By Sharon Azad
On the morning of April 22, Dan Cannon, known as oldschoolmtg on YouTube, was in his home when the Pinkertons, a mercenary company, suddenly knocked on his door, scaring his wife and causing a nuisance in the neighborhood.
The week before the Pinkertons knocked on Dan’s door, on Dan’s YouTube channel, he had stated he went to his local card shop and purchased a newly released set of cards called March of Machines from the famous tabletop card game Magic: The Gathering. What Dan wanted to get was the booster box for the March of Machines: Collectors’ Edition. Still, instead, he was handed March of the Machines: The Aftermath, which was released on May 12, and both the retailer and Dan noticed the difference days later when Dan made a video.
Upon the video’s release, Magic: The Gathering’s publisher, Wizards of the Coast child company, of the wildly know parent company Hasbro, makers of Monopoly, My Little Pony, Power Rangers, and Peppa Pig. Wizards of the Coast had hired the Pinkertons to receive the cards from Dan because they cannot have people get an early release, as it would be unfair to players worldwide to find who made the mistake of selling the cards early.
The Pinkertons are an infamous group in America. On their website, it shows a list of their accomplishments as they are the first private detective agency in America, founded by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. They had been the secret services, protecting Abraham Lincoln with his first few assassination attempts. But after the 1892 homestead strike, where 300 Pinkertons had fought a whole town and had the national guard of 8,500 to come and stop them, an anti-Pinkerton law was passed where the US government could not employ anyone employed with the Pinkertons or any similar agency.
This was the group Wizards of the Coast sent to get the card back from Dan. Dan further explained in his wrap-up video of the events that unfolded for him that on April 22, he woke up to record videos, then heard the knock on his door from the Pinkertons. They had scared his wife to tears and come to him asking to return the stolen cards, as this was a misunderstanding. Dan explained to them and gave them the cards, he explained that he bought them, and they were mistakenly shipped out to the store where he purchased them. They left after taking the box with the packs of cards. Later it was told to Dan by his elderly neighbor that the day before they knocked on his door, the Pinkertons had gone around the neighborhood asking about Dan and bothering older people about him.
