The Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) market has matured significantly from the speculative bubble of 2020-2021. The current climate is defined by stability, educated consumer behavior, and a clear stratification of asset classes. The market has evolved and is driven by collectors, long-term investors, rip and ship channels, and flippers. The market is no longer driven by indiscriminate hype but by asset quality, rarity, and generational nostalgia. The out-of-print Sword & Shield era (2020-2023) has emerged as the premier growth segment, with its Alternate Art cards behaving like blue-chip assets. The current Scarlet & Violet market has done a 180 as what was once a race to the bottom with booster box prices has turned into a game of who can get lucky against the army of bots on the Pokémon Center website and who can get close to MSRP from their local TCG shop. The Scarlet & Violet era just ended but it still presents opportunities for discerning investors willing to acquire top-tier cards and for those willing to lock up capital in hopes that it mimics what the Sword & Shield era matured into. In my opinion the dominant theme of 2025 is stratification as high-quality, graded, and genuinely scarce assets are performing exceptionally well, while low-grade, mass-produced, and non-holo cards from all eras remain stagnant. The price gap between a PSA 10 (Gem Mint) and a PSA 9 (Mint) for key modern cards has widened, emphasizing the market's obsession with perfection.
State of the Pokémon TCG market
Collectables have been gaining significant notoriety from YouTube channels showing large sales at card shows to Mr. Wonderful himself Kevin O'Leary and two of his buddies buying a Kobe Bryant / Michael Jordan dual logoman auto card for $12.9 million. What was once a childhood hobby has become big business, and it seems as if its only getting larger. This may shock some of you who are unfamiliar with the Pokémon TCG market but it’s crushing the S&P 500. Before the recent boom Booster Boxes which are the equivalent of a wax pack box for sports cards, individual boxes were able to be purchased at launch for around $105. Booster Boxes sold for under MSRP as it was a race to the bottom. Even at the beginning of the most recent era of Scarlet & Violet collectors and investors would wait until boxes reached $105 or below $100 on eBay before placing an order. This has changed and you can’t touch anything for close to MSRP these days. The new era of Pokémon (Mega Evolutions) starts this week and while MSRP on the Pokémon Center website is $161.64 you can currently buy the pre-order for $274.88.
The amount of appreciation from the previous series is playing a large part in this as sealed booster boxes have outpaced the S&P 500:
If you had purchased 1 booster box of each set from the XY era it would have cost $1,155 and the current price for the collective value of these sealed boxes on the open market is $61,379.60. This is a 5,214.25% return. Over the same period, putting capital into an S&P 500 index fund on the dates of each release would have generated a return of 292.46%. If you did the same thing with the Sun and Moon Series which was 2017 – 2019 it would have returned 2,296.77% compared to 181.97% for the S&P 500. The Sword & Shield Era is more recent as it ran 2020 – 2022 and even a more modern set under the same parameters would have returned 546.58% compared to 85.37% for the S&P 500.
The TCG market which includes assets such as Pokémon, Magic The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, One Piece, and other TCG games has taken over the grading market. Over the past month TCG cards represents more than 50% of the cards sent into grading companies such as PSA, CGC, BGS, and SGC. To give you an idea of how big the market is over the past 30-days 1.52 million cards were sent in to be graded. Yesterday alone PSA graded 63,600 cards while CGC was a distant 2nd grading 20,700. What could be even more interesting is that Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Ken Griffey Jr., or Koby Bryant don’t hold the top spot for the most cards graded. According to the population reports from each grading company, Charizard holds the top spot with 2.06 million cards sent in to be graded followed by 1.77 million for Pikachu.
I can’t predict the future, and the TCG market as a whole could experience a pullback, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that I can’t get product as easily as I could a year ago. This has evolved from a children's pastime into a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut that captivates collectors, investors, and players across generations. The current trends suggest the Pokémon TCG market is poised for continued growth, driven by a blend of nostalgia, collectors, investors, and a vibrant community. The original wave of Pokémon fans are now adults with disposable income. Their nostalgic drive is fueling unprecedented demand for vintage, graded card and sealed product from their childhood. In my opinion these sealed boxes and graded cards are the equivalent of how people thought about art 50 years ago. It seems like millennials and Gen Z sees these cards not just as toys, but as tangible pieces of their history and, increasingly, as alternative assets. I believe that the future of the Pokémon TCG market is strong as more investors and flippers are coming into the market. I believe that the TCG market, sports cards, and even comic books will be looked at as legitimate alternative assets as time progresses and it will become more common.
Please remember that at the end of the day nobody knows what will happen in the future as some potential headwinds include market saturation from too many releases, fluctuating grading turnaround times, and the broader economic climate impacting disposable income. Anyone who found this article interesting I would suggest doing a lot of research before entering this market as its volatile and anything can happen.