More than cryptocurrencies or digital art. There is an investment that has made more than Wall Street in recent years. These are the Pokémon cards that have recorded a growth of almost 4 thousand percent from 2004 to today despite not being listed and not paying dividends. Some, bought 20 years ago for a few dollars, today have reached the same value as a penthouse in a big city or a luxury car. And for this reason, a professional collector speaking to the Times said that they are the equivalent of modern art.
The Pokémon economy is a multi-billion dollar business that is based on many products. In addition to trading cards, in fact, there are video games, world championships, merchandising, media and apps. In economic terms, it is an ecosystem worth more than Harry Potter and Star Wars combined. In 2024 alone, the brand generated over $12 billion in retail revenue, ranking among the most powerful licensors in the world. The card industry has exceeded 75 billion copies printed since 1996, with the market continuing to expand.
And to think that it all originated by chance, at the beginning of the nineties, from the passion of a Japanese video game designer, Satoshi Tajiri, for brightly colored insects with bizarre shapes and from the memory of when as a child he loved to catch them in the rural outskirts of Tokyo (a very popular hobby in Japan) and then barter them with friends.
In 1991, seeing two children playing Tetris on the Game Boy, Tajiri had the intuition to create a game in which fantastic creatures could be captured, collected and exchanged via the connection cable between consoles, just as if insects moved. Hence the birth of the Game Freak software house and the development of the project with his illustrator friend Ken Sugimori, who designed the first Pokémon, including Pikachu.
But why such a strange name? Pokémon comes from the union of the words “pocket” and “monster”, which means “pocket monsters”, i.e. creatures that you can always carry with you, thus becoming inseparable friends. The first two video games, “Pocket Monsters Red” and “Pocket Monsters Green,” were released in Japan in February 1996 and later released in the West as “Pokémon Red Version” and “Pokémon Blue Version.”
To the Times, Tajiri – described as «eccentric and solitary» – told back in 1999 that «kids don’t have much time to relax. So I thought of a game that would help them think about other things during those five or ten minute breaks.” There are also those who believe that in addition to aesthetic and narrative issues, Pokémon have been so successful because they emerged in the period known as “the lost decade”, i.e. the years following the great financial crisis that hit Japan in 1991, in which many certainties were lost. And, among other things, we took refuge in what is called “iyashi”, that is, a type of entertainment made up of “anime”, manga, music and literature with a relaxing and comforting effect. This led to a great interest in commercial products such as the “companion robots” Paro and Aibo, such as the Tamagotchi and, indeed, Pokémon. In fact, they too were “virtual companions”.
And they become a phenomenon capable of producing characters who live in an ever-expanding universe thanks to an inexhaustible number of stories, objects and gadgets that cover the most disparate market niches, from video games to collectible cards, films, toys, clothing and apps. Products suitable for all types of audiences, regardless of age, entertainment that can be enjoyed at any time.
The brand’s cards have generated a billion-dollar market over the years, with collectors willing to pay crazy sums to acquire the rarest specimens. Among these, the most valuable card is the Illustrator Pikachu, whose rarity – there are very few copies in the world, less than 20 – has caused its price to skyrocket. A 1998 example was purchased in 2021, close to the pandemic, for the record sum of 5.3 million dollars, by the American YouTuber Logan Paul. More recently, another copy was auctioned for 4 million dollars, confirming that it is the “holy grail” of the brand.
The Pokémon card market, in fact, is in constant turmoil to the point that there are also paid applications that monitor their value as if they were shares of companies listed on the stock exchange. The business has stimulated the birth of a group of influencers who give advice on purchases with better earning potential, while the figures of touts who stock up on products and then resell them at double or triple prices have become widespread on the market.
And where the money goes there are also incredible stories of sudden enrichments and just as many of scams and robberies.
The Roma Today website reports the sensational success of two very young entrepreneurs from Nettuno, Alessandro Ludovisi and Nicholas Pirone who, together with the YouTuber CiccioGamer89, have transformed their passion into a business, reaching a turnover of one million euros by selling the rarest cards.
Then there is the story of Federic95ita, born Federico Profaizer, who managed a millionaire turnover when he was not even thirty years old. He explains what makes them precious like this: «The state of conservation and the edition are important, but what really makes the difference is the language. Generally Japanese papers are the most valuable. Even any printing errors affect the price as they confer uniqueness”. These specimens can be worth up to 500 thousand euros.
To take possession of the most valuable pieces, there are those who are ready to take up the gun. Last October, the news reported the story of a thirty-year-old, in Latina, who knocked down a peer, convinced that he had stolen some priceless papers from him. The collector was rushed to hospital, while the attacker turned himself in to the Carabinieri a few hours later.
Last September, however, in Frosinone, a Roman collector had 25 bags of Pokémon cards with an estimated value of 24 thousand euros stolen. It should have been a quiet sale between enthusiasts, but instead the two “buyers” convinced the victim to load the boxes onto their car with the excuse of going to a bookshop for online payment. Then they beat him and made off with the collection, but the thieves were caught by the police.
A few days ago, then, a “Pokémon mule” was arrested at Linate airport, a twenty-year-old Italian who was smuggling over 20 thousand collectible cards from Japan (some of which are still not available in Europe). Stopped by the Customs Agency, he now risks a fine of up to 22 thousand euros.
In Japan, monster cards have also entered the criminal circles who have started using them to launder money. And the search for the rarest subject sometimes leads to extreme actions. In Tokyo in 2023, four people were arrested for stealing around 400 cards from a shop by smashing the entrance with a crowbar. In the United States, in California, last June, a fight between collectors queuing for a new release of cards degenerated into a stabbing.
But the Pokémon phenomenon is only the tip of the iceberg of a certain type of increasingly widespread collecting. According to research by Skuola.net and Topps, one in seven students in Italy regularly buys collectible cards. 35 percent do it as an investment. Average expense? 350 euros per year, with peaks exceeding 1,000 among the “experts”. It is a transversal market, which unites twenty- and fifty-year-olds, nerds and managers, fathers and sons.
So don’t call them cards. Today, each sachet can hide a treasure.
