Pokémon TCG cards have become incredibly valuable items among collectors. The rarest and most expensive ones have been auctioned and sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even recently, a Pikachu Illustrator card broke the card game’s price record after selling for $900,000 in February last year.
But while there’s no denying their value, the market is turbulent. On a good day, the demand is there and the bids are competitive, and on a bad one, there’s little to no interest at all. One seller learned that the hard way after putting a Pikachu Illustrator card in near-perfect condition up for auction on eBay with a starting price of $480,000.
Only, it ended up receiving absolutely zero bids for the listing.
It’s the same card as the one that broke the record 13 months ago, and the condition is a close match too, making the fact it didn’t draw much attention all the more surprising. There could be a logical explanation, though.
When it comes to bidding for incredibly rare and expensive cards like this one, people tend to prefer using highbrow collectible auctioneer websites, since the verification process tends to be more thorough.
EBay has worked quite closely with the Pokémon TCG seller throughout the process, according to a report from Kotaku earlier today. They even sent press releases to hype it up, one of which Dot received, and are intending to do it again. It’s hard to imagine they’d be willing to do that if they doubted the card’s authenticity.
It will be interesting to see if bidders steer clear again, or whether a cashed-up collector sees a golden opportunity to snap it up for less than Feb. 2022’s offering.
