A mint condition set of first edition Pokémon cards is set to go to auction later this month and is expected to fetch somewhere in the region of $44,000.
Was there anyone between the age of five and fifteen during the latter half of the 1990s that wasn't collecting Pokémon cards? It certainly felt as if every kid at that time couldn't get enough of them. The Pokémon Company must have made a mint off of the back of trading card sales back then. No wonder it is still around and going strong today, and has made more money than any other franchise in history.
While the Pokémon TCG is still going strong, it's not as popular today as it was 20 years ago. As for readers who had impressive collections back in 98, 99, and at the turn of the century, where are those cards now? Chances are most people have no idea. Long gone and rotting away on a landfill site, or maybe buried in the attic of a house where you no longer live.
However, there's an outside chance if you go digging, those cards are still in the house somewhere. Here comes the annual reminder to do that because turns out some of those cards are worth a lot of money today. A dad in the UK discovered that when he unearthed his collection. Nigel Brookes was given the cards by his mom as a birthday present in 1999, even though he didn't really like Pokémon.
Nigel's mom bought the readymade collection directly from the manufacturers at the time, paying somewhere in the region of £300 ($382) for them. As well as being for his birthday, the present was a gift for helping his younger brother, who had been conned out of some valuable Pokémon cards. Brookes got the cards back, hence the reward from his mom.
The collection features Poliwrath, Raichu, Venasaur, and even a Mewtwo, although there is no sign of that elusive shiny Charizard. It will be auctioned off on July 27, 2020, and has already garnered worldwide interest. It is expected to fetch as much as £35,000 ($44,600) which is quite the improvement on the £300 Brookes's mom paid 21 years ago. Brookes's daughter offered her dad £6 ($7.65) but he turned her down.
Source: LADbible