Large Wayne Gretzky memorabilia collection worth tens of thousands stolen

Aron Gratias had been collecting Wayne Gretzky memorabilia for just about his entire life. The Saskatchewan native told Global News he first fell in love with the Edmonton Oilers as a child, and then the individual. A family member's business connection to Gretzky in the 1980s helped Gratias amass a collection of hockey sticks, pucks, cards, and jerseys, many of them autographed, that he continued to build on as an adult. He hoped to pass the collection on to this own child some day. Now, it's all gone.

While moving from one home to another, Gratias put the collection into a storage container on his father-in-law's rural property outside of Shellbrook, Sask. On Sunday, his father-in-law noticed someone had broken into the container, and everything from the collection was gone.

"I think they were specifically after the collection and it seems to be all they went for," Gratias said, noting there were other things in the container such as tools and household items that were not taken.

Among the ten thousand hockey cards that were taken was a Gretzky O-Pee-Chee rookie card rated a PSA 8. A spokesperson with Professional Sports Authenticator said that makes it worth around $20,000.

Because the card was graded, it has a unique barcode that can be useful for victims of theft, as long as it's not removed.

According to police, the complete list of stolen items, estimated to be worth just shy of $100,000, include:

-19 stolen Gretzky jerseys

-Autographed large Gretzky pictures and a large painting

-Autographed sticks

-Autographed pucks all in display cases

-Close to 10,000 cards, including 2,200 of Gretzky, some autographed and one framed Gretzky PSA 8 rookie card

-1979 Mattel dolls still in boxes

-Figurines, some of which were autographed

-Team Canada autographed photos

According to Gratias, he's received emails from collectors as far away as Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland saying they are on high alert.

Anyone with information about the theft should contact Ahtahkakoop RCMP at 306-468-2969 or call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.

Source: Global News

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