'Jaws Hit the Floor' at Auction House as Retired Decorator Sells Pokémon Cards for $2 Million

A retired decorator from the UK just became a millionaire by selling a bunch of Pokémon cards collecting dust in his loft for $2 million.

The man, from Woking, UK, said he had no idea the cards were valuable until he read about a single card fetching £6,000 (approx. $8,000).

The cards were auctioned off at Surrey-based auction house Ewbank's on Wednesday for £1.56 million (approx. $2 million). "I know people always talk about finding treasure in the attic, but in my case that is literally true," said the anonymous retiree, via the BBC.

"When my son was young, in the late 1990s, he started getting cards and swapping them at school. I thought they looked nice and wondered whether they might be a good investment. He had his own cards, but he never got to touch these, I'm glad to say."

He stored the cards away after his son lost interest in collecting them all. One set, which the newly minted millionaire bought from a Malaysian eBay seller for £300 (approx. $400), went for a whopping £75,000 (approx. $100,000) at auction.

An auction official said "jaws hit the floor" when the man showed them his collection. "When we saw what he had — all in mint condition — we couldn't believe it," said head of trading cards at Ewbank’s, James Spooner.

It was the most successful sale Ewbank’s has seen in over 30 years of business. The Legendary Collection Complete Master Set alone went for £100,000 (approx. $133,000).

Ewbank conducted the sale himself. When it went through, he told bidders he was "going for a lie down.” There was global buzz for the auction leading up to the day, and bidders phoned in from all over the world. Interest was particularly high because the entire collection was pristine, complete, and untouched — stuffed with every rarity of card you could imagine.

In April this year, teacher Andrew Braund approached Ewbank’s with a 20-year-old collection of Pokémon cards he had kept in his parents’ attic. He consigned the three rarest cards to Ewbank’s who took £32,800 for them on April 16, with Andrew using the proceeds to pay for his August wedding.

These cards have some way to go before coming close to the most expensive Pokémon card ever sold, however. In February, the Pikachu Illustrator card sold for an eye-watering $16,492,000 after 41 days of bidding. It belonged to American influencer and wrestler Logan Paul, who bought it for $5.275 million in July 2021.

More than 10 billion Pokémon cards were printed last year alone, and 85 billion have been created in total. That volume makes it hard to come across complete sets and the rarest cards, which are so sought after that people pull off Pokémon card heists to steal them.

Image credit: Ewbank's.