What’s behind the hype and demand?
This photo shows collectible cards from the Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG) on display at the apartment of an amateur collector in Paris on March 11, 2026.
Martin Lelievre | Afp | Getty Images
Collecting Pokémon cards was a fun hobby when I was a kid in the late ’90s. I would buy packs hoping to get the rarest “shines” or holographic cards. We would trade with friends and even try to “catch ’em all” by going to meets and trading cards; was a catchphrase that defined the series, which transitioned from the Nintendo Game Boy to an anime TV show.
Things changed when I started collecting again two years ago. I lined up with 100 other people in a parking lot outside a toy store for the latest restock of the cards. I saw four men gathered around their car talking about how much money they could make by going to different stores one morning and selling the deck of cards they had purchased.
New cards can sell out in minutes. People coordinate on X and Discord to know where to go.
There are similar scenes circulating on social media in the US, with people crushing each other to get their hands on packs of cards. It even happened reports Snatch-and-snatch thefts of stores stocking cards. Reward cards are sold at multiples of retail price. The rarest can sell for millions of dollars.
This is in stark contrast to when I could walk into any store and buy as much as I wanted.
A long queue of people formed outside Smyths toy store in Staines, England, before the store opened to get their hands on the latest stock of Pokemon cards on March 28, 2026.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
Pokémon card prices increased 282% from 2004 to 2020, according to the index compiled by Collectors, which owns card rating agency Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA). Since 2020, prices have increased by an incredible 1,350% according to the index.
Prices have risen and even outpaced traditional asset classes, attracting the attention of people looking to make a quick buck and ultra-high net worth individuals looking for investment assets to preserve or grow their wealth.
Market observers told CNBC that people making money from cryptocurrency are flocking to the market as prices reach unprecedented levels.
What are Pokémon cards?
A Pikachu Character poses at the Pokemon booth during the European Brand Licensing event held at ExCel on October 04, 2023 in London, England.
John Keeble | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Pokémon caught people’s attention with the release of the first games in 1996. Nintendo’s Playboy. Trading cards arrived shortly after.
While Pokémon cards continued to be issued, their popularity waned in the 2000s. That all changed with the 2016 release of “Pokémon Go,” a smartphone game in which people chased Pokémon across cities to “catch” them in the real world.
The release of the Nintendo Switch in 2017 and new Pokémon games for the console brought nostalgic millennials and new gamers into the world.
The cards have gained particular popularity over the past three years, as The Pokémon Company, which owns the series, has released sets featuring the original characters introduced in the late ’90s.
“It’s kind of like a Pokémon renaissance,” Stephanie Farnsworth, a lecturer in media and communications at the University of Sunderland, told CNBC in an interview.
The Pokémon Company continues to release new card sets every few months, and this year special 30th anniversary items are adding to the excitement.
Pokémon market rally
In addition to increasing prices, high-profile sales have further increased this excitement in the last few years.
In February, influencer Logan Paul sold a rare Pikachu Illustrator card. More than $16 million after purchasing it for just over $5 million in 2021.
Other rare cards have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The high-end market is driven by people making money from crypto, according to Roy Raftery, trading card expert at London-based auction house Stanley Gibbons Baldwin.
“People tell me they’re putting their money into this business because they have nothing else to do with it, they’re making a lot of money in crypto and they’re just putting it into Pokémon,” Raftery said in an interview with CNBC.
Numerous social media sites like
Raftery said most of the buyers at his firm are not “true collectors” but people “looking for high-end assets” or global businesses looking to buy Pokémon card stock to resell, “because of how lucrative the overall market is for all these old cards.”
It’s not just old cards that are being resold at deep discounts.
In the UK, the Mega Evolution Ascending Heroes Elite Trainer Box is available for £54.99 ($74.50) on the official Pokémon Center website. I’ve seen these selling on eBay for over £100, and in some cases over £300.
Some of the more popular Elite Trainer Boxes, such as the Scarlet & Violet 151 ETB Elite Trainer Box, sell for more than £450 on eBay.
Raftery said the high-profile sales encouraged others to think they could make money from more common Pokémon cards, too.
“Now all these young people aged 19 to 22 need to think to themselves: I can’t afford a £500,000 card but I can go and buy it “A £50… elite trainer box… and then he sells it for £100,” Raftery said.
Pokémon trading card swimmers
Pokémon fans have a word for people who aren’t fans but buy cards and sell them for multiples of retail price: “Scalpers.”
Whatever true fans think of them, they often have to compete with scalpers who quickly buy up supplies. Online retailers cannot cope with the traffic because automated software purchases products on behalf of scalpers.
I’ve tried the websites of major UK retailers such as Argos and John Lewis, only to have their sites crash or experience payment issues in the rush to launch a new product. CNBC has reached out to Argos and John Lewis for comment.
Farnsworth, of the University of Sunderland, said this created a supply shortage that pushed people to buy cards at a higher resale price.
Scalpers create “volatility” and “panic” so people see the cards online and think “oh my god, I have to do this because I can’t get this anywhere else”.
David Bellinger, senior equity analyst at Mizuho, said the card market is changing “very drastically and quickly.” “So it has a little bit of a frothy, bubbly side to it,” he added.
Collectors still drive the market
Amidst all this, there are still collectors who make purchases so they can complete Pokémon sets or receive cards featuring their favorite characters.
Clinical pharmacologist Johannes Heck found a collection of old Pokémon cards from the late 90s in his grandmother’s house in 2023. Between May 2024 and 2025, he listed some on eBay and published an article about what experience says about the trading card market.
Although Heck never talked to his buyers about their motivations, he noticed that “uncommon” cards, one of three categories in older sets along with “common” and “rare,” were selling “extraordinarily quickly.”
Pokemon cards released in 1999
Yvonne Hemsey | Hulton Archive | Getty Images
Heck told CNBC that there may be two types of buyers: those who want to complete their collections and those who think even “unusual” cards will increase in price enough to make money.
Bellinger, of Mizuho, which focuses on the consumer market, including collectibles, said Logan Paul selling cards for millions adds “a new element to the hype,” while collectors play a role in the overall market.
“There’s a lot more coming out of these local card shows… I think there’s a collector base… they don’t really care about buying and flipping and making a quick buck,” Bellinger told CNBC.
