With there being little signal of the Pokémon TCG bubble bursting any time quickly, and lots of Pokémon playing cards actually value greater than their weight in gold, it’s turning into all too regular to listen to tales of thieves breaking into shops and stealing the shiny cardboard. A very audacious instance occurred in California this weekend, the place round $100,000 value of playing cards have been stolen by a masked gang in a matter of minutes—a gang who may effectively be chargeable for a variety of different related crimes.
As reported by native LA station KTLA 5 (thanks IGN), a gaggle of burglars have been filmed on CCTV breaking into the Burbank card store and making off with armfuls of Pokémon playing cards. The implication from retailer proprietor Kiet Nguyen’s description of the footage is that the workforce appear very skilled, getting out and in of the shop in simply a few minutes, seemingly figuring out precisely what they needed to take.
“They tip over and smash a glass show case to seize its contents,” Nguyen informed KTLA. “Moments later, they’re seen carrying three massive luggage stuffed with stolen items to an awaiting getaway automobile. The overwhelming majority, they have been concentrating on Pokémon playing cards. They inadvertently took some lock packing containers from the again that additionally had [rare] sports activities playing cards.”
KTLA goes on to report that the police suspect this explicit gang of three could possibly be chargeable for a variety of related card store break-ins round Southern California, not least as a result of this explicit housebreaking appeared so practiced.
It’s not an exaggeration in regards to the worth of gold factor, by the best way. I simply appeared it up; the common Pokémon card weighs just below two grams, and the identical weight in gold is at the moment value round $270. The Mega Charizard X ex SIR within the present Phantasmal Flames set is at the moment promoting for $600, whereas new sealed product sells on resale markets for at the least twice its MSRP. In the meantime, a sealed booster field of 2021’s Evolving Skies at the moment sells for $2,350, some eighteen occasions the unique retailer worth.
This isn’t solely making Pokémon playing cards near unimaginable for normal followers to purchase and even discover on sale, but in addition making the product more and more high-risk for shops given the all of a sudden ballooning worth of their shares. Nguyen had thought his Burbank retailer to be effectively protected in a protected space, saying that he believed, together with his a number of layers of safety, “the deterrents have been ok.” Sadly not.
Clearly, given the incentives and ease with which stolen sealed product and non-graded playing cards will be resold, breaking right into a card store is now a extra profitable crime than breaking into a jewellery retailer, with much less safety prone to be in place, however a far simpler time grabbing the equally useful loot.
