We’re an odd species, what with our predilection for shortage, even when that scarce merchandise is a bit of cardboard with a cartoon drawn on it. So it’s that 62-year-old South Carolina resident Christopher Polydorou is alleged to have had his dwelling damaged into, and his $500,000 Pokémon card assortment stolen.
Polydorou isn’t simply somebody who dug out a gem mint assortment of playing cards from his attic and obtained fortunate. The insurance coverage dealer, as reported by The Smoking Gun, is a collector of many forms of playing cards, and shops his collections in a temperature-controlled room inside his 6,800-square-foot dwelling on the waterfront. The Pokémon playing cards sat alongside extra conventional cardboard compilations, like baseball, soccer and basketball playing cards, occupying a devoted room within the seven-bedroom lodging.
A Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Workplace report from July 13 states that the division acquired a cellphone name from Polydorou, claiming that “an unknown individual entered his assortment room and eliminated one and a half packing containers of collectible Pokémon card [sic] valued at half a billion {dollars}.” Thankfully for Polydorou, and remaining scraps of sanity left on the planet, the “billion” was a mistake made by the officer, the precise worth of the stolen playing cards apparently amounting to half a million {dollars}. Nevertheless, he additionally informed TSG that it was in truth three packing containers stolen, not one-and-a-half.
Polydorou went on to say that the one individuals who’d entered his “collectibles room” (which I desperately hope is supplied with invisible laser beams) since October final 12 months have been some “males from a HVAC firm” (air-con repairmen), employed by his 91-year-old mom.
Chatting with The Smoking Gun, Polydorou defined that these have been sealed, unopened packing containers of over 20-year-old playing cards, together with “a worthwhile Japanese version.” As such, they may in fact include single playing cards value near the overall estimated worth.
Latest years have seen the worth of Pokémon playing cards go a bit foolish, largely inflated by millionaire YouTubers not having sufficient actual issues of their lives, thus seeing the worth of particular playing cards rising exponentially. It’s clearly a bubble that may’t be sustained, not least as a result of it’s not a self-replenishing market (your new card in the present day received’t be value $500,000 in 20 years time), however Polydorou’s assortment may have been one in every of only a few remaining sealed packing containers of early playing cards that also have that potential worth. The Pokémon Firm has additionally made a concentrated effort of late to deal with the hypothesis market, reportedly taking care to print far more playing cards within the hopes of serving to curb the scarcity driving up the costs.