A Pokemon TCG fan has hit the jackpot with their recent find in a storage unit, discovering one of the most elusive and valuable Pokemon products hiding within. While the trading card game branch of the monster-catching franchise continues to push out new expansions, many of the game's older sets have continued to be its most valuable. Classic releasess like the Pokemon TCG's Base Set, Jungle, and Fossil expansions stand as some of the earliest and most valuable sets ever released for the game, launching in 1999. Many of their cards within have also stood the test of time with their prices.
Pokemon's Base Set has produced some of the most valuable cards in Pokemon Trading Card Game history, including its most iconic. The beloved Base Set Charizard stands not only as one of Pokemon's most recognizable cards ever printed, but also among its most expensive with some graded versions of the card reaching as high as $250,000. Many of the Pokemon TCG's older cards can fetch handsome prices on the secondary market, with 1st edition copies of beloved Pokemon like Blastoise and Venusaur often fetching hundreds of dollars in good condition. Now, one fan has discovered a veritable gold mine of Pokemon cards in a recent storage unit purchase.
Pokemon Fan Makes Stunning Discovery in Storage Unit
Reddit user MostThingsGeek shared their impressive find to the Pokemon TCG subreddit, showing off one of the Holy Grails for Pokemon collectors. The user tells the story of a recent purchase made by their uncle for a storage unit, happening across a sealed box of the Pokemon TCG's Base Set expansion within the unit. The photo shared by the user reveals it is likely to be from the set's Unlimited print run, with no obvious indicators suggesting that it would be a 1st Edition box. The box's legitimacy was also corroborated by users in the comments, suggesting that the packaging is the original style used by Wizards of the Coast.
The stunning Pokemon discovery could see the Reddit user coming into quite a hefty sum of money if they choose to sell the box. Sealed boxes of the Unlimited printing of Pokemon's Base Set have typically fetched tens of thousands of dollars on the secondary market, with the most recent sale on eBay going a staggering $31,000 USD. Popular online marketplace TCGPlayer currently only has two listings for Base Set booster boxes, with the lowest-priced listing being marked at $28,000 for a sealed box.
Why is Pokemon's Base Set So Valuable?
Base Set's staggering sealed value comes from a multitude of sources, not limited just to the price of the cards within. As the name would suggest, Base Set served as the Pokemon Trading Card Game's first expansion ever released, holding significant nostalgic value for many older fans. The potential to pull one of the elusive Base Set Charizard cards also contributes heavily to the significant price of the Booster Box, with a PSA 10 Charizard from the Unlimited Base Set selling for $18,000 on eBay in October. The age of the product has understandably led to a scarcity of sealed boxes "in the wild" as well, with many likely being bought by collectors or in similar situations to the Reddit user's.
Pokemon's Base Set has left such an indelible mark on the game's growth that The Pokemon Company has often looked to recapture the magic of the classic set. Expansions like XY Evolutions and Celebrations have featured re-prints of many of the cards found within Pokemon's earliest sets, with the former reprinting much of Base Set. The classic status of many of the Pokemon within has also contributed to Pokemon's marketing throughout the years, with Charizard often starring in many of the game's more highly-anticipated sets. For all the strides Pokemon has taken throughout the two-and-a-half decades of its life, Base Set continues to hold a special place in the Pokemon mythos.