Earlier in October, authorities revealed that a FedEx truck reportedly containing nearly $1 million in cards graded by the Professional Sports Authenticator had suddenly gone missing. A couple of weeks later, the apparent theft of 6,451 slabs — many of which contained Pokémon cards — is being scrutinized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. PSA is a service used by collectors to determine the quality of a card.
When you see headlines about a Pokémon card being worth millions, that estimation is probably based on the grade the card received from PSA (10 being the highest). While PSA insures cards during their assessment and return, high value cards might still have to change hands multiple times before reaching their destination. Shipments can and do go missing, though usually not on this kind of scale — hence the FBI's involvement.
In this case, a FedEx truck containing PSA cards in Santa Ana was apparently raided on October 13, sometime after the carrier picked up the graded cards. PSA says it is already working toward ensuring all of its affected customers receive a refund for grading services, and it is compensating customers based on the "fair market value" of each item. While these measures are a courtesy to ensure that customers don't have to wait until the conclusion of the investigation, collectors are arguably at the mercy of whatever the service determines to be the proper amount of restitution.
Based on previous cases involving lost cards, that value could be significantly less than what collectors were expecting to receive from the sale of a graded card. This internal valuation process also explains the discrepancy between internet reports that the cards were worth millions of dollars and PSA's recent declaration that the overall value is actually just under $1 million. Some onlookers are already calling it "the worst trading card theft of all time." You can peruse the full list of lost cards here.
PSA said that it has shared "video footage, shipment manifests, and item-level records" with the FBI and local authorities, with whom it is apparently in contact with daily until the matter is resolved. The grading service, which asserted 99.9% of items in its care have historically been returned to their owners, has nonetheless vowed to continue assessing its security protocols. "We remain committed to locating and recovering all items, regardless of whether its owner has already been compensated," a blog post by PSA reads.
"If your items are recovered at any point in the future, you will be given the choice of keeping your compensation or receiving your item back."
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