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Bring out your old pokédexs: a pack of Pokémon cards sold for $ 400,000

2021-01-22T05:16:28.223Z


This set of 396 limited edition cards, released in 1999 in the United States, comes in its original packaging, with all 36 boosters intact.


Is there a Pokemon frenzy in the air?

This is in any case what seems to attest the record sale, last Sunday, of a box of

Pokémon

playing cards

awarded for the trifle of 408,000 dollars, an amount equivalent to an original

Tintin

board

, or almost double. from a painting by Brueghel the Younger.

A trend that is probably not about to be reversed.

To read also: Pikachu, Charizard and company ... Pokémon cards sold for 100,000 dollars at auction

Organized by the Texan house Heritage Auctions, as part of a “Comics & Comic Art” sale, the figure, to say the least, may seem surprising at first glance.

The object of all desires is however worth its weight in gold, since it is a copy of the limited edition of a box of Pokémon cards put into circulation in 1999 in the United States by the publisher American game, Wizards of the Coast (also known to publish the Magic card game).

Still wrapped in its original packaging - a guarantee of a perfect state of preservation - the box contains 36

booster packs

, small sealed envelopes themselves containing 11 Pokémon cards, for a total of 396 cards of the first edition.

The Box of All Lusts, a

Pokémon First Edition Base Set Sealed Booster Box

(Wizards of the Coast, 1999) containing 396 cards.

Heritage Auctions

"

Catch them all

"

More than the number of cards per se, it is the age and rarity of this set that interests collectors so much.

Depending on their identity and condition, some Pokémon cards from the first edition of the game - and more specifically the 102 cards that make up the "

base set

" (the set of cards from the launch of the first edition) - are now trading at amounts more and more stratospheric.

Read also: Pokémon: the secrets of the game with 23 billion cards sold

The most famous pokemon from the saga are also the most popular at auction.

A Charizard card on its own, for example, sold in October 2020 for nearly $ 183,000.

Another card, the extremely rare one of a prototype of the English version of Tortank dating from 1998, flew this weekend for 360,000 dollars, underlines the American media Polygon.

A sum which - in addition to speculation - is also partly explained by a powerful nostalgia effect at work among buyers who have grown up with the saga.

American rapper Logic, behind the purchase of the Rare Charizard in October, said on Instagram: “

When I was a kid, I loved Pokémon very much, but I couldn't afford to buy the cards. (...) Now, as an adult who has saved every penny he has earned, being able to enjoy something that I love from childhood is like buying back a piece of something that I don't could never have.

A statement shared by Jesus Garcia, sales assistant at Heritage Auctions quoted by Marketplace: "

People my age are finally in their late twenties, their mid-thirties, and they can afford the things they loved when they were children.

"

Read also: Pokémon Go has grossed almost $ 2 billion since its creation

Still traded in the mid-2010s for just a few thousand dollars, the price of rare Pokémon cards has increased tenfold in recent years.

In addition to the

Pokémon Go

phenomenon

and the release of the

Detective Pikachu

movie

, a few influencers have also participated in the recent turmoil in the niche market of Pokémon playing cards.

Very expensive coquetries which, in the specific case of the purchase of a rare still sealed box, could lead the purchaser to never strip the leaves of his precious collector's item ... and therefore never to discover what it contains .

Like a Proust madeleine that we would be forbidden to taste.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-01-22

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