Thieves making The Gathering collectible cards their target
A popular trading-card game rooted in a fantasy storyline is becoming a target of thieves at Edmonton comic-book stores.
The recent thefts of Magic: The Gathering cards has gaming and collectible store owners trying to co-operate to stop further losses.
“Magic is a very easy currency to move. The cards themselves hold a lot of value,” said Jeremy Brandy, general manager of the Wizard’s Comics and Collectibles location in Old Strathcona.
“You can buy a $100 box and get cards in it that are worth $100 to $200 a piece.”
A typical bundle containing about 230 cards sells for $54 at one Edmonton store and $40 online.
In some recent thefts, stores are falling victim to credit-card fraud.
Staff at the Wizard’s store learned earlier this year that a shopper was using stolen credit cards to purchase packs of cards.
That meant the small business had to cover the cost of about $2,000, Brandy said.
That same man is believed to have stolen cards at Red Claw Gaming on the north side. When his card was declined, he grabbed boxes of the cards and ran.
Wizard’s snapped a few photos of the man and the Edmonton Police Service is investigating, said spokeswoman Noreen Remtulla.
Store owners suspect the cards — which are collected, traded and used in competitive play — are being resold online where it is difficult to trace their origins.
“It’s almost like an unregulated currency,” Brandy said.
Some of the rarest cards can sell for tens of thousands of dollars online, although those are from older editions of the game, which launched in 1993.
Black Lotus, one of the rarest and oldest cards, carries a suggested “fair trade price” of $16,900, according to mtgprice.com, a website dedicated to pricing Magic: The Gathering cards.
Dave Bryenton, one of the owners of Warp One Comics and its sister stores, said sometimes people will come into the store and attempt to resell boxes of magic cards they say they purchased from Walmart, but store staff suspect are stolen.
Magic cards aren’t the only goods in the collectibles realm regularly targeted by thieves.
Popular comic book series such as the Walking Dead are often stolen, said Jay Bardyla, owner of Happy Harbor Comics. In 2015, someone stole a copy of Superman #3 from Bardyla’s shop in downtown Edmonton.
“Certainly, as the economy gets worse, that gets higher. People will think that they’re more entitled to your product,” Bardyla said, adding he had hoped people would respect small, independent businesses.
After the initial cases of creditcard fraud at Wizard’s, the store’s management posted photographs of the man to a few Facebook pages where other Alberta comic book shops are members.
When a product is stolen, these businesses will post information that tells other businesses to beware and to avoid buying anything they think might be stolen.
“We do try to curb it wherever we can,” Bryenton said.
The cards themselves hold a lot of value. You can buy a $100 box and get cards in it that are worth $100 to $200 a piece.