Rare Gretzky, McDavid rookie cards stolen from shop in northwest Edmonton

Another collectible shop in the Edmonton area has been hit by thieves, prompting a buyer beware of hot deals on rare Wayne Gretzky and Connor McDavid rookie cards.

The latest smash-and-grab happened at Froggers House of Cards on 118 Avenue and 156 Street in northwest Edmonton.

Security footage obtained by CTV News Edmonton shows a silver four-door sedan backing into the parking lot at 2:53 a.m. last Wednesday.

The passenger then smashed in the front window and dove into the store head first. The driver grabbed a large bag off of the backseat before doing the same.

With alarms going off and seven cameras catching everything, they can be seen searching with flashlights until they found the good stuff.

"The primary items they got were some very high-end Wayne Gretzky rookie cards," employee Kris Maves said.

"The nicest of which was an 8.5 Topps, which probably has a sticker price of about $11,000 on it."

Four Gretzky cards were taken before the thieves turned their attention to a modern-day superstar.

"Our McDavid case, that usually sits right up there. We had a sticker price, a very reasonable price, of $15,500 on that," Maves said.

That case was sealed and likely contained two or three McDavid rookie cards, Maves said.

"The more he does, the closer he gets to and inevitably does win a cup, that stuff is so hard to find and virtually irreplaceable," he explained.

The thieves drove away about four minutes after arriving. In all, Maves said about $50,000 in merchandise was stolen.

He believes the cards will eventually show up somewhere, because they’ve seen thieves bring stolen cards into their shop.

Earlier this year, a worker at Froggers spotted an ultra-rare Gretzky card that was stolen from a shop in Leduc, leading police to make an arrest in that case.

Staff at Froggers are asking anyone who spots too-good-to-be-true deals on McDavid or Gretzky rookie cards to call them or the police.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's David Ewasuk