Kentucky Trading Card Stores Are Now Popular Targets For Thieves

Thieves in Kentucky are targeting trading card stores in order to make a quick buck.

On June 1, a thief broke into Louisville Sports Cards through the store's ceiling and made off with several boxes of sports cards. A similar heist happened to two different Lexington stores in May and April.

One thief managed to make off with $25,000 worth of cards from Jimmy’s Kentucky Roadshow Shop in about a minute, the Lexington Herald Leader reported.

Trading cards are no longer a hobby limited to kids and diehard sports fans. Interest in trading cards picked up during the pandemic, which has turned the hobby into a big business.

“People see quick money and they jump in,” Jimmy Mahan, of Jimmy’s Kentucky Roadshow Shop, told the Lexington Herald Leader.

Thieves tend to steal unopened card packs because, according to Mahan, they're virtually untraceable. Thanks to a high demand, unopened packs that cost $10 in a store can be flipped on eBay or other reselling sites for twice that.

Mahan doesn't think the interest in trading cards will dip any time soon, so it's the small business owners who will end up footing the bill for thieves' greed.

"It's heartbreaking, it's gut-wrenching, it's terrible. It's all replaceable; that is fortunate.You don't expect someone to scale the walls essentially and cut a hole walls and just force their way in. It's new to me," Chris Buckler, owner of Louisville Sports Cards, told WBRD. Buckler expects to pay more than $65,000 to fix his store's ceiling.

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