Unopened rare Pokémon cards which were almost thrown in a skip are set to fetch £20,000 at auction

• A grandfather, 81, is selling rare Pokémon cards which are set to fetch £20K
• Read More: Woman finds a 100-year-old Dairy Milk bar under her floorboards

An unopened box of rare Pokémon cards which were almost thrown in a skip are set to fetch £20,000 at auction.

An 81-year-old grandfather paid £100 for the Pokémon Fourth Print Base Set Booster Box from a shop in Chester in 1999.

He snapped up the box of the 102 Japanese trading cards as a spare set after catching ’em all’ with his four-year-old granddaughter.

The rare cards will go under the hammer at Hansons Auctioneers on Today. 

The box, which is still in its original cellophane wrapper, was kept in his cupboard for two decades before it was almost thrown out.

An unopened box of rare Pokémon cards which were almost thrown in a skip are set to fetch £20,000 at auction

The seller’s 50-year-old daughter, a teaching assistant from Chester, said: ‘The box set for auction sat in a cupboard in my father’s house.

‘Sadly, during Covid my mum became terminally ill with cancer.

‘We needed to clear space quickly for a hospital bed so she could be cared for at home.

‘During the clear out the cards were taken out of the cupboard. There were thousands of them.

‘Dad planned to throw them away and a few did end up in a skip. But I said, ‘Blimey, dad, some of these might be worth a bit’.

‘Some loose cards were thrown away. The rest we decided to sell.

‘That’s when the extent of the collection was realised. ‘Gotta catch ’em all’ is the Pokémon catchprase and dad really had caught ’em all.

‘The ones we’ve sold already have made around £50,000. The money’s been split between family members.

An 81-year-old grandfather paid £100 for the Pokémon Fourth Print Base Set Booster Box from a shop in Chester in 1999

He snapped up the box of the 102 Japanese trading cards as a spare set after catching ’em all’ with his four-year-old granddaughter

‘Sadly mum lost her battle and passed away. Dad’s health isn’t the best either.’

Many of the cards have been snapped up by private collectors around the UK with others being sold to Pokémon fans in America.

The grandfather and his granddaughter started collecting Pokémon cards in when she was aged just four.

The seller’s daughter added: ‘They went on trips to Chester together at weekends to get the cards from a hobby shop.

‘My dad is a collector and gets obsessed.

‘He is a little eccentric and loves maths. He used to buy the cards loose but worked out it would take approximately three boxes of cards to complete a set.

‘Eventually the person at the shop suggested he purchased boxes from him. It worked in both their favours.

‘The shop keeper could do a bigger bulk order and my dad got his three Pokémon boxes.

‘Once he’d completed a set spare boxes were never opened. They remained sealed and were carefully stored away.

‘The cards were never played with either. Being an avid collector my dad kept the cards pristine.

‘They were put into penny pockets and placed in numerical order in a folder.

‘It seems crazy a box of cards could be worth so much now. Paying around £100 to £120 per box in 1999 was a lot of money for a working man.

The box, which is still in its original cellophane wrapper, was kept in his cupboard for two decades before it was almost thrown out

‘But like all grandads he liked to spoil his grandchildren. She is grandad’s girl, 100 per cent.’

The proceeds from the sale will go towards helping the seller’s granddaughter, now 28, who is training to be a paramedic at university.

The family still have four other sealed boxes of Pokémon cards locked in safes to sell ‘in case of emergencies’.

The seller’s daughter said: ‘Knowing I had a sealed base box set felt good. But this brings it full circle.

‘It was started for my daughter and it ends for her.

‘She is studying to become a paramedic. She needs financial support to manage this. This sealed box set was the ‘in-case-of-emergencies’ item.’

The original Pokémon Trading Card game launched in 1996, which is the same year that the first Pokémon video games were released in Japan.

David Wilson-Turner, Head of the Toy Department at Hansons, said: ‘What distinguishes the Pokémon Fourth Print Base Set Booster Box from others, and makes it scarce, is that it was only released in the UK.

‘The 102 cards inside, contained in 36 sealed booster packs, bear a definitive date stamp stating 1999-2000. Other base set cards are stamped 1999.

‘The box is protected by its original cellophane wrap and features arched ‘Wizards of the Coast’ logos.

‘This is only found on Fourth Print boxes. The 102-cards base sets were released in 1999 in Shadowless, First Edition, Unlimited and Fourth Print versions.

‘This box offers a rare opportunity for someone to get their hands on a piece of Pokémon history.’

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