Seattle police arrested a man who allegedly stole “about $40,000 worth” of collectible cards for Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering.
According to the SPD Blotter, the unidentified man worked as a temporary employee at a warehouse on Leary Ave. in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. He stole the cards from a business that was relocating operations from the warehouse, according to police.
The alleged thief was caught when the manager at the warehouse found cards similar to the missing inventory being sold on an unspecified online marketplace, and placed an order. When the package arrived, the return address matched the suspect’s, at which point police got involved, according to the SPD Blotter.
Seattle police subsequently recovered “a majority” of the stolen cards. The suspect has been booked into King County Jail for theft and trafficking in stolen property.
A manager at the nearby Mox Boarding House gaming store in Ballard told GeekWire he had no knowledge of the theft.
Magic: The Gathering, created by Richard Garfield, celebrated its 30th anniversary last year. Players compete against one another with custom decks of cards, in an intricate game that’s meant to reflect a duel between powerful wizards. In addition to making and selling physical cards, Wizards of the Coast also maintains several video games based on Magic, such as Magic: The Gathering – Arena.
Many of the best cards in Magic are also deliberately printed in lower quantities, which has resulted in a robust secondary market for buying and selling Magic cards. It’s not strange for individual cards to go for 2- and 3-digit sums on sites like eBay. Last year, rapper Post Malone set an all-time record for Magic collectors when he reportedly paid $2.64 million for a single, unique Magic card.
Further, Wizards of the Coast has recently made moves to deliberately appeal to the Magic collectors’ market with initiatives like its Secret Lair collections. These are limited-edition reprints and cards that often pursue a specific theme, such as crossovers with other intellectual properties. Some Secret Lair cards are produced in such limited supply that a relative handful of them could’ve been worth most of the $40,000 theft.
The most recent expansion for Magic, the mystery-themed Murders at Karlov Manor, debuted earlier this month. This is Magic’s 99th expansion, to be followed in April by the Wild West-themed Outlaws at Thunder Junction.
Coincidentally, Renton, Wash.-based Wizards of the Coast also unveiled a new Secret Lair “drop” on Tuesday, which is based upon the universe of the Fallout video games. Fallout, currently owned and published by Microsoft subsidiary Bethesda Softworks, is a black comedy/action series that’s set in the U.S. after a devastating nuclear war. An episodic live-action Fallout show is scheduled to premiere on Amazon Prime on April 12.
Errata, Feb. 22: Removed incorrect information about the next Magic expansion.
