Originally launched in Japan in 1996, The Pokémon TCG made its worldwide debut in 1998 to commercial acclaim. During the pandemic, the value of cards from the Pokémon TCG skyrocketed with highly desirable cards such as mint condition rare Ivysaur, Blastoise, and Charizard 1st editions selling for up to tens of thousands of dollars, in some cases selling for several million.
Although most Pokémon cards saw a hike in value, the rare card market experienced the biggest boom. Since the first generation of Pokémon, Charizard has been one of the most enduringly popular Pokémon from the franchise's anime, video games, and TCG. It is not surprising, therefore, that Charizard cards are particularly sought-after, with the prized 1st edition Charizard from the base set among the most collectible and expensive of all Pokémon cards. During the pandemic, these elusive Charizard cards boomed in value and were frequently being sold to collectors and investors for huge sums of money; however, just a few years later, things have changed significantly.
The Worth Of Pokémon TCG Card's Has Dropped In Recent Years
Since the lockdowns have ceased, the Pokémon TCG cards have seen a significant drop in value, best exemplified by one collector who took a binder of mint condition examples of all 102 of the original base-set on Antiques Roadshow to get it appraised as seen in the clip below. On the show, items, usually of significant cultural or historical significance, are presented to the appraisers by of the public keen to receive an examination and valuation. As seen on the show, the owner of the binder noted that “My mom thought I was being taken advantage of in trades, so she bought me this complete set to save until I got older.”
When the completed binder was purchased for the guest by her mother in the late 1990s, it only cost around $35 (approximately $64 in 2023). Today, the binder was valued between $5,000 and $10,000. Although this is an enormous jump, it is quite a slump when compared with the dizzying prices paid for Pokémon cards during the pandemic. As noted on the show by Travis Landry, the Director of Pop Culture for Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers: "The Pokémon card market was extremely “volatile.” While the holographic Charizard would fetch $2,000 to $3,000 now, it would have been worth $5,000 to $8,000 last year, and, he said, could have sold for as much as $15,000 at the height of Poké-mania during the pandemic.
The Pokémon TCG Has Been Impacted By Enormous Market Fluctuations
This huge difference in price can be attributed to a couple of pandemic-influence factors. The most notable down to popular YouTuber Logan Paul dedicated a great deal of his content to the hobby of hunting down and collecting Pokémon cards - even setting a Guinness World Record in 2022 for the most expensive Pokémon Trading Card sold at a private sale, paying over $5.25 million. This exposure resulted in an explosion in the popularity of the Pokémon TCG, and consequently, the value of rare and mint condition cards skyrocketed. The Pokémon TCG market became enormously inflated and the price of many cards boomed as a result of the influx of newly interested collectors and investors. Despite the overall decline being hugely significant, however, values still largely remain above pre-pandemic prices.
How Much Are Pokémon Cards Worth Today
The crash of the market value of Pokémon cards with mass appeal such as the rare holographic Charizard raises questions regarding the value of the cards in the post-Poké-mania era more generally. The downward trajectory of the value of rare and highly prized Pokémon cards is on full display on price charting sites such as pricecharting.com, where for example, it can be seen that a PSA 9 1st edition Holographic Blastoise card from the Base Set which in February 2021, would have cost a collector a little over $8,000, has a value today of $3,750. Similar losses in value are common among cards from the sought-after Base Set, with Venasaur dropping by almost $2,000, Mewtwo by over $1,500, and a Booster Pack falling by $1,000.
In spite of the decline in value of many Pokémon cards, some of the rarest and most desired cards remain incredibly expensive, for example, the prized Kangaskhan Holographic Family Event Trophy Card is valued on psacard.com as high as $468,000. Furthermore, many investors, collectors, and experts speculate that the market may eventually recover and that the value of rare Pokémon cards will once again increase. However, the future value of Pokémon TCG cards that once commanded enormous price tags, such as the ones featured on Antiques Roadshow or a similar 1999 Shadowless 1st Edition Holographic Base Set Charizard which was on the market in 2021 for $350,000 remains uncertain.
Source: Antiques Roadshow PBS/YouTube, Pricecharting.com, Psacard.com
