Pokémon Card Frenzy Is Making Collectors and Startups Rich
Millennial nostalgia and fresh stimulus checks have fueled a boom in Pokémon trading card-related entrepreneurship. Can it last?
Mark Shininger is selling off his grade school Pokemon cards for thousands of dollars.
Photographer: Sara Stathas/BloombergMark Shininger is a like a lot of millennials who played with Pokémon cards during grade school. He traded the collectibles with his friends and competed with his brothers for the shiniest, most powerful characters—until eventually he tired of the hobby, stowed the cards neatly in boxes and grew up.
Then last year as the pandemic wore on, Shininger began hearing about vintage Pokémon card sales, sometimes reaching into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So the 24-year-old mechanical engineer from Random Lake, Wisconsin, dug up his old collection of Pikachus and Charmanders. He logged the creatures into a spreadsheet and turned his childhood passion into a $4,500 side hustle.