A vintage card dealer at the Dallas Card Show was packing up his car at the end of the day when he realized he was missing a massive display case filled with high-end baseball cards Sunday.
"It was the one with all the meat," said Ashish Jain, a lifelong collector who has worked the last three years as a dealer. "They knew which one to take."
In the case was approximately $2 million in cards, including six Mickey Mantle 1952 Topps cards worth more than $400,000 combined – a PSA 1 (marked at $32,500), a BVG 1.5 ($31,500), a PSA 1.5 ($37,500), a PSA 2 ($46,000), a PSA 2.5+ ($90,000) and a PSA 6, which Jain was selling for $175,000.
Also stolen was a Tom Seaver 1967 Topps rookie in a SGC 10 ($90,000), a Joe Jackson 1916 4 Sport News in a PSA 6 ($60,000) and a Willie Mays 1952 Topps in a PSA 7 ($40,000).
On Monday, Jain offered a $70,000 reward for information that leads to the recovery of the stolen items.
Jain told cllct he believes it was a targeted attack. "They were scouting us, watching us the whole time," he said.
Jain said he had a chance to review video footage provided by the Dallas Sports Card Show. The show takes place six weekends a year at the Marriott Dallas Allen Hotel & Convention Center in Allen, Texas.
Allen Police confirmed to cllct the theft had been reported and said an investigation was underway.
"It was grainy," said Jain, who is based in Dallas. "We're trying to get better pictures tomorrow."
Here is the best footage I have at the moment. In this video my team (the two african american boys with the afros, and the guy in the bright lime sweater in the back) Were carefully distracted by the 3 people you see in hats showing their phones. pic.twitter.com/ZNs3StGLjC
— Jay (@cardzzzzz4u) July 8, 2024
Jain said there were four men, and one of the men on the video is pretending to put away chairs, he said. In the footage, which has been posted on social media, one of the men is talking to Jain's son, while another man, who was stacking chairs, takes the case.
"They said they are going to dust the chairs and try to get fingerprints," said Jain, who told cllct he had filed a report with the police.
If police can pick something up, they can then cross check the fingerprints in their system to see whether there is a match.
This is the second massive theft to rock the collectibles industry this year. In May, $2 million in cards sent by auction house Memory Lane to the Best Western Hotel in Strongsville, Ohio, was stolen. Police found 52 of 54 cards at the home of a hotel employee.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectible market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.