Catch Them Now: The Pandemic Shoots the Prices of Pokémon Cards | TRENDS

Pokémon has grown and so have its prices. Two decades after the Japanese trading card game became the main thing in schoolyards around the world, cards Pokémon are reaching six figures at auction, in a boom that appears to have been fueled by lockdowns due to pandemic of the coronavirus.

“When he arrived COVID-19, many in Gen X and millennials were looking for things to do and we found that many of these guys and girls started playing Pokémon again, because they grew up with it, “said Joe Maddalena, executive vice president of Texas auction house Heritage Auctions.

Maddalena said boxes of the 1999 US first edition game have sold for about $ 400,000 at auction in recent months.

A single perfectly good card from the popular character Charizard sold for $ 300,000 in January, while at the end of 2019 the asking price for the same card was around $ 16,000, he said.

“It’s crazy, because I know that just a few years ago you could go anywhere and there were walls of Pokémon cards and everything has gone back to the way it was before,” said Megan Meadows, 29, who lined up in front of the Next- store. Gen Games in Los Angeles last week.

“For me personally, it’s 100% nostalgia. I was a great Pokémon girl in the late 90s and early 2000s and I am also finding that joy again, at a time when joy is a bit hard to come by and it’s pure and fun, “he added.

As Pokémon gears up for its 25th anniversary worldwide celebrations on February 27, Heritage is holding its first dedicated auction for Pokémon cards. The online auction from February 25 to March 25 will feature 200 batches of Pokémon, including what Maddalena called “the Holy Grail” – a 1999 sealed set from Wizards of the Coast.

“We sold the last one for US $ 406,000, who knows how much it could go?” He said.

But you don’t need to be rich to play or collect them. Maddalena said the next auction will have many cards priced lower than those that are in perfect condition and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Maddalena hesitates to use the word investments. “I hope they buy them because they love them,” he said.

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