A retired decorator from Woking has become a millionaire after a collection of Pokémon cards that spent 15 years gathering dust in his attic sold for £1.56m at auction — a sum the auction house says makes it Britain's most valuable trading card sale ever, and possibly a European record.
The man, who asked not to be named, told Ewbank's auction house in Surrey that he had no idea the cards held real value until he read a local newspaper report about a single card fetching more than £6,000. He had bought complete sets on eBay from a seller in Malaysia in the late 1990s, after his son began collecting and swapping cards at school. "I know people always talk about finding treasure in the attic, but in my case that is literally true," he said. "He had his own cards, but he never got to touch these, I'm glad to say."
One set that cost him £300 at the time sold for £75,000 on Wednesday. The top lot, a Legendary Collection Complete Master Set including a near-mint Charizard, had been estimated at £15,000-£20,000 but went for £100,000. "When we saw what he had — all in mint condition — we couldn't believe it," said James Spooner, Ewbank's head of trading cards, calling it the auction house's most successful sale in more than 30 years.
Auctioneer Andrew Ewbank, who ran the sale himself, said he was "going for a lie down" afterward. He attributed the frenzy partly to nostalgia among collectors now in their 30s and 40s who grew up with the franchise and have disposable income to chase childhood memories. "It's about bringing back those memories of childhood," he said.