The surprising fortunes in Pokémon

While you’re rummaging in the attic for your old comics (see left), keep an eye out for vintage Pokémon cards from the late 1990s and early noughties. Nostalgia and rarity have combined to drive a steady market in the cards, based on the popular Japanese cartoon series. Money.co.uk has trawled eBay to find the most expensive cards listed on the online auction platform. It found a mint-condition Japanese “Old Back Pokémon Trophy Card No.2 Neo Spring Battle” from 2001, featuring the character Pikachu, on sale for almost £1.3m. Whether it finds a buyer at that price is, of course, another matter.

For comparison, the second highest-priced card on eBay is a gem-mint-condition “Trophy Kangaskhan Parent & Child Tournament 1998” card, featuring Kangaskhan, at £350,000 – still a lot of money for a playing card.

Fakes are a problem, so look for cards that have been graded for their condition, says Salman Haqqi of

Money.co.uk. They are given a serial number, typically by firms PSA and CGC, that can be checked against a database. Cards with holograms tend to be worth more, and look out for the symbols at the bottom of the cards, which indicate how rare they are.

Auction house Bonhams also launched its inaugural “The World of Anime” sale this week, running until 2 February. Pokémon’s Pikachu is represented among the 150 rare production celluloids and drawings from Japanese cartoons. The artwork by Satoshi Tajiri has been valued at up to $3,500. But it is a celluloid featuring the eponymous character Kiki of Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), with her companion Jiji, from the studio of pioneering filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, that leads the auction. It is expected to sell for between $15,000 and $25,000.