Over 2 million in baseball cards stolen at Strongsville Hotel
So story hit the news in Cleveland a couple of days ago. IDK - but something truly smells fishy here.
For background - Strongsville has had one of the larger sports card and memorabilia shows in Ohio for some time. I can remember many years ago coming up here to Strongsville and going South to Sharonville. A lot of big name buyers would come through and wasn’t uncommon to see some pretty high end stuff being shown off - both publicly and privately.
Now what’s got me questioning the story is the story. Many of these cards were recently sold at auction - ungraded with a “guaranteed” grade - meaning that the auction house would have them graded and if for any reason the cards didn’t grade as promised - the sale was nullified.
So we are talking 54 cards or so - and they simply FedEx’d them to the hotel - where a rep from the grading service would complete grading and slab the cards. To me - that’s lunacy for that valuable of a “collection”. How much is a plane ticket to CLE ? A grand for first class ? It’s not like we are talking something so bulky it wouldn’t fit in a briefcase - and the chances of a lost/stolen package being shipped to a mid level hotel front desk and handled by a bunch of $12 an hour workers is just no where near the risk.
Jewelers for example regularly buy from diamond brokers - and it would be nothing for one of these guys to walk around with 4-5 million in gemstones. But they damn sure would never just box them up - FedEx to their hotel and ask the front desk to hold them until arrival.
The whole thing just seems funny - obviously - selling these cards would be near impossible on the open market - it would be like stealing a work of art. Unlike diamonds - you can’t break them down and sell. Then there’s the whole bit with no grading prior to sale. Most stuff is graded/slabbed before sale. Again - people who pay hundreds of thousands for stuff are funny - they don’t want promises - they want KNOWN authenticity/grading. Just seems far too convenient for the auction house here - oops - we lost the stuff…insurance owes a few million now.
Buyers are likely not out a cent - since the auction house was responsible for the product until the grading was completed (as condition of sale - product needed to meet a minimum grade). But guaranteed they held insurance on this stuff - and likely some serious investigation going on. Doubtful they will ever publicly say what they find - but would be interesting if they do. In the mean time - if someone offers you a ‘52 Mickey Mantle or a T-206 Wagner in mint condition - maybe, just maybe it’s real.
So story hit the news in Cleveland a couple of days ago. IDK - but something truly smells fishy here.
For background - Strongsville has had one of the larger sports card and memorabilia shows in Ohio for some time. I can remember many years ago coming up here to Strongsville and going South to Sharonville. A lot of big name buyers would come through and wasn’t uncommon to see some pretty high end stuff being shown off - both publicly and privately.
Now what’s got me questioning the story is the story. Many of these cards were recently sold at auction - ungraded with a “guaranteed” grade - meaning that the auction house would have them graded and if for any reason the cards didn’t grade as promised - the sale was nullified.
So we are talking 54 cards or so - and they simply FedEx’d them to the hotel - where a rep from the grading service would complete grading and slab the cards. To me - that’s lunacy for that valuable of a “collection”. How much is a plane ticket to CLE ? A grand for first class ? It’s not like we are talking something so bulky it wouldn’t fit in a briefcase - and the chances of a lost/stolen package being shipped to a mid level hotel front desk and handled by a bunch of $12 an hour workers is just no where near the risk.
Jewelers for example regularly buy from diamond brokers - and it would be nothing for one of these guys to walk around with 4-5 million in gemstones. But they damn sure would never just box them up - FedEx to their hotel and ask the front desk to hold them until arrival.
The whole thing just seems funny - obviously - selling these cards would be near impossible on the open market - it would be like stealing a work of art. Unlike diamonds - you can’t break them down and sell. Then there’s the whole bit with no grading prior to sale. Most stuff is graded/slabbed before sale. Again - people who pay hundreds of thousands for stuff are funny - they don’t want promises - they want KNOWN authenticity/grading. Just seems far too convenient for the auction house here - oops - we lost the stuff…insurance owes a few million now.
Buyers are likely not out a cent - since the auction house was responsible for the product until the grading was completed (as condition of sale - product needed to meet a minimum grade). But guaranteed they held insurance on this stuff - and likely some serious investigation going on. Doubtful they will ever publicly say what they find - but would be interesting if they do. In the mean time - if someone offers you a ‘52 Mickey Mantle or a T-206 Wagner in mint condition - maybe, just maybe it’s real.
