“It would be disingenuous of me or anyone else to say they believed prices for certain cards would go up 10X-20X in the midst of a pandemic,” he wrote in a post on the organization’s website. After an avalanche of submissions in March, the company stopped accepting new ones so it could work through all of its back orders. Joe Orlando, the president and chief executive of Collectors Universe, said in March that its PSA Authentication and Grading Services division was receiving more cards every five days than it used to receive over three months, and that it had doubled the size of its staff and headquarters. That has led to madness at the grading agencies. ![]() But now that cards once worth $10 are worth $20, and cards once worth $20 are now worth $50, there’s suddenly an enormous demand among collectors who wouldn’t have bothered spending about $10 to get a card graded in the past, he said. Getting cards graded - a necessary step in fetching the highest prices on markets like eBay - once made sense for mostly just the rarest of cards. Logan Paul, a YouTube star, has spent millions on cards.īut it’s not just high-end collectors benefiting from the boom, said Charlie Hurlocker, a Pokémon card expert and dealer. In March, a holographic Charizard card sold for $311,800. But much like with baseball and football cards, some high-end collectors sought out rare cards, and are now reaping the rewards of their astronomical values.Ī rare Pikachu card was traded for an estimated $900,000 worth of cards in December. To many Pokémon fans who have played since the beginning, the cards were an after-school game, similar to Magic: The Gathering, and they never intended the cards to be an investment as they were roughly handled and shoved into shoeboxes as their owners grew up. Agencies that confirm the authenticity and condition of rare cards have been overwhelmed, feverishly trying to hire more graders to contend with a monthslong backlog. It is more difficult than ever for collectors to get their hands on the cards, as the value increased significantly in the past year. Each pack holds several common cards worth little, but collectors can occasionally get lucky and find a rare card in pristine condition. While old cards have jumped in value, the demand now is for new packs, like those sold in mainstream retail stores like Target and Walmart. The Pokémon card game, first released in 1996, is a strategy game that allows players to battle each other using the beloved characters of the wider Pokémon franchise. ![]() “Like other retailers, we have seen increased customer demand, and we are determining what, if any, changes are needed to meet customer demand while ensuring a safe and enjoyable shopping experience,” Walmart said in a statement. ![]() A Walmart spokeswoman said that the sign posted at the store was incorrect, and that “we have not suspended the sale of any trading cards.”
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