why you should be dealing with National Sports Distributors for your sports memorabilia needs by providing you some history about the company.

National Sports Distributors, also know as NSD, started in 1989 in South San Francisco, CA. The owner, Robert Hemphill had a love for sports memorabilia but found a void in the memorabilia marketplace for a good football to use for autographs. Using old footballs, scissors and tape, Robert Hemphill started creating what is now know as the white panel football for autographing. Back in 1989, there was no white panel football available in the sports memorabilia marketplace so Rob contacted Wilson Sporting Goods and over many newly created footballs the white panel football was created. The first version was called "The Robby Official NFL Autograph Football" and it had one white panel and 3 brown panels. A three white and one brown panel version was later created for the sports memorabilia industry and called "The Robby Team" football. Since the development of this original football, several different versions were also created, but the original white panel football design still exists. Today, the best white panel football in the sports industry is a 3 white panel version called the #007 Model and is sold exclusively by NSD. The finish on this football works great with a Uchida paint pen, also sold by National Sports Distributors.

From this first invention of the white panel football for the sports memorabilia marketplace, NSD has also created the Everlast Leather Boxing Glove with the white satin Everlast logo, the mini 5" Spalding basketballs, the boxing large black ring bells with gold striker for autographing and NSD lead the boom of the autographed sports lithographs in the 1990's. In addition, Robert Hemphill was the one who originally spoke with Riddell and encouraged them to recreate the NFL helmets of previous years. The sports memorabilia marketplace now calls these helmets "throwbacks." NSD also had a hand in the development of the originally Wilson NFL jerseys used in the sports memorabilia industry when Wilson had the NFL license. Also, back in 1990, nobody was selling the Super Bowl footballs as used in the Super Bowl games. Robert Hemphill encouraged Wilson Sporting Goods to let him sell these footballs. This was successful and since then the Super Bowl footballs have become a standard in the sports memorabilia marketplace. Hemphill also convinced Wilson Sporting Goods to get them to produce for him the Old Style Duke Dark Leather Football. This ball looks great when signed in silver for the older players that used this historic football for their games.

No matter what type of sports memorabilia you collect, NSD has had their hand in the development of the sports memorabilia industry and the products for the sports memorabilia business. The sports memorabilia industry really did not start until the late 1980's. NSD was one of the primary, if not the primary company responsible for the growth of the sports memorabilia business. In addition to products, NSD was the company that created the terms "public autograph session" and "private autograph session." Starting in 1990, NSD was the first company to have people send in their sports memorabilia to be autographed by athletes. In the sports memorabilia atmosphere, public autograph sessions were taking place, but no autograph session were taking place without a public line. NSD determined to advertise their "mail-in only" sports memorabilia autograph session as a "private session" and that is how the terms "public and private" autograph session started in the industry.

As you can see, National Sports Distributors has been a huge contributor in the development of the sports memorabilia industry. A lot of the products used in the sports memorabilia business is a direct reflection of the creative ideas behind Robert Hemphill and his love and desire to better the sports memorabilia industry. At the start of this page, we wanted to inform you why you should work with NSD. I hope this background information will have answered that question. Oh yes, if you have a question or two, please call us at 707-285-2900 and we will be glad to answer your questions.