Up and vanished: Pokemon card worth $60,000 goes missing

The incredibly rare card was reportedly lost in the mail with the original buyer offering a reward of $1000 for any information regarding its whereabouts.

The longer I live in a capitalist society the more I begin to notice just how absurd the notion of “value” is. The fact that a Pokemon card is worth $60,000 (or roughly R851,000) is just absurd to me. I don’t want to take anything away from those who devoutly collect these trading cards…but that’s a whole house you could buy for that. Whatever your views on the market for rare Pokemon cards, a huge upset happened when the card in question, Trainer No. 3, was ordered by a collector, known as smpratte, but unfortunately, went missing – with his purchased item never reaching its final destination.

It’s estimated that only 18 copies of Trainer No. 3 exist in the world, making it one of the rarest Pokemon cards in existence. Smpratte has offered up a reward for any information regarding his purchase, stating that he is on good terms with the seller and that he believes the card was either lost due to negligence on behalf of the United States Postal Service or that someone merely thought the card was valuable and swiped it for themselves. In a YouTube video covering the matter of the missing card, smpratte didn’t mince his words regarding the situation. “So, it’s stopped in New York, who knows what happened then. My guess is because of the immense declaration on the package, you had some scumbag XXX Roflmaster420 who saw that between their vape and they thought it was a good idea to steal it, so either you have absolute negligence and incompetence of the packages lost or you have the other side: absolute lowlife scumbag who decided to steal this package”, said the collector in a YouTube video.

Due to the value of the card in question, if anyone has in fact stolen it that’s a felony in the USA. Theft of an item valued at over $50,000 is classified as grand larceny and can result in 15 years in prison, so it’s a pretty big deal a thief is caught. Look, whatever your feelings regarding the valuing of Pokemon cards, it’s gotta suck to be a collector of anything, pay all that money for something so rare, and then have some punk just swipe it, probably not even aware of how valuable the item is in the first place. I really do hope the thief is found, or in the best-case scenario, the postal service is able to find where exactly they misplaced the package.

Last Updated: July 10, 2019