Rare Book Monthly

Articles - April - 2022 Issue

A Pokemon Card Sells for Over $300,000. What Does This Mean?

A Pokemon Card Sells for Over $300,000. What Does This Mean?

A Pokemon Card Sells for Over $300,000. What Does This Mean?

Another spectacular price for a collectible card was achieved at Heritage Auctions last month. It wasn't another multi-million dollar sports card, the price being a “modest” $336,000. However, this was for a Pokemon card, which at least ought to provide some insight into today's collectors, along with some wonderment to the parents of Millennials and Gen Zers. They're the ones who threw this stuff out when their children-collectors moved out of the house.

 

I know some people are wondering what any of this has to do with book collecting. More about that in a moment. First, some details about the card. At $336,000, this was not a record price for a Pokemon card. One once actually sold for $900,000, but that was from a small group of promo Pikachu cards from Japan in Japanese. This appears to be the highest price for a card from a regular English set (though complete sets have sold for more).

 

This card came from the first edition base set of English trading cards and was in the highest condition rating possible – PSA 10. It was for a Charizard card. For those not thoroughly familiar with Pokemon characters, Charizard is Charmander all grown up. While Charmander is a cute, endearing little lizard-like creature, the grown-up Charizard is a fierce fighter and not one to get on the wrong side of. It is a 199.5 lb. fire-breathing dragon who can incinerate you with a single breath.

 

Now, what does any of this have to do with book collecting? A lot, actually. Book collecting has long encompassed more than what is implied by a narrow interpretation of the word “book.” It has included other bound paper items, such as booklets, pamphlets, magazines, catalogues and brochures, along with unbound paper items such as manuscripts, maps, newspapers, letters, prints and photographs. It has all been subsumed under the description “works on paper.”

 

In recent years, we have seen an enormous rate of growth in two particular types of works on paper, comic books and trading cards. Trading card collecting generally has been focused on baseball and other sports cards, but now we are seeing that expand. That brings us to this recent sale and the rapidly growing interest in Pokemon cards. Sports cards, and the once popular carte-de-visite, have been around for over a century. Pokemon cards are only slightly over two decades old. This is something new in more ways than one.

 

Elsewhere in this month's issue of Rare Book Monthly, we have written about the Honey & Wax book collecting prize for women collectors age 30 and under. What we discovered is that the elusive new book collector isn't fictional after all. They exist. It's just that their collecting focus is different. Whether it is other forms of paper or unusual topics, youth is charting its own course when it comes to collecting.

 

By and large, people like to collect things with which they were familiar when they were young. Everyone for the past five centuries has been familiar with books from their youth. For most of that time, books were the only source of information and entertainment from the outside world. However, radio and later television made baseball players household names. For more recent generations, cable television and the internet has done the same for other sources of entertainment, including Pokemon.

 

This makes the breakthrough prices on Pokemon cards all the more significant. Pokemon is a 1990s phenomenon. While I don't know for certain who is buying collectible Pokemon cards, it's hard to imagine they would have much appeal for people over the age of 35. Pokemon would not be a part of their youth. These are almost certainly the focus of new collectors.

 

This sale led us to search through the auction records to see how many books published from Pokemon times, the 1990s to the present, have sold for as much or more than this Pokemon card. I found only one. A single copy of the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first Harry Potter book, sold for $471,000 last year. That's it. The number of Pokemon Charmander cards sold for over $300,000 equals the total number of books first published after 1990 that have sold for that price. I know this is a small sample, but don't be surprised to see the trend continue as new collectors replace old ones.

 

Some older people will scoff at the significance, even the relevance of this sale. Older people do a lot of scoffing. Those in the book trade do need to take the interests of younger collectors seriously. We may wish younger people preferred Shakespeare to Pikachu, reading books to watching Tik Tok videos, but that is not our choice. We can try to influence, teach, share experiences, but ultimately, we don't get to decide for them. We retain the right to choose what we like, but we do not have the right to make those choices for others. As the Baby Boomers' musical and poetic voice warned, the times they are a-changin'.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Johnson (C.). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most Notorious Pyrates, 1724. £3,000-4,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Ordonez de Cevallos (Pedro). Viage del Mundo, 1st edition, Madrid: Luis Sanchez, 1614. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: North America. Merian (Matthaus), Virginia..., 1627 or later. £1,500-2,500
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: World. Waldseemuller (Martin), Tabula Nova Totius Orbis, Vienne: 1541. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Erasmus (Desiderius). The ... paraphrase of Erasmus... 2 volumes, 1st edition, 1549. £3,000-5,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Bible [English]. [The Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament, 1562]. £3,000-5,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Smith (Lucy). Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, 1st edition, 1853. £1,000-1,500
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Derain (Andre). Pantagruel, signed limited edition, Albert Skira, 1943. £2,000-3,000
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Austen (Jane). Pride and Prejudice, illustrated by Hugh Thomson, Large Paper edition, 1894. £1,500-2,000
    Dominic Winter Auctioneers

    April 9
    Printed Books, English Bibles, Maps & Decorative Prints
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Ellison (Ralph). Invisible Man, 1st edition, New York: Random House, 1952. £200-300
    Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Taschen Collector's Edition. Annie Leibovitz, limited edition, 2014. £1,000-1,500
  • Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 1: Bob Dylan, his high school classmate's yearbook with his senior portrait, signed and inscribed to her, 1959. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 4: Various entertainers, Group of 30 items, signed or inscribed, various dates. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 27: John Adams, Autograph Letter Signed to Benjamin Rush introducing Archibald Redford, Paris, 1783. $35,000 to $50,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 36: Robert Gould Shaw, Autograph Letter Signed to his father from Camp Andrew, Boston, 1861. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 53: Martin Luther King Jr., Time magazine cover, signed and inscribed "Best Wishes," 1957. $5,000 to $7,500.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 127: Paul Gauguin, Autograph Letter regarding payment for paintings, with woodcut letterhead, 1900. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 169: Suck: First European Sex Paper, complete group of eight issues, 1969-1974. $800 to $1,200.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 173: Black Panthers, The Racist Dog Policemen Must Withdraw Immediately From Our Communities, poster, 1969. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 187: Marc Attali & Jacques Delfau, Les Erotiques du Regard, first edition, Paris, 1968. $300 to $500.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 213: Andy Warhol, Warhol's Index Book, first printing, New York, 1967. $800 to $1,200.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 215: Cookie Mueller, Archive of 17 items, including 4 items inscribed and signed. $3,000 to $4,000.
    Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 249: Jamie Reid, The Ten Lessons / The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle; Sex Pistols, chromogenic print with collage, signed, circa 1980. $20,000 to $30,000.
  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
  • Bonhams, Apr. 8: First report outside of the colonies of the American Revolution, from American accounts. Printed broadsheet, The London Evening-Post, May 30, 1775. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Joyce, James. The earliest typescript pages from Finnegans Wake ever to appear at auction, annotated by Joyce, 1923. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Joyce's Ulysses, 1923, one of only seven copies known, printed to replace copies destroyed in customs. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: ATHANASIUS KIRCHER'S COPY, INSCRIBED. Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell' Accademia del Cimento, 1667. $2,000 - $3,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Bernoulli's Ars conjectandi, 1713. "... first significant book on probability theory." $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Aristotle's Politica. Oeconomica. 1469. The first printed work on political economy. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: John Graunt's Natural and political observations...., 1662. The first printed work of epidemiology and demographics. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: William Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas, 1786. The first work to pictorially represent information in graphics. $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Anson's A Voyage Round the World, 1748. THE J.R. ABBEY-LORD WARDINGTON COPY, BOUND BY JOHN BRINDLEY. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: La Perouse's Voyage de La Perouse autour du monde..., 1797. LARGE FINE COPY IN ORIGINAL BOARDS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Francesca Woodman's Some Disordered Interior Geometries, 1981. Untrimmed publisher's proof sheets. $4,000 - $6,000
    Bonhams, Apr. 8: Charles Schulz original 8-panel Peanuts Sunday comic strip, 1992, pen and ink over pencil, featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy as a psychiatrist. $20,000 - $30,000

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