Nostalgia, quarantine, and Logan Paul: How ‘Pokémon’ cards eclipsed baseball cards
Long gone are the days of parents sharing sepia-toned memories of putting Mickey Mantle cards in bicycle spokes. Lately, when young parents want to illustrate a point about treating collectibles with respect, they might instead rehash that time they played a first-edition Shining Charizard in an early-aughts’ lunchtime game of Pokémon, forever diminishing its value. Only in the past six years have trading-card games like Pokémon become their own category within Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), the industry leader in grading cards to assess their condition and legitimacy. During that short time, Pokémon cards have enjoyed an explosive renaissance. They have become so popular, in fact, that their category accounted for 40% of the total volume of cards PSA received to grade in 2023, surpassing baseball cards—along with every other individual sport. Not too shabby for a bunch of pocket monsters. “I think the reason we’re seeing this surge lately is that collecting comes with a lot of nostalgia,” says PSA president Ryan Hoge. “When people get to a level of having disposable income in their thirties or forties, they tend to gravitate back to some nostalgic part of their childhood, and the people who grew up in the late ’90s are having that moment now with Pokémon.” In 1996, boutique video game company Game Freak launched the first Pokémon game in Japan. It was an addictive game in which players attempt to capture 151 species of “pocket monsters” dispersed throughout a magical universe. It was an instant hit. Little did anyone involved with its creation realize the game would soon evolve into a multibillion-dollar empire spanning films, TV shows, theme parks, and of course, collectible trading cards. The franchise arrived on U.S. shores in 1999, quickly captivating American kids with its catchy call-to-action, “Gotta catch ‘em all.” Many of those kids now have kids of their own—and an antique analog hobby to potentially share with them. As much as nostalgia plays a frequent role in driving adults with mortgages back to the realm of trading cards, though, it certainly helps that these cards can be wildly profitable. The value of any trading card is determined by the secondary market, and whatever people are willing to pay for it. In the case of Pokémon, it turns out that people are willing to pay five, six, and in some instances, even seven figures. Collectors often only feel comfortable paying that much for what is essentially a fancy piece of cardboard if its condition and authenticity have been certified by a third party, which is where PSA comes in. Since a lot of the early Pokémon cards were ungently handled in schoolyard games—back before kids knew to separate rare ones for safekeeping—and since the cards’ manufacturing quality was worse in the early aughts, pristine cards from that era are now as scarce as the rarest vintage baseball cards. Logan Paul talks about his Charizard Pokémon-card chain during his press conference following his contracted exhibition boxing match against Floyd Mayweather at Hard Rock Stadium on June 06, 2021, in Miami Gardens, Florida. [Photo: Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images] Not that the newer Pokémon cards are much less valuable. Pokémon creates rare, and what they call ultra- or super-rare, cards that collectors tend to chase after. Some of them buy packs in bulk at big-box retailers and rip through them as if trying to find the golden ticket in a Wonka bar. Other folks with far fewer scruples have been known to rob stores and even homes in an effort to find them. According to Hoge, most of the volume that PSA sees from Pokémon collectors are from 2015 and newer releases. Although grading Pokémon cards was already on the rise at the end of the 2010s, the pandemic ushered in a new era of exponential growth. “People were at home, they were going through old collections, and I think they were finding some buried treasure and putting stuff on eBay,” Hoge says. “They were starting to sell, and I think they were realizing, ‘Hey, there might be something here.’” Some of the cabin-feverish quarantiners who rediscovered Pokémon cards abandoned them as soon as things opened back up, relegating their collections (alongside their sourdough starter) to the dustbin of pandemic history. Many others, however, stuck with it. They were soon joined by a massive new segment of fandom: collectors who were indoctrinated, almost single-handedly, by Logan Paul. “Let’s bring the Pokémon hype back!” the influencer, wrestling star, and lifelong Pokémon lover said in an October 2020 video titled, “I Spent $150,000 On This Pokémon Card.” The video charts Paul’s quest to buy an ultra-rare Charizard from a serious collector in Las Vegas. Throughout its nearly 10-minute run time, he talks about Pokémon cards from both a fan perspective and that of an investor who has closely watched the quickly appreciating value of these cards. The video ended up getting more t
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Long gone are the days of parents sharing sepia-toned memories of putting Mickey Mantle cards in bicycle spokes. Lately, when young parents want to illustrate a point about treating collectibles with respect, they might instead rehash that time they played a first-edition Shining Charizard in an early-aughts’ lunchtime game of Pokémon, forever diminishing its value.
Only in the past six years have trading-card games like Pokémon become their own category within Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), the industry leader in grading cards to assess their condition and legitimacy. During that short time, Pokémon cards have enjoyed an explosive renaissance. They have become so popular, in fact, that their category accounted for 40% of the total volume of cards PSA received to grade in 2023, surpassing baseball cards—along with every other individual sport. Not too shabby for a bunch of pocket monsters.
“I think the reason we’re seeing this surge lately is that collecting comes with a lot of nostalgia,” says PSA president Ryan Hoge. “When people get to a level of having disposable income in their thirties or forties, they tend to gravitate back to some nostalgic part of their childhood, and the people who grew up in the late ’90s are having that moment now with Pokémon.”
In 1996, boutique video game company Game Freak launched the first Pokémon game in Japan. It was an addictive game in which players attempt to capture 151 species of “pocket monsters” dispersed throughout a magical universe. It was an instant hit. Little did anyone involved with its creation realize the game would soon evolve into a multibillion-dollar empire spanning films, TV shows, theme parks, and of course, collectible trading cards.
The franchise arrived on U.S. shores in 1999, quickly captivating American kids with its catchy call-to-action, “Gotta catch ‘em all.” Many of those kids now have kids of their own—and an antique analog hobby to potentially share with them.
As much as nostalgia plays a frequent role in driving adults with mortgages back to the realm of trading cards, though, it certainly helps that these cards can be wildly profitable.
The value of any trading card is determined by the secondary market, and whatever people are willing to pay for it. In the case of Pokémon, it turns out that people are willing to pay five, six, and in some instances, even seven figures. Collectors often only feel comfortable paying that much for what is essentially a fancy piece of cardboard if its condition and authenticity have been certified by a third party, which is where PSA comes in.
Since a lot of the early Pokémon cards were ungently handled in schoolyard games—back before kids knew to separate rare ones for safekeeping—and since the cards’ manufacturing quality was worse in the early aughts, pristine cards from that era are now as scarce as the rarest vintage baseball cards.
Not that the newer Pokémon cards are much less valuable.
Pokémon creates rare, and what they call ultra- or super-rare, cards that collectors tend to chase after. Some of them buy packs in bulk at big-box retailers and rip through them as if trying to find the golden ticket in a Wonka bar. Other folks with far fewer scruples have been known to rob stores and even homes in an effort to find them. According to Hoge, most of the volume that PSA sees from Pokémon collectors are from 2015 and newer releases.
Although grading Pokémon cards was already on the rise at the end of the 2010s, the pandemic ushered in a new era of exponential growth.
“People were at home, they were going through old collections, and I think they were finding some buried treasure and putting stuff on eBay,” Hoge says. “They were starting to sell, and I think they were realizing, ‘Hey, there might be something here.’”
Some of the cabin-feverish quarantiners who rediscovered Pokémon cards abandoned them as soon as things opened back up, relegating their collections (alongside their sourdough starter) to the dustbin of pandemic history. Many others, however, stuck with it. They were soon joined by a massive new segment of fandom: collectors who were indoctrinated, almost single-handedly, by Logan Paul.
“Let’s bring the Pokémon hype back!” the influencer, wrestling star, and lifelong Pokémon lover said in an October 2020 video titled, “I Spent $150,000 On This Pokémon Card.” The video charts Paul’s quest to buy an ultra-rare Charizard from a serious collector in Las Vegas. Throughout its nearly 10-minute run time, he talks about Pokémon cards from both a fan perspective and that of an investor who has closely watched the quickly appreciating value of these cards. The video ended up getting more than 15 million views, spawning a cottage industry of other influencers uploading their own Pokémon “unboxing” videos.
(Anyone unfamiliar with Paul and perhaps skeptical that a YouTuber could have such outsize impact would do well to ask the nearest Gen Alpha/Gen Z cusper if they have a favorite energy drink. That should clear up any doubts right away.)
Incredibly, $150,000 isn’t even the most Paul has paid for such a card. In 2022, he broke a Guinness World Record for most expensive Pokémon card sold at a private sale when he bought a Pikachu Illustrator card graded at the highest level—a PSA 10—for $5,275,000. Then he wore the card, on an $80,000 custom-made necklace, into the ring at that year’s Wrestlemania.
It’s unclear who the stunt benefitted more—Paul, Pokémon, or PSA.
In any case, the results are undeniable. It took PSA 24 years after its start in 1991 for the company to grade its first 25 million trading cards. Driven by Pokémon’s sensational growth, PSA graded nearly 15 million cards in 2023 alone. Collectors were sending in so many cards for grading that, right around the time Hoge came on board in 2021, the company had to pause operations of lower-tier service levels, due to a logjam. They were utterly overwhelmed.
“We just got buried,” Hoge says. “I think at the peak, we had close to 13 million cards in the building at one time.”
The company has spent the past three years working to build systems and processes that will allow them to scale with rising demand. They’ve hired more people and invested in upgrading their operating models. They’ve also expanded into other markets, moving beyond the company’s Santa Ana, California, headquarters to open up another grading facility in Jersey City, across from Manhattan; and one in Tokyo, where legions of avid Pokémon collectors are becoming increasingly interested in the value of grading.
What’s next? PSA is watching closely as grading grows in Europe and other international markets, all of which will send in more Pokémon cards than vintage Mickey Mantles. Fueled by enthusiasm for these cards, PSA’s dominance now reflects Pokémon’s philosophy, only applied to whole continents: Gotta catch ‘em all.
