Thirty-four-year-old father of three Nigel Brookes has just discovered that he's the owner of a Pokémon Trading Card collection worth a cool £35,000 (around $44,000).
Brookes was given the selection of cards – a 1999 Shadowless Pokémon card set purchased direct from Wizards of the Coast – by his mother 21 years ago as a 'thank you' gift for stopping his younger brother Jeremy from losing his best cards to other unscrupulous collectors.
According to Brookes (thanks, Lad Bible):
Jeremy ran into the house showing off this new Pokémon card he had traded with the kids on the street. I knew straight away that what these kids had done is told Jeremy their cards were better and traded them with him for his cards, which were really rare.
My brother was really sad about it and when our mum found out, being the big brother, she wanted me to sort it out. I found the kids and got my brother's card back, so as a present, my mum brought me this rare collection direct from the Pokémon creators in the US for about £300.
Brookes was never a fan of Pokémon, and was actually annoyed at the gift initially:
I wasn't actually that interested in Pokémon. I was disappointed at the time because the collection was one of my birthday presents so to me it was waste of a present. Little did I know they would be worth £35,000 now, we have kept them in the family for over 20 years and now they're going up for sale for a collector who will take care of them.
There are 103 cards in total, they are all in pristine condition and were bought direct from creators 'Wizards Of The Coast' in the US, and are all first edition. My daughter Layla loves Pokémon and did try to buy them all of me for £6 - unfortunately that won't cut it, and I'm sure she'll appreciate why I said no in the future!
The set is due to go up for auction on July 27th at Richard Winterton Auctioneers, who have issued the following statement:
The collection is estimated to fetch in the region of at least £25,000 and £35,000 and is viewed as something of a Holy Grail for serious Pokémon aficionados all over the world.
Brookes admits that it's been a "difficult decision to part ways because I'm sure in 20 years they'll be worth double," but explains that he's going to use the money to give his own kids a "a really special childhood."
[source ladbible.com]
Comments 16
All the same, he could have kept it in a cupboard or something instead of sitting on it. His body weight has likely caused damage in the range of thousands of dollars.
I could never do that 😂 Nice reason to part ways with it though. I'd love for money to be no object and buy it myself
@StuartGipp for 21 years? I'd be more concerned about his piles situation than the condition of the cards
Lots of money,m! But for some reason, sounds a low amount for a “holy grail” between collectors... kinda hope he is running an auction and not just selling to first offer, or he might be in the same situation his brother was 20 years ago, only this time 5 figures behind 😅
@PapaGlitch Gotta scratch em all!
How can you sit on top of a set of cards for 21 years and not notice? Does he have like a massive behind or something?
@Mintendoll To be fair, this is in a world where Nintendo can sell you a box of cardboard for £60.
Doctors hate him.
It pains me to read how they refer to Wizards of the Coast as the creators over and over. They were just the western publisher.
Kind of like all the praise Dark Horse gets all the time for creating the various Zelda books, which they only translated and published in the west.
don't look any different to the untrained eye to my collection of normal ones!
Arthur, king of the Britains, would be unimpressed by these disingenous claims.
Ah that classic Ash Misty Brock trio with the classic not so fat/not so skinny Pikachu, kinda sad that is gone when you think about it... time sure can be kinda cruel to us in a nostalgic way.
I had a collection worth 1000's but around 10 years back it got chucked away by mistake, i was never angry at the time as i stopped caring about PM cards but its only in recent years when i've seen how much those cards go for that i feel like crying knowing how much those cards would be going for.
@Chibi_Manny I only ever watch the Anime up to the point Ash was about to head off to Hoen, the loss of that classic Trio i never got over and around the half way point of Hoen all the voice actors changed what completely killed my interest in the Anime going forward. I actually own all the episodes possible up to the end of Master Quest and for me that's the entire PM anime.
i wonder what pokemon cards they were?, i still have a bunch of them i have that i found ages ago stored away, would like to sell them too
@huyi The article says "a 1999 Shadowless Pokémon card set"
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