Possible million dollar theft @ Dallas Card Show
nauvcire1
Posts: 69 ✭✭✭
nauvcire1
Posts: 69 ✭✭✭
nauvcire1
Posts: 69 ✭✭✭
Comments
Was just about to post this!
Many of you deal in high end vintage, and maybe know Ashsh Jai. I think that is the correct spelling of his name. I do not know him personally, but I see his posts on a vintage site on facebook. He had a carrying case taken from the Dallas show, and he personally posted the contents he had stolen. If everything he posted was stolen this is worse than the Best Western debacle. Easily north of a million dollars worth of cards taken. Absolutely crazy, and horrible!
Sorry he was a victim of theft, but his prices on those are ridiculously too high.
Sorry, I didnt refresh my screen before I posted my thread. didnt mean to steal your thunder here.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Not worse than Best Western in value nor shameful disgusting actions by Memory Lane.
Sucks the dude had 400k in cards stolen.
First of all, his list prices are irrelevant to this situation. I have bought quite a few cards from him in the past both on FB and in person. On top of that, Ashsh is one of the good guys in this business and is always negotiable. Roughly $2 million in cards stolen.
Late 60's and early to mid 70's non-sports
I am sure the prices were arrived at to be negotiable, regardless, it was a massive theft.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Most were picked at SMR and you negotiate at current market
I like that he made it easy. just divide by 2.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XXoa-BR5OM4 Woman in white in the isle one over seems to be in flow with it all?
5:13-17 video mark top right corner she seems to even point an odd way when it all starts.
Behind the other big booth with a banner. Also seem to be going with the flow and has her eyes on the situation and walking the isle almost aware of it all?
Sorry to see this happen.
That is a great video and this is a real shame. Hopefully they catch the perps.
As Jerry Seinfeld said: "People..........they're the worst."
He's going to have a hard time convincing his insurance that kind of value is the actual price. From my POV, he probably hiked a price on top of the FMV to make a better profit and to offset his high costs for being a vendor at the show.
I would hope most dealers are operating as a business. What I mean is he can offset any profit by deducting his operating expenses. You generally need some pretty specific insurance for theft of collectibles. Anyways.
Absolutely. The big problem that I see that happens is sometimes people like to declare the sticker value and try to gain the profit they could have made. A big no-no ... best of luck to him to either find the cards or to declare and recover the actual value of his losses.
Regardless of his sticker price - it is a huge amount and likely a loss of his biggest sales weekend of the year at The National. I feel for him big time. He is not in business to get back his purchase price on cards.
Big shows which have this much money in the room should have better security. There's so many problems with this whole situation.
I've always been shocked at how much value dealers just randomly pull in and out of these shows without any real security. In addition to things like this theft it seems dealers could just as easily get hit while in the parking lot.
They all seem like events that are ripe for criminals. How long will shows last if these things become more common and they don't beef up security a LOT?
I agree they need more security. At most of the big shows the grading companies are there and they probably have some serious cards in their care.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
Wow you are right. Those are probably not scanned in yet - come from a ton of different sources and are pretty unidentifiable in every way and a completely random grouping of cards. I hope they have something figured out to secure them! Not a big grader of my own raw cards but do a small submission every National. My loss would be small but collectively … scary!
"shameful disgusting actions by Memory Lane"
What actions were those? Some folks here jumped the gun accusing ML of acting inappropriately with regards to letting the auctions continue but that was at the behest of law enforcement.
Or is just criticizing ML for shipping the cards to a Best Western? In that case, it isn't shameful or disgusting just naïve to think something that valuable wouldn't be targeted for theft.
Robb
Not sure moronic is whole lot better than shameful. Doesn't seems like they get better prices or offer lower fees so why use them over larger auction house?
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
I'm a bit surprised they have not been caught
1000000% agree
Not all crooks are the same and not all situations are the same. In the Best Western case it was dumb luck that the cards fell into the thief's hands, he really had no plan.
In the card show case this was thought out and planned. You will not be seeing these cards at the local pawn shop. Whomever stole these will have a plan in place to slowly sell these off.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
If you were a crook, I wonder how you go about slowly releasing these.
You certainly have to crack them out of the flips because the numbers can be tracked. You also almost certainly do not want to stagger them in for regrading because I'm sure the skilled folks over at N54 who can identify idential defects on cards in different flips as compared to the stolen ones could lead to tracking who submitted the cards for grading. It would seem slowly selling raw and spreading them around in different places is the only viable alternative, but you have to find people willing to pay cash for some key ungraded cards.
But, I suppose if you're the crook, getting less money is better than trying to max out what they can get. Hopefully they get greedy and get caught.
They obtained the cards for 'free' so I'd guess they don't mind selling them for pennies on the dollar.
I hope they get caught and punished. I also fear they're like some stolen artwork and they never resurface in a way to trace who took them.
If you've gone through security at an airport in the last 23 years, your face is in a database. I hope they had some of those Mission Impossible disguises. It might take some time to gather all the evidence and connect the dots and identify all involved, but cover your faces next time.
If I were a crook who didn’t want to be caught I would buy out a couple of good sized raw collections to add to these cards after I cracked them out. I would then rent a furnished house somewhere for a month in a completely different part of the country. I would hire an older guy to sit there and pretend he has dementia to be my dad who amassed this collection. Have him say stuff like “ahhh that’s a card I remember having that bought a long time ago”. Sell the whole collection raw and disappear to wherever I live.
>
Like Keyser Soze
Supposedly the thief stacked chairs and helped clean up for 1 hour before he stole the briefcase.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
where the crooks have nothing into them, the "smart" play would be to just hold onto them for 5 years or so and do nothing. then, when everyone has forgotten about them, start staggering them into the grading companies along with other cards.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I'm thinking the crooks submitting themselves would not be wise, even five years down the road. Those detectives over at N54 are so good at comparing cards that I wouldn't want any link to me and a newly graded card with the same imperfections as a known stolen card.
Send them to GMA.....
Seems a logical assumption they might try to launder some of this stuff at the National where there are many potential buyers with cash.
Gobble.
I'd have to believe the thieves have probably already fenced the entire lot.
I agree. Crooks are out for quick cash. They are not looking at holding on for investments, or cracking out and regrading, nor do they care about cert numbers. Whoever has the cash can have the cards. They are probably all sold off by now and nowhere near actual values. The new owners literally got them for a steal of a price.
Some may recall that movie about the Lufthansa Heist which is a true story. The thieves easily walked off with a suitcase full of millions in cash.
The same "group" who did that may be involved with this in some manner. If not directly stealing it, then acting as a fence for the thieves.
How would it work if new owners are discovered to have stolen cards? Of course…the cards would be returned to rightful owners…but would new owners be out of the money paid for the stolen cards?
I'm pretty sure that is how it works. If the new owner paid a small % of the actual value, they had to know they were stolen cards.
That could be one of the most ridiculous things I have seen written on these boards, and that's saying something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_heist
Lufthansa heist from Wiki
Thanks, but living in NYC for all of my 56 years has made me very well versed on the Lufthansa heist that took place......wait for it......46 years ago.
Well then you should also be very well versed on the Five Families. Hint, I'm not talking about any families who may own the Yankees or Mets. 😉
I enjoy watching the podcasts from Sammy Gravano, Michael Franzese, and others with similar backgrounds. They describe their former life in detail. Whether it was 46 years ago or today, organized crime being involved in a caper such as this would be right up their alley.
I have Gene Hackman playing the guy who stacked the chairs and grabbed the case.
Sure he’s retired but this is the kind of script which brings him back for one more.
Always the possibility that the thieves where collectors themselves and the cards never get sold.
How much did it sale for is one of the funniest and most ignorant things I've ever heard.
Works of valuable art sometimes get stolen from a museum, never to be seen again in public, or at least not for many decades. The stolen art winds up in the private collection of some ultra-rich tycoon who is only interested in the pleasure of viewing it himself. Never displaying it to anyone else.
Sometimes after that owner passes, the art get discovered at his estate, and then returned to its rightful owner.
Add a few murders to the plot, along with a love scene with a beautiful actress, and the movie gets done. 😁
Well if its the same group that did the Lufthansa Heist then we know its definitely Robert De Niro when everyone else was either killed off or passed away like Ray Liotta did recently. I wonder if there will be a reward once De Niro gets caught using the alias Jimmy Conway? Maybe getting to choose one card from the lot. 😎
Eric
Erikthredd’s MJ Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/publishedset/395035
Erikthredd’s Nike Air Jordan Collection: https://www.psacard.com/psasetregistry/basketball/key-card-sets/nike-poster-cards-michael-jordan-1985-1992/alltimeset/408486
There's a time honored phrase:"There is no honor among thieves". Meaning, maybe those involved take each other out, with but one left to enjoy the spoils.
On the podcasts mentioned, as told by the former members, this group on various capers, sometimes go thru much more effort for a lot less money than these cards.
To automatically rule out their possible participation in this card heist, especially when they have a long time presence in the Dallas area, would be quite naive.
Hopefully they soon get caught, and we shall know the actual story.
You're exactly right. The guy who actually took the suitcase, there is a chance he may be "gone." Especially with the video of him.
We shall see.