The Pokémon TCG has released a new expansion, and one of the cards is already valued at $539 (£420).
Pikachu Ex is a “Special Illustration Rare” from the Surging Sparks expansion to Pokemon TCG.
The valuation has risen since the Surging Sparks release on November 8, according to TCGPlayer.
There are more than 250 Pokémon cards in this expansion pack and the Pikachu Ex card isn’t the only one being valued at a high price.
Think twice before considering these cards as a financial investment, though. As noted by Kotaku, new waves of Pokémon cards tend to ramp up in value, before falling fairly sharply back down to Earth.
TCGPlayer says the most valuable card from the previous expansion pack, Stellar Crown, is worth less than $120 (£94). Only three cards are valued at more than $50 (£39).
However, genuinely rare Pokémon cards have previously sold for massive amounts. The most famous case is of controversial YouTube influencer Logan Paul, who in 2022 reportedly paid $5.275 million (£4.1m) for a 1998 Pikachu card. Only 39 of the cards were released.
However, the transaction was partly a publicity stunt for a marketplace Paul co-owns, which provided most of the money. It was still enough to earn the attention-grabbing influencer a Guinness World Record though.
It’s a particularly hot time for Pokémon TCG, following the release of Pokémon TCG Pocket. This is a digital version of the card game, which has been around since 1996.
The mobile game was released on October 30 and has already been downloaded more than 30 million times.
There are about 250 cards in Pokémon TCG Pocket, while an estimated 16,000-plus have been released in the physical card game since its inception in 1996. The first digital expansion to the mobile app is rumoured to be coming in January.
The mobile version has a stripped-back take on the card game that has real-life tournaments based around it. But for now, the main appeal of the mobile version is in trying to catch ‘em all and complete a card set.
