GameStop pays buyer $30,494 for Pokemon card in perfect condition
GameStop recorded the highest trade-in ever for a grade 10 Gengar card.
A GameStop customer made a fortune by trading Pokemon cards for more than $30,000 in a historic transaction.
On December 1, a customer in Grapevine, Texas, sold a fully certified PSA Grade 10 Hologengar card to a gaming retailer for a fair market value of $33,883, according to a news release posted by GameStop on X.
The store paid customers $30,494 after completing inspections, verification and compliance procedures, the company said.
“This event represents the single most valuable trade-in ever recorded in GameStop’s history,” GameStop said in a news release.
The game retailer added, “Furthermore, trolls publicly claiming that GameStop’s trade-in prices are bad are demonstrably factually incorrect. Previous and ongoing objections to our trade prices are now deemed to be without merit and effectively null and void.”
The company concluded the release with the slogan “Power to the Player.”
This massive trade-in also comes after GameStop announced it would be holding its first-ever “Trade Anything Day” on Saturday, December 6th. On this day, customers can trade in anything they want for store credit, with limitations, GameStop told USA TODAY in an email in late November.
Logan Paul buys rare Pokemon cards for over $5 million
Recently, Pokemon cards have been known to be exchanged for high amounts of money. In 2022, YouTuber Logan Paul broke the Guinness World Record for the most expensive Pokemon trading card sold privately. According to Guinness, the card was a PSA grade 10 Pikachu Illustrator card valued at $5.275 million.
Paul purchased the PSA grade 9 Pikachu illustrator from noted sports card collector Matt Allen in 2021 for $1.275 million. At that point, Paul told Guinness that he had “never spent so much money on physical assets.”
According to Guinness, the YouTuber and WWE wrestler went to Dubai, where he purchased the PSA Grade 10 version of the card for more than $5 million from a collector named “Dubsy.”
The PSA Grade 10 Pikachu Illustrator Card is a rare collector’s item. According to the Guinness website, only 39 of them were created in 1998 and were given to the winners of a Pokemon illustration contest. Of the 39 cards, only 20 have been evaluated by PSA, a leading card verification service. Eight of them have been given a PSA grade of 9 (9 out of 10).
A grade of 9 means the card is nearly perfect, but may show minor imperfections, such as a slight wax stain on the back or a slightly off-white border. The PSA website states that for a card to be awarded a grade 10, it must be deemed perfect with “no four sharp edges and no marks, dents or minor scuffs on the front or back.”
At the time of the auction, Paul’s card was the only one to receive the coveted Grade 10 rating.
Michelle Del Rey is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Please contact mdelrey@usatoday.com.
