{"id":292334,"date":"2026-06-01T22:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T22:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/292334\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T22:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T22:30:08","slug":"jacksonville-game-shop-seeks-publics-help-in-identifying-pokemon-card-thieves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/292334\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville game shop seeks public&#8217;s help in identifying Pok\u00e9mon card thieves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The owner of Video Game Rescue is asking for help after he says thieves broke into a display case, stealing thousands of dollars in Pok\u00e9mon cards.<\/p>\n<p>JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A popular video game store in Jacksonville had thousands of dollars worth of Pok\u00e9mon cards stolen on Sunday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Dustin Gartenbush, the owner of Video Game Rescue says around 11 that morning, he got a call from one of his employees, telling him the news.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My store manager called me and said, &#8216;Hey, I think we have an issue,'&#8221; Gartenbush said. &#8220;I think I caught somebody stealing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, the store has plenty of cameras, and the manager was able <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/p\/14dmz91aVHX\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">to grab photos <\/a>of who they believe the suspects are.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They grabbed about 5 or 6 graded Pok\u00e9mon cards,&#8221; Gartenbush said.<\/p>\n<p>Graded cards have been evaluated by a professional for authenticity and quality and kept in a plastic coating to keep them as close to &#8220;new&#8221; as possible. They can be pretty expensive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trading cards have grown in resale value, and thieves have noticed. A family-owned card store in North Carolina had more than\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstcoastnews.com\/article\/news\/nation-world\/thieves-get-away-with-45000-worth-of-pokemon-and-magic-cards\/507-bbfb8535-ab8f-4ed6-b7e2-b8e3e0655443\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" id=\"isPasted\">$45,000 worth of Magic: The Gathering and Pok\u00e9mon cards<\/a> stolen in early May.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These cards range anywhere from like $300 to a little under $1000 and there&#8217;s about 5 or 6 cards he took,&#8221; Gartenbush said.<\/p>\n<p>The cards at Video Game Rescue were on commission and belonged to someone else who was hoping to sell the cards to one of Gartenbush&#8217;s customers. Now, both parties are out quite a bit of money.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It hurts me, it does,&#8221; Gartenbush said. &#8220;But it hurts the person that I was trying to help as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Video Game Rescue posted the photos to Facebook and within 24 hours received dozens of comments and hundreds of reshares.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I made a post saying that we had gotten basically robbed and how I was to my stomach and how it made me feel,&#8221; Gartenbush said. &#8220;And to have these people come to my side, it really touched my heart.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gartenbush opened Video Game Rescue 12 years ago as a passion project surrounding his lifelong hobby of collecting video games.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was a nerd for a very long time, even in high school,&#8221; Gartenbush said. &#8220;It&#8217;s always been something that I loved.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Jacksonville Sheriff&#8217;s Office is now investigating. In the meantime, Gartenbush says he&#8217;s going to keep operating as normal. But he&#8217;s also getting some new locks and upgraded display cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This isn&#8217;t gonna hold me back at all, not at all,&#8221; Gartenbush said. &#8220;I love what I do. I&#8217;m gonna keep on keeping on.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of Video Game Rescue is asking for help after he says thieves broke into a display&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-292334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}