Before co-creating ‘Dungeons & Dragons,’ Gary Gygax was already known in the board gaming community, which was primarily focused on wargames at the time. He was the founder of Gen Con, the largest convention of its kind in the United States (by the way, in Europe, we nearly triple the attendance at the Essen Spiel). In 1968, there were a hundred attendees. In recent years, there have been over 50,000. And with more people, come more problems.
Cartatachan
The plan was truly masterful: instead of an armed robbery and creating a scene, two anonymous individuals approached Gen Con while the event was still being set up. They grabbed a pallet jack, went up to the first one they saw, and simply walked away with it in plain view of everyone, as if they were regular workers. They loaded it into their car, and off they went.
And what was on that pallet? Well, about $300,000 worth of collectible cards, mainly from ‘Magic’ and ‘Pokémon’. For a while, there were rumors that it might have contained the highly anticipated ‘Disney Lorcana’ set, a new game that had people waiting for up to 16 hours to get their hands on. However, the organizers themselves confirmed that they had all the packages they brought. For now, despite being caught on camera, the two individuals remain unidentified. A truly ingenious plan.
Card thieves are getting craftier: a few months ago in Indianapolis, a young man walked into a store and began stuffing Magic cards into a pizza delivery bag. In total, he made off with around $15,000 worth of merchandise, although no one was physically harmed. It’s worth noting that since a One Ring card sold for $2.6 million, people have realized there’s an investment opportunity in the world of collectible cards.
For now, here’s a piece of advice: if you have a hard-to-find card, like a Black Lotus, keep it under lock and key, lest someone stroll in with a pizza box and make off with it. That would be the last straw.
Some of the links added in the article are part of affiliate campaigns and may represent benefits for Softonic.
