It's sometimes amazing what gamers and collectors from around the world are willing to spend on items both rare, old, unique, or at least somewhere between the three. In a recent case, a surprising auction on eBay turned out to be much more valuable than what most players would ever have expected.
eBay user doubletwelves decided to sell off a rare collection of Pokemon Game Cases and manuals spanning generations, from the original Gameboy games to the DS titles. These were simply just the cases of Pokemon games with doubletwelves making it clear that there were no games included, a fact the seller repeated numerous times. With it just being a collection of cases and manuals, nobody could have expected such a big investment from buyers.
The collection of cases sold for $1375 with 19 bids since the item first went on sale on September 11. Looking at the bids, doubletwelves set the starting price at $20 until it ballooned just four days later. One user consistently bid up the price in $50 increments until hitting their limit at $320. It was on the last day of the auction that the price really skyrocketed with the last minute seeing the then highest bid of $330 quadruple over five prospective buyers.
The Pokemon franchise has been in the news of late for making some big money online. Over the last two years, there has been an influx of older Pokemon items being sold at obscene amounts of money. While this sale of authentic Pokemon cases is definitely pricey, it pales in comparison to what collectors are willing to pay for vintage Pokemon cards. Just days ago, a first edition "Limited Printing" sealed Pokemon booster box sold for a whopping $198,000 at auction. This follows numerous other examples but this most recent is a new record breaker. What is even more shocking that the original estimated sale of the box was only at $80,000, blowing right past that number.
Even beyond just the selling of vintage items related to the Pokemon brand, new items from developer Game Freak's immensely popular franchise can sell for insane amounts of money. Earlier this year, a Pikachu hat had a high price with the designer accessory costing over $500. The Pokemon brand has even expanded to feature new collections with popular sportswear brands like Adidas.
With the success of this eBay auction along with numerous others in the past, there will likely be more sellers taking advantage of the never-ending Pokemon craze. Some fans may be sitting on new record breaking items just waiting for the right buyer.
Source: eBay (via NintendoLife)