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Pokémon cards were first released in 1996 and have been around for 28 years. With the increasing influence of the IP and the surge in player attention, the positioning of Pokémon cards has gradually changed from board game props to collectibles. More and more Pokémon cards have been sold at sky-high prices due to their rarity. In turn, this has attracted the attention of interested parties.

In recent years, there have been more and more cases of "zero-dollar purchases" in stores selling Pokémon cards, and the losses have been increasing. Recently, a store called Total Cards in the UK suffered two thefts in a row, one when no one was around and the other in front of the clerk. During this period, the loss was as high as more than one million pounds. (About 9.6 million yuan)

They were like the "little mute" in "GTAOL" who planned a big move, with a strict arrangement and plan. A big hole was opened in the wall of the warehouse, and the camera in the warehouse was adjusted. According to the on-site records, this "zero-dollar purchase" lasted for more than 40 minutes, and a large number of Pokémon cards were placed on a pre-prepared truck and taken away.

For shop owners, most of these losses can be compensated by insurance. However, lost Pokémon cards are not so easy to recover. Because these valuable Pokémon cards cannot be traced by numbers like banknotes. As long as they can be confirmed to be authentic, they will be traded away from the market very quickly.

Coincidentally, similar incidents are also common in Japan, the birthplace of Pokémon cards. In 2022, a card game store in Tokyo lost more than 100 cards. Although they are small in size, their value is not bad at all. The estimated loss exceeded 10 million yen (about 460,000 yuan), which is more than the equivalent of gold.

It is worth mentioning that none of the other One Piece cards and Yu-Gi-Oh cards in this card store were lost. The person who came to commit the theft was obviously premeditated.

Due to the frequent occurrence of such incidents and the high value of Pokémon cards themselves, local police in Japan have invested a lot of time and energy in Pokémon card theft cases.

In 2023, the Yamanashi Prefecture police cracked a Pokémon card-related case, and the 25-year-old suspect, Tomokawa Murakami, was arrested while stealing from a store. The police seized 11,398 stolen Pokémon cards from his home, and the case was also on the news as a typical follow-up.

However, the police's use of rubber bands to tie up the Pokémon cards for display was unexpectedly questioned by local Japanese netizens. Considering the paper nature of Pokémon cards, Japanese netizens believed that the police were undermining their value. This incident once became a hot topic on Japanese Twitter, and the local police eventually had to explain that these were low-value cards.

Combining brand influence, artistic value, investment potential, community activities, emotional factors, diverse choices and official support, Pokémon cards now show extraordinary value as collectibles. Such a commodity can no longer be viewed as a simple ACG product. In order to prevent such incidents from happening again, it is urgent for merchants to improve their protective measures.

So what do you think about this?