Two Pokémon 1999 base set booster boxes are are up for auction at $15,000 a pop

Two sealed Pokémon 1999 Base Set Booster Boxes are up for auction next week, both valued at $15,000 (£11,000) each.

The two booster boxes are from the original English language release of the trading card game, containing 36 sealed booster packs inside. Both booster boxes have been kept in mint condition, with their owner displaying them within a gift shop as wholesale products - before putting them up for sale with a company called Ewbank’s Auctions, whose sports & entertainment memorabilia department manages lots containing items like rare collectibles.

There is a chance that the booster boxes could contain several extremely rare Pokémon cards, such as the original line-up of Charizard, Blastoise and Venusaur, which have all previously been sold or auctioned off for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Last October, a shiny Charizard card - considered to be the “holy grail” of Pokémon cards - was auctioned off for a record £169,000 ($230,000) to the famous rapper, Logic.

Several Pokémon 1999 Base Set Booster Boxes have been auctioned at high price tags in the past few years, including one valued at $25,000 (£18,000) and another which was eventually bought at the record-breaking amount of £269,000 ($197,000).

Being auctioned off alongside the base set booster boxes will be a collection of 83 mint edition cards from the 2000’s Team Rocket expansion, with a previous copy of the expansion being sold at a recent auction for £2,400 ($3,267), as well as a 1st edition Dark Blastoise holo-card that is expected to go for around £120 ($163).

The demand for Pokémon trading cards has ballooned over the Covid-19 pandemic, with retail companies such as Target no longer stocking Pokémon: Trading Card Game products within physical stores due to customers seeking them leading to violent and aggressive behaviour. A financial partner for Ewbank Auctions commented that “the global collectable card game market is expected to reach $18 billion by 2025 [...] which shows just how important this area of interest is to collectors”.

The auction for the two Pokémon 1999 Base Set Booster Boxes will be held on August 25th.