Collectors at Wright talk about pokemon card scalping
For years now, the price of collectable Pokémon cards has been skyrocketing, and as it continues to climb, many collectors are getting shut out from their hobby.
Wilbur Wright student and long time Pokémon card collector Ashawn Powell remembers when these prices started to increase.
Powell believes Pokémon cards started to gain more attention over the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Prices really spiked when Logan Paul did all those unboxings back in like Covid, that’s really when I think all that scalping started,” Powell said.
During the renewed interest in Pokémon, pictures and videos on social media would blow up showing people leaving Target with pallets worth of Pokémon card packets and insane online auctions charging exorbitant prices for cards.
“Prices looked like they were going down after the pandemic, but they’re still high today,” Powell admitted. While the prices may have decreased a bit, the hobby still remains expensive.
For collector Richard Wyatt, searching shelves in hopes of finding something valuable is an important part of the hobby. However, he thinks now that even sealed packs can be difficult to find at reasonable prices. “Now I’ll be lucky if there's even one pack left on the shelf,” said Wyatt.
For many collectors that remember growing up collecting Pokémon, it’s more than just the money. Being able to open a pack, finding new cards, and adding them to your growing collection is what makes the hobby so addicting and fun. But as prices increase it becomes harder to stay in the hobby for long time collectors.
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