A £300 eBay purchase just sold for £75,000. And that’s the small part of the story.
A retired house painter from Woking, Surrey, recently became a millionaire after selling a Pokemon card collection that had sat forgotten in his attic for almost 15 years. The auction, run by Ewbank, brought him £1.5 million (about €1.8 million).
Ewbank said it’s the most expensive auction of collectible Pokemon cards ever held in the United Kingdom.
He had no idea what was up there
The man had a big collection and “had no idea if they had any value,” according to the BBC. That changed when he read in a newspaper that a single card had sold for £6,000.
So he went back up the ladder. Every card was stored in specially designed sleeves in the attic, where they’d been since his son stopped collecting.
He said the collection started in 1990, when his son began picking up cards and trading them at school. Several years later, he bought a set on eBay for £300. That set is the one that just went for £75,000.
The cards his son was never allowed to touch
His own account of it is the best part, mostly because he clearly knows how it sounds.
“I know everyone talks about treasures they find in the attic, but in my case that’s literally true… When my son was little, in the late ’90s, he started collecting cards and trading them at school. I thought they were beautiful and wondered whether they could be a good investment. He had his own cards, but I never let him touch these ones, thankfully.”
Thankfully is right. Any kid who grew up with a binder of holos knows what school-yard trading does to card corners.
The auction house couldn’t believe it either
When he brought the collection to Ewbank, the staff were stunned by what they saw, according to the BBC.
“When we saw the cards (they were all in excellent condition) we couldn’t believe it,” James Spooner of Ewbank told the BBC.
Condition is everything in this hobby, and a dad who kept the good cards away from his own kid for decades turned out to be holding £1.5 million in plastic sleeves.
