$50,000 in Baseball Cards Stolen in Series of Break-Ins : Memorabilia: Shop owners suspect that professional robbers are responsible. Investigations are under way in Camarillo, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks.

Baseball card dealers across Ventura County think professional thieves are stalking their industry after a string of unsolved burglaries netted criminals more than $50,000 in rare cards this summer.

Police and sheriff’s deputies in Camarillo, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks are investigating the thefts, although detectives acknowledge that there is little chance of the cards being found.

Card shop owners said rapidly increasing prices and the difficulty of identifying stolen cards have led to the upswing in card theft.

“These thefts are definitely going on now because of the big interest in how this industry is booming,” baseball card shop owner Mike Toussau said.

Toussau’s Fillmore shop, The Card Dealer, was not hit in the wave of burglaries, but he said he understands the thieves’ motives. “It’s so easy to sell the cards. It’s not like there’s serial numbers on them or anything, and they’re worth more and more money all the time.”

Some collectors’ packs, which used to cost 50 cents and come with bubble gum, now sell for $7 in retail shops. Even young collectors shell out $10 to $15 for 1- or 2-year-old cards of popular stars such as the Seattle Mariners’ Ken Griffey Jr. And 10-year-old cards can cost hundreds of dollars.

Cards depicting Hall of Fame athletes during their glory days can fetch more than $10,000 at auctions or conventions.

Most of the Ventura County burglaries were “smash-and-dash jobs,” in which windows and display cases are broken, merchandise is taken and the thief flees before police arrive.

While most of the items stolen were packs of new cards, it is the theft of rare cards valued at more than $100 apiece that has worried dealers.

About $35,000 worth of cards were stolen in late September from collector Stan Crawford’s home. He had just finished sorting them in preparation for a weekend dealers convention.

All but a few thousand dollars’ worth were returned later in the week, with a bizarre note that Crawford said was apparently written by a parent apologizing for a child on drugs.

Crawford questioned the note’s authenticity, however, pointing out that two other dealers were each robbed of more than $50,000 worth of cards just before a convention in Anaheim this summer.

“Why would he steal baseball cards to buy money for drugs and not take the money and jewelry and silver sitting all around the house? I think he knew exactly what I had,” Crawford said.

At the Wild Pitch, a Simi Valley shop, more than $10,000 worth of older cards were taken in June.

“They walked past a lot of stuff that was worth a lot more than the stuff that they took, but they only wanted the old cards,” shop owner Tom Woolard said. “I think they must have cased my shop.”

Simi Valley Police Detective Doug Pederson, who is investigating the Wild Pitch break-in, agreed that the crime was well-planned. “They had to have some knowledge in the field,” he said.

“They had to be in the shop beforehand too, because they knew exactly what they wanted,” Pederson said.

The Wild Pitch was not insured against burglary at the time, Woolard said, in part because insurance companies said his security measures were inadequate.

Police, summoned by his alarm system, arrived at the shop minutes after the burglars broke the front window, he said, but the cards and thieves had vanished.

Since the robbery, Woolard has fortified his security with sliding iron bars on the windows, a motion detector system and hidden cameras.

“It’s ridiculous, the depths that you have to go to protect yourself, but without this, I’ve learned, you can take huge losses,” Woolard said.

A Sept. 14 burglary of a Moorpark sporting goods store netted thieves more than $6,000 in cards. It was another smash-and-dash crime.

“Whether it’s a collector or a dealer, there’s somebody behind this,” store owner Greg Sullivan said. “This is an investment item they’re after, $1,000 cards, not the sort of thing they’re going to go to a shop or a convention and sell.”

A Nolan Ryan rookie card valued at $900 and a 1966 Mickey Mantle card valued at $400 were among the items taken, he said.

Pederson said the incidents across the county may have been connected, but he noted that baseball memorabilia in general is coveted by thieves.

He also said the increasing value of baseball cards has thrust the collectibles into the ranks of items such as car stereos and designer glasses as “good risks for smash-and-dash thieves to go after.”

Two Camarillo shops, Harris Baseball Cards and Homer Llong Stadium, also were hit over the summer, but in those cases shop owners do not believe professional criminals are to blame.

Bob Johnson, co-owner of Harris Baseball Cards, said the thieves were probably card-collecting children, since they took mostly packs of new cards. Some of the opened packs were found very close to the store, with cards depicting popular players removed and those of unpopular players left scattered, Johnson said.