Gotta buy ’em all: how Pokémon card collecting became race against scalpers

T he runaway demand for Pokemon cards is because they are being hyped “like crypto”, according to one young fan who had spent the night queueing outside a London store to make sure he did not miss out on the latest card release.

Before its 10am opening on Friday, the line outside the pop culture store Forbidden Planet in central London snaked past five others and, despite its strict sales policy, was probably “50/50” fans and resellers, said Kai, who had been there since 3am.

The 25-year-old has loved Pokémon since he was a child but the immense rise in reselling and scalping in recent years means fans like him are being priced out. “The cards used to be cheap but they have ballooned in price,” he says.

Kai, pictured with his girlfriend, says resellers are identifiable by the number of shopping bags they are carrying. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Kai blames the fact that “people in the crypto space have got into Pokémon” for fuelling the now rabid interest in buying cards for profit, and even gambling, with fans targeted by livestreams to bid on cards.

The signs on the door of Forbidden Planet spell out the rules. Like other stores, it limits high-demand products – in this case the £49.99 Delta Reign “elite trainer” box – to one a customer. (The set will be selling with big markups on eBay by the end of the day.)

It also has what it calls a “supplier-requested unsealing policy”. This approach deters some resellers because an opened product cannot be sold on as brand new.

“It’s calmer here,” said Kai of the queue of more than 120 people. “The people and workers are nice here.”

Like others in the queue he has (Pokémon) war stories of fights and overwhelmed security staff.

The clamour for cards has the most determined buyers zooming from store to store by e-bike. Others reportedly get around purchase limits by changing clothes or paying cash for other people’s hauls.

The traders were identifiable by their multiple shopping bags, said Kai, who added that “as a collector there is no reason to have that many”.

Some stores, such as Argos, only sell the trading cards online. On Amazon, high-demand lines are sold by an “invite-only” process designed to combat scalper bots.

With tattoos of his favourite Pokémon, Gengar and Dragonite, on his leg and arm, Anthony, 26, started collecting when he was five. He secured the third queue spot after coming straight from his waiting shift at 1am.

He admits to doing “everything” – buying, selling and exchanging cards – and using the sale proceeds to subsidise his collection.

Anthony with his tattoo of Dragonite. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Like Luke, second in the queue, and Hiep, who secured first place at 11pm, he wanted to buy the expensive elite trainer sets. Luke, 30, said nostalgia around Pokémon’s 30th anniversary this year was the “straw that broke me”.

He had a binder with placeholders for missing cards. It was an “expensive” hobby with scalpers being the reason “people like us turn up so early”.

Hiep, who was first in the queue, with his purchase afterwards. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Frustrated parents are increasingly found lurking in Reddit threads and Facebook groups looking for advice on how to buy cards for their children.

Even though Pokémon produces about 10bn cards a year, Calvin Innes, a fandom and pop culture strategist, said the demand had “outrun the machines, so everything else – bots, scalpers, queues etc – sits on the fact that there is a hard supply limit”.

“It’s not impossible for kids to get cards but the buying experience has gotten really ugly,” said Innes, author of Fandom Power: Marketing in the Age of Nerd Culture. “As a father of three kids who are all into Pokémon, it sucks.”

While elite trainer and booster box sets, plus Pokémon Center exclusives, were the hardest products to get, Innes said single packs and blisters were more accessible, although smaller high street retailers sold out quickly.

He also advised parents to buy singles from a UK card shop, singles marketplace, such as Cardmarket, or top-rated sellers on eBay UK.

Another option for parents was to go to a prerelease or league event at a game shop. Innes said they typically cost £25-£30 and the child usually got guaranteed cards, and the opportunity to play the game.

Daniel Garnett, who owns the Hull Pops Gaming Centre in Hessle, East Yorkshire, runs a free kids club and said he tries to keep product back for regular players. “We teach kids all about the Pokémon game, about the cards and how to play. We also have a qualified Pokémon judge that helps out.

“Sadly, however, about a month ago, we had lots of parents bring their kids in purely to buy product, and had no intention of playing or staying for the session.”

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