Heartbroken Canadian pleads with New Yorkers for help after MetroCard collection stolen

He hopes to get his MetroCard collection back on track.

A broken-hearted Canadian MetroCard collector – yes, people do collect them – is turning to the people of the Big Apple for help to replenish his stolen transportation treasure.

Tech consultant Jeffrey Andrew, 26, lost his cherished and ever-growing stack of 50 MetroCards when a thief broke into his Toronto home in December, stealing old headphones, clothes and a box of Metro souvenirs.

“I was devastated,” Andrew said. “I’m not a very money guy. I’m much more interested in nostalgia and meaningful things.”

As more New Yorkers move to OMNY’s click-to-play payment system, Andrew has begged online residents to send him their blank or expired transit cards that are gathering dust in drawers, hoping to resume his collection.

His stolen MetroCards — including a framed variant from David Bowie’s limited edition 2018 edition, as well as his very first yellow MetroCard, bought on a trip in 2014 — mean “much more” to me than they do to ordinary residents. New York, Andrew groaned.

“It would be almost like if you went on a trip and it was the best trip of your life and you got a souvenir and then it was stolen from you and you have no way of getting it in your own country. “.

At least one collector, freelance photojournalist Lev Radin, who has purchased nearly all variants of the MetroCard, told the hapless enthusiast to part with some parts.

“I’m not the kind of person who will become a millionaire from these cards,” laughed Radin.

MetroCards were first introduced by the MTA in 1993 when the fare was only $1.25. The cards, originally designed with a blue background and yellow font, were seen as an elegant replacement for bulky subway tokens.

The Transportation Authority soon began selling advertising space on the cards, as well as releasing special editions to celebrate anniversaries and sports championships—over the years, according to Metrocard Central, 600 different variations have been released.

However, not everyone will turn in their more fancy Metro cards so quickly, as some special edition MetroCards can be sold for decent chunks of change.

Last year, Greg Loibl, 52, who claims to have been “the biggest MetroCard collector until the mid-2000s,” recently sold a 1995 card with a Gristede’s & Sloan’s supermarket ad on the back for $800 to a private collector, and a 1998 MetroCard years with the Big Apple design fetched a cool $250.

His rarest postcard, which he has so far refused to sell, is a never-before-seen collectible collection of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and other December holidays.

“This is an auction lot,” he said. “Maybe one day there will be a show and I can take him there.”

Greg Loibl

AIT

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Other MetroHeads, however, say the map often becomes inseparable from the memories of the places it took them to.

“This is what I took with me every single day when I was in college,” said Dena Rosman, a 23-year-old analyst at JP Morgan. The front of her favorite features the Manhattan subway system instead of the standard yellow design.

“I think having a physical thing stays with you because you use it so constantly that you form this connection, this identity.”