GUEST: I brought a set of Pokémon cards. Like most '90s babies, I fell into the craze. We were playing with them on the school bus, trading them, and, uh, my mom bought me this set online. My mom thought I was being taken advantage of in my Pokémon trades.
APPRAISER: (laughing)
GUEST: And so she wanted to get me a complete set to save until I got older.
APPRAISER: So do you remember when your mom purchased these cards?
GUEST: My mom told me that it was sometime in the late 1990s, and that she paid about $35 for them online.
APPRAISER: Being a '90s baby myself, the Pokémon craze was insane. When we look at Pokémon today as a brand, as a franchise, Pokémon is an all-encompassing brand. It's, it's unbelievable-- Pokémon is king.
GUEST: Hm.
APPRAISER: While in the United States, Pokémon was released in 1999, the original card game was released by Media Factory in Japan in 1996. We wouldn't have the trading card game if it weren't for the original game for Game Boy, Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue. That Game Boy game is what sparked the initial trend. Now, you might wonder where the name Pokémon actually comes from. That is an abbreviation of the name for the game in Japan, which was Pocket Monsters. So the set you have is the original 1999 what we call base set. Base set meaning it's the first 102 cards that were released in the Pokémon game. They were published by Wizards of the Coast. We are focused on these two pages right here, which... Do you have any idea as to why these two pages are opened in particular?
GUEST: Um, my guess would be because they have the holographic images.
APPRAISER: Yes, the cards here that you have are the 16 original holographic cards. In particular, you have two Mewtwo cards here. Do you notice a difference with the two cards at all?
GUEST: I notice a different shade of purple, but that's about it.
APPRAISER: Between first edition and unlimited, there was a very small period of time where we have shadow-less. You'll notice on this Mewtwo, has a dark border, while on this side, you'll notice it's lighter. That's how we refer to this as a shadow-less card. On a shadow-less card, in the lower margin, the 1999 date stamp is actually repeated. You'll see '99 in the middle of the card, and then it's repeated all the way to the edge. Now, grading is a very subjective thing. I can give a grade as to what my eye sees it. But at the end of the day, what the collector really cares about is when a card gets sent out to a third-party company. You did take really good care of them. They do have some light wear. So in the world of grading, I would say they're in the 8.0, 8.5. You might have a 9 in there, but there's no 10s, because when we look at the back, there is some very subtle wear to the blue edge. This card right here, your regular base unlimited Mewtwo, it's about a $150 card, $200 card. The shadow-less Mewtwo, however, easily, in its current shape, ungraded, is a $800 to $1,200 card. Now we'll go to the king. When it comes to Pokémon, the character that everybody loves is Charizard. We look at your Charizard here. Not alone is it Charizard, it is also a shadow-less Charizard. That card alone, in its current condition, is going to be in the $2,000 to $3,000 range.
GUEST: Great. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: The Pokémon market is extremely volatile. It is a market that blossomed through the pandemic. I hate giving you the "womp-womp" news on the backside, but your Charizard, in this shape, less than a year ago was easily a $5,000 to $8,000 card. And at the peak of the market, in November 2020 to March, April 2021, we were seeing this card hit as high as $15,000. You have so many other cards. Your Nidoking is shadow-less. Your Gyarados is shadow-less, plus the other mix. You have some great jungle holograms in there. You have a lot of fossil cards in there. There's approximately 150 cards in your binder. Conservatively, at auction, we would say that your binder would be in the $5,000 to $10,000 range.
GUEST: Wow, much more than I was expecting!
APPRAISER: Okay! (chuckles) What were you expecting?
GUEST: My friends told me $50 for the whole binder, so...
APPRAISER: Oh, man, you need some new friends.
GUEST: laughs) I agree, they owe me.
APPRAISER: (laughing)
