Some crazes last for a few months, others for a few years, but almost 24 years after the first Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG) hit the market, the series is still incredibly popular with gamers and collectors. Which is why the discovery of a twenty-year old unopened booster pack is making such waves online.
Collector Gio Martin, who goes by the YouTube name Pokemon Puller, discovered the pack sitting underneath a shelf at Target, where it is likely to have sat for almost two decades alongside plenty of dirt and rust. The booster pack was from a combined reprint of the original set and Jungle expansion, which was known as Pokemon TCG Base Set 2 and published in early 2000.
Gio filmed the moment of discovery, and later joined Pokemon YouTuber Lee "Lionheart" Seinfeld to discuss the find, followed by a live opening of the pack. Sadly the set did not contain any rare holographic cards, but the sheer excitement of such an old booster pack was a rare find in itself. With prices continuing to rise for rare and original series cards, it is no surprise that collectors are keen to search for the long-lost packs in as many places as possible.
The first Pokemon TCG set was released in the U.S. in 1998 and rapidly became a phenomenal success. Despite now being a less high profile collectible than back in 2000, the market for the cards is still huge, eBay stated that over 500k Pokemon TCG cards were sold using the site in 2019 alone. Despite the series selling over 30 billion cards globally, sales in many countries actually grew in 2019, increasing by 24% in the UK, and 100% in Germany. The rarest and most expensive card is the Pikachu Illustrator, which has only 39 examples and recently sold for $233k, breaking the prior $195k record for the same card. The most expensive card from the Base Set 2 is likely to be the holographic Charizard, with a much more reasonable expected price of around $80-120.
While much of the collectors market can be chalked up to nostalgia, the continued success of Pokemon TCG is something more. It's now easier than ever to learn about the history of games series through the Internet, and this helps to encourage new waves of fans to discover and enjoy them, particularly as the Pokemon video game series continues to perform well too. It is perhaps amusing that some of the collectors of Pokemon TCG are now younger than the game itself, though this is no different to many collectors of retro video games or other toys and technology.
While the discovery of further early Pokemon booster packs is unlikely, the rising prices of the cards suggests that Target may soon have an influx of fans searching under its shelves, just in case a rare card turns up.
Source: Via Dexerto