EXPLAINED | Why Pokémon Cards Are Booming and How They Get Their Price

Why did one Pikachu sell for $1,415 more than the other?

Put the two eBay records side by side. Both show Pikachu in a grey felt hat, the same English-language promotional card released in 2023 for a collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum. Both carry a label from Professional Sports Authenticator, or PSA. The $785 card was graded 9. The $2,200 card was graded 10.

The gap shows up on other dates, too. On October 15, PSA’s records show eBay auctions closing at $842.02 and $860 for two copies graded 9. Five auctions for copies graded 10 closed between $2,125 and $2,600. Those are individual sales. Each had its own bidders, and each price tells you what a buyer paid for that copy on that day.

What do you actually do with a Pokémon card?

The trading card game is a battle between two players, each with a 60-card deck. Pokémon cards do the attacking, Energy cards power their moves, and Trainer cards can help you draw cards or change what happens on the table. You can buy a ready-made deck or build one by buying individual cards, opening packs and trading.

A deck builder might want a card for a move it can make in a match. A collector might want the same Pokémon in a particular illustration. A sealed booster pack might contain a card either one wants. You find out when you tear it open.

Why are people opening so many packs again?

The pandemic gave the hobby a jolt. eBay reported that Pokémon trading card sales on its marketplace grew 547 per cent from 2019 to 2020. Fans who grew up with the games and cartoons could revisit those characters as adults, with money of their own to spend. New players have more ways in, too. Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, which lets people open digital packs, had passed 150 million downloads by October 2025, according to the company.

Livestreams have made opening physical packs a show. On Whatnot, sellers can open packs on camera for buyers. In a group format called a break, people buy a share of a box or pack and the cards are distributed according to the seller’s stated rules. A particularly sought-after card is called a chase card. Seeing someone pull one gives everybody watching a reason to remember the pack it came from.

Pokémon keeps giving people new packs to open. It brought back classic cards in its 30th anniversary expansion in September and released Delta Reign on November 6. By the end of March 2026, the company said it had produced more than 85 billion cards over the life of the game.

How can a Pokémon card be scarce when there are billions of them?

Collectors look for a particular card number, edition, language and sometimes a particular printing. An old tournament prize and a card from a box you can buy this week can feature the same Pokémon and have completely different numbers of copies in circulation. Age helps only if people still want the card.

The Van Gogh Pikachu shows what demand can do even when thousands of copies are available. The museum stopped handing the promo out on site in October 2023 after several incidents created unsafe situations. PSA’s records now show more than 50,000 copies graded 10. That’s a lot of top-grade Pikachus for a card still fetching four figures. When buyers want the artwork and will pay more for the top grade, the price can stay high even with that many copies around.

What does a grader see that I don’t?

A grader checks whether the card is genuine and looks closely at the corners, edges, print and surface. Even a card fresh from a pack can have an off-centre print or a small flaw. PSA calls its 9 “Mint” and its 10 “Gem Mint”. After grading, it seals the card in a hard plastic case collectors call a slab. A certification number lets a buyer look it up.

That case helps a buyer compare sales from different sellers. The company on the label matters because different graders apply their own standards and have different resale histories. CNBC’s November 6 report found that dealers sometimes prefer to wait for PSA because they expect a better resale price. More PSA cards changing hands also give buyers more past sales to compare.

Does paying for a grade pay off?

Start with what you paid for the card. If you spent $80, paid $39.99 for grading and sold the card for $110, you would already be down $9.99 before shipping or selling fees. Add the wait, the chance of receiving a lower grade than you expected and the possibility that buyers will be paying less by the time the card comes back.

PSA reopened its $39.99 US Value tier on October 29 with an estimated 90–100 business days for US orders. On November 3, it reported 6.8 million items in its queue. GemRate tracked 3.87 million cards graded in October, up 48 per cent from a year earlier. Its count excludes Beckett. Both figures cover multiple types of cards, including sports cards.

What does the craze look like in India?

In Bengaluru, the Bangalore Card Show on November 14–15 lists more than 25 vendor booths and grading demonstrations. It also has a Pokémon tournament. Players will bring decks to compete, while collectors can browse for individual cards or trade with each other.

Bengaluru-based retailer TCG India lists a Japanese booster pack at ₹300 and a single English-language Pikachu ex from another set at ₹29,999. Those are asking prices for two different products. Sending a card abroad for grading adds shipping and insurance to the calculation. PSA’s published list of markets served by its Hong Kong submission centre omits India, so the US grading fee and wait are a poor guide to what an Indian customer would pay or how long they would wait.

For anyone walking into the Bengaluru show, the useful distinction is between a sealed pack and a single. The pack buys you the pleasure of seeing what turns up. A single buys you the card you came for, whether it’s a Pokémon you need to finish your deck or the Pikachu you’d happily keep in a binder.