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Incredible Pokémon card collection discovered nearly 30 years later
Two brothers in America uncovered a vast, decades-old stash of unopened Pokémon trading cards while helping their 80-year-old grandmother search her home, after she repeatedly insisted she had packs stored away for them. The find is notable because it includes sealed, first-edition packs from the game's earliest sets, some potentially worth tens of thousands of pounds, turning a routine family favour into a remarkable act of accidental hoarding from the 1990s.
The haul included dozens of sealed booster packs and unopened decks from early sets such as Fossil, Jungle and Team Rocket, many still shrink-wrapped with original price tags, alongside a binder of holofoil cards featuring Pikachu, Mew and Mewtwo. Among the most valuable items are three shiny Charizard cards, including a shadowless version that could fetch a five-figure sum, while comparable sealed booster boxes have previously sold for between $15,000 and $30,000 each. The grandmother believes more tins remain hidden in the house, and the grandsons say their priority is preserving the collection and spending time with her rather than cashing in immediately.
In short
- Grandma's hoarded 1990s Pokémon cards turn out to be a goldmine
- Sealed first-edition packs and shiny Charizards among the finds
- Some items could be worth tens of thousands of dollars
Explained simply
Pokémon trading cards are collectible cards featuring creatures from the video game franchise, first released in the mid-1990s. The cards became a global phenomenon, with people playing the game competitively whilst others collected rare cards as investments and keepsakes from their childhood.
Cards from the earliest sets, particularly those still sealed in original packaging, command substantial prices among collectors decades later. Rarity, condition and age determine their value, with unopened booster packs from the 1990s often selling for hundreds or thousands of pounds depending on the specific set and edition.
The 1990s saw intense collecting crazes around various products, with many people accumulating large quantities of cards they intended to hold for the long term. Some collections were stored away and forgotten about over the years, only to resurface when owners or family members rediscover them.