Thieves Steal $100K in Cards From Dunning Sports Card Shop

Thieves smashed the front window of Elite Sports Cards and Comics in Dunning early Monday and walked out with more than $100,000 in Pokémon and sports cards, leaving the owner shaken but determined to stay open.

The break-in happened around 2 a.m. at the shop located at 3406 N. Harlem Ave. Owner Ronnie Holloway, who lives about five minutes away, got a call and rushed over to find the front window destroyed and his inventory gutted. Two thieves were in and out within minutes.

“It was the worst feeling,” Holloway said. “I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

Chicago police said no one is in custody. Detectives are still investigating.

Holloway said the thieves appeared to be familiar with the store layout and knew exactly where the high-value merchandise was kept. They took a sealed case of newly released football cards worth $20,000 and cleaned out Pokémon card packs that Holloway had just stocked up on in preparation for Collect-A-Con, a trading card and anime convention scheduled for this weekend in Rosemont. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Holloway had deliberately built up inventory for the convention, which draws buyers and sellers from across the region, and now that stock is gone.

Tracing the stolen goods won’t be easy. Holloway said thieves typically break up sealed cases and sell individual cards, making it nearly impossible to track specific items back to a single theft. That’s a pattern familiar to anyone who follows the collectibles market, where the value of sealed Pokémon and sports card products has made small shops increasingly attractive targets.

This wasn’t Holloway’s first hit. His Lincoln Square location was burglarized twice in 2022. During the second break-in, a man cut out sections of brick surrounding the store’s back window, removed the window bars, and stole just under $100,000 in cards. Police eventually caught that man, but only four cards were recovered.

Monday’s burglary landed on top of losses Holloway said he still hadn’t fully recovered from.

“I did think about letting it go because it’s a hard blow. It’s not easy to bounce back, especially since I’m still recovering from the first [burglary],” he said. “I’m a small business, I’m not a big-box store. This is what I do to support my family.”

The collectibles theft problem runs wider than Dunning. Just last month, four people were robbed at gunpoint on the Southwest Side by a man targeting online Pokémon card sellers, part of a broader rise in crimes tied to the high-priced trading card market. The FBI’s art and cultural property crime unit, which tracks theft of high-value collectibles, has flagged the growing overlap between organized retail crime and the trading card market as a concern nationally.

For Holloway, the emotional weight of Monday’s break-in was compounded by who convinced him to keep going. His wife and two daughters, ages 4 and 8, pushed back when he talked about closing the shop for good. They reminded him why he got into sports cards collecting in the first place.

That was enough.

His wife launched a GoFundMe with a goal of raising $25,000 after the burglary, and Holloway said he plans to rebuild his inventory and stay in business. The goal covers only a fraction of the $100,000 loss, and Holloway was clear-eyed about how difficult the road ahead looks, particularly for a sole proprietor without the cushion of a large retail chain behind him.

Small card shops have become part of the fabric of Chicago’s neighborhood retail economy, stocking hyper-local memorabilia alongside national collectible products and building loyal customer bases that corporate chains don’t serve. The National Sports Collectors Convention, which has historically drawn major Chicago participation, reflects just how seriously collectors take the market. A single sealed case of the right product can represent months of revenue for a store Holloway’s size.

The shop at 3406 N. Harlem Ave. remained open in the days after the burglary. A collectable Chicago Bears statue was among the items broken during the break-in. Holloway said he intends to be at Collect-A-Con in Rosemont this weekend, even with a depleted inventory, because canceling would mean another setback he can’t afford.