SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Long lines and empty shelves mark the current surge in demand for Pokémon cards, reaching an all-time high.
“No one could have seen this coming, you know. Now you have celebrities collecting, athletes, actors, everyone—you name it is collecting,” said Jonathan Franso, co-owner of Hidden Gems Card Shop in Shelby Township.
The hype around cards like these is intense, with some worth thousands of dollars. For those who grew up in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Pokémon cards first became popular, there could be an even bigger jackpot hidden at home.
“I had a whole bunch. We had the holographic, the Japanese cards, all of that,” one collector recalled.
Many former Pokémon fans may not realize the value of the cards they still have stored away.
“We’re in a bubble and it’s not slowing down. It just... prices keep going crazier,” Franso said. “It’s more popular now than it’s ever been.”
The better the quality - the more it’s worth. There are several websites that you can visit to check to see if the cards in your home are worth anything like TCGPlayer , PriceCharting or eBay.
Another option is visiting your local card and game shop.
But it’s all comes down to the condition of the card.
Franso tells us there are official businesses that grade the condition of the card: “When they grade it, it’s surface, centering, edges and corners. Right? So if all of those are perfect. You get a 10. If there’s something wrong with it, that’s when you start knocking the grade down,”
Even card sets from the late 1990s are selling for over $50,000.
“Back then, this box only cost around $99. But today it’s worth around $60,500 because it’s first edition and they didn’t produce that many. It’s a limited print run basically. There’s not that many out there,” Franso explained.
Maja Tapani, trading in her own Charizard card at Hidden Gems, said, “It’s a rarer set, these cards are harder to find because they didn’t print that many back then.”
She hopes to find other rare cards in her collection.
“I didn’t know how much it was until I looked it up. I do know it’s like an older collection so I knew it was going to be a lot. I just didn’t know what it was going to be,” Tapani said.
Unfortunately, where there is value, crime often follows. A smash-and-grab burglary at a local shop resulted in the theft of $50,000 worth of cards in just two minutes.
“They definitely took everything worth value,” said the shop owner, Jonathan Gappy of First Edition Finds in Sterling Heights.
“The fact that they’re just in and out so quick and how they just moved is mind boggling to me. I just couldn’t believe it honestly,” Gappy added.
This craze shows how far people will go to get their hands on these nostalgic collectibles. So, check your basements, attics, and old shoeboxes—you might have a valuable treasure at home.
“I might need to hit my mom up and see what Pokémon cards I had as a child to see if they’re worth anything today,” said one fan.