Going To Jail For Baseball Cards

This is from my home town newspaper, for which I used to be a writer in the Sports Department, and tells the sad story of a Antony Candela and how taking some baseball cards leads to jail.

"Anthony J. Candela, 39, 204 E. Marshall St., faces one count of burglary to a building, which carries a maximum penalty of 12 1/2 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. He also was charged in Chippewa County Court with two counts of misdemeanor theft, with each charge carrying a maximum penalty of nine months in jail and a $10,000 fine. The cards were taken from the victim's home.

"Right from the start, we guessed it was an inside job," Chippewa County Sheriff Jim Kowalczyk said. "Very few people knew of that location."

According to the criminal complaint:

The victim kept 23 three-ring binders, each containing 100 to 600 cards, in a 4-foot-tall safe in his pantry area. He usually didn't keep the safe locked.

In June, he realized the cards were missing and wasn't sure how long they had been gone. The victim told authorities the cards were from 1887 to the 1960s, and he had calculated their total value based on card collector manuals.

One week later, Candela turned himself in to law enforcement, admitting he stole the cards in December and sold them to pawn shops from Wausau to Tomahawk."

The emphasis is mine. I know a lot of you haven't been to Wausau [popul. 38,000] or Tomahawk [popul. 3,600], Wisconsin but if I was a pawn shop owner in those towns and someone came in with cards from 1887 I would think something was up. It's just something you don't see and probably should have known better than to buy.