A theft involving nearly $1 million worth of sports and Pokémon cards has turned into a collector’s nightmare, with thousands of valuable collectibles still unaccounted for after a FedEx truck was robbed outside a major California grading company.
Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) said Friday that 6,451 graded collectibles were taken from a carrier truck after it collected customer orders from the company’s Santa Ana facility on Oct. 13.
PSA is working with the FBI and Santa Ana police to recover the missing cards. The company has released a complete inventory of the stolen items and deactivated their certification numbers to make them more difficult to sell.
“Recovering every stolen item and returning it to its owner is our top priority,” PSA said in a statement.
The company has provided investigators with surveillance video, shipping manifests and records detailing each item. PSA said it remains in daily contact with law enforcement as the investigation continues. No arrests have been announced.
Authorities said the theft involved nearly 250 packages and previously valued the haul at approximately $963,000. The FedEx truck was reportedly left unattended for 60 to 90 minutes outside PSA’s headquarters while the driver was away, and its lock was forced open.
“The pallets contained various trading cards, including, but not limited to, sports cards and Pokémon cards,” the Santa Ana Police Department previously told The California Post.
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The loss has caused widespread distress among collectors, many of whom spent years building collections filled with rare and highly prized cards.
Prominent card collector and YouTuber Sky-B Cards said he paid $8,468 in grading fees for a 104-card submission that had insurance coverage of up to $156,000.
“These were 104 cards that I’ve accumulated over two years. There are many irreplaceable cards in here that I will never see again,” Sky-B said in a video update.
PSA has distributed the complete list of stolen collectibles to marketplaces, auction houses and digital commerce platforms, which are watching for the items. The list includes certification numbers and serial numbers for cards issued with unique identifiers.
PSA has also begun notifying affected customers and refunding grading fees tied to the stolen orders. Customers whose shipments used PSA return labels can start the compensation process, and the company said payments have already begun going out.
Compensation will reflect each item’s fair market value, up to the maximum amount declared for insurance purposes. Collectors who accept compensation will still be able to reclaim their cards if the items are recovered in the future.
The company apologized to those affected and said its security procedures helped it safely process and return more than 99.9% of the items entrusted to PSA over the past year.