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October 13th - October 19th, 2025

📋 TLDR

📰 TCG News: Adidas announces a 2026 Pokémon collaboration, Rick Probstein exits eBay to launch low-fee marketplace “Snype,” and collectors spot Pokémon cards sold in a dentist’s office.

🔢 Card Market Highlights: High-end niche promos like the Kids WB Pikachu ($50k) and Ishihara GX ($48k) headline the week as Evolving Skies cases hold steady around $14.7k.

😴 Potential Sleepers: Lance’s Charizard V (SWSH133) - an overlooked Celebrations card poised do well in anticipation of next year’s 30th anniversary.

🏆 Card of the Week: Blitzle (Future Flash #72) - a dark, serene forest scene that captures a quiet spark between two Blitzle.

📰 TCG News

Note: Not all news may be directly TCG related

🔵 2026 Pokemon x Adidas Collaboration - Could cards come back?

Adidas has announced a new collaboration with Pokémon set to release in Fall 2026, aligning with the franchise’s 30th anniversary. While most previous brand pairings have focused on footwear and apparel, the timing of this one leads to some speculation that it might extend into the trading card world. A similar crossover happened in 2014 as part of a collaboration between Pokémon and Adidas to support Japan's national football team which resulted in the #50/XY-P Team Japan's Pikachu card distributed in an edition of Pokémon New Mon! Summer.

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🔵 When Your Dentist Becomes the Card Shop

A Reddit user recently shared that the only place left in their town to buy Pokémon cards is their dentist’s office, where the dentist keeps packs on hand and was selling them for just $3 each at one point and now at $6. The post struck a chord with collectors who’ve noticed shrinking retail availability and higher prices elsewhere. Unconventional spots are stepping in to fill the gap left by big box stores and although in this case the prices are reasonable it might not always be the case. It also begs the question of what other interesting places cards might pop up in. What do you think?

Source: Reddit

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🔵 Rick Probstein Leaves eBay to Launch Independent Marketplace

Longtime eBay seller Rick Probstein, who moved nearly 6 million items and around 925 million dollars in sales during his 21 years on the platform, has announced his last day on eBay will be October 23 and will unveil a new auction app and website called Snype in November. What potentially makes this significant for the Pokémon TCG space is the fee structure. eBay currently charges 13.25 percent on the first 7,500 dollars of a sale and 2.35 percent on amounts over that, while Snype will charge 5 percent for items under 1,000 dollars and 3 percent for items over 1,000 dollars.

Under the current formula, a seller of a 9,000 dollar item on eBay would make 7,433 dollars, while that same item on Snype would net 8,730 dollars. For high-value Pokémon singles and graded cards where fees can cut deeply into profit margins, this kind of shift could change where major sellers choose to list their inventory and potentially reshape the secondary market.

Source: CLCCT

🏆 Card of the Week

Blitzle

Japanese Future Flash #72

English Paradox Rift #195

This card was drawn by artist matazo featuring Blitzle. This is one of my favorite card art works of all time. The darker setting of this card is incredibly calming to look at yet slightly ominous. The detailed forest setting makes the art that much more real and it captures a nice moment between two Blitzle communicating through the light in their bolt shaped manes.

🔢 Card Market Highlights

📦 Sealed Product Market Highlights

🔵 Factory sealed Evolving Skies booster box case sells for $14.7k

Listing

Evolving Skies is in a bit of a weird place right now. Booster boxes have been stuck around the $2.3k average and the sealed case (which contains 6 booster boxes) prices are not carrying that much of an additional premium. Umbreon VMAX 215 is slowly outpacing the booster box currently going for around $3.7k in a PSA 10. Evolving Skies is still as popular as ever but has the hype died down in favor of collectors looking towards more modern sets?

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🔵 Pokemon Center Hiroshima Pikachu box sells for $300+

Listing

Despite the latest lottery waves for the Pokemon Center Pikachu boxes for Tohoku, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka at the end of September, these boxes are still going for about $300. One set of 3 sold for close to $900 this week. Many sellers do seem to be accepting best offers on any one of the boxes for slightly under $300 at around $280. The raw cards currently carry a slight premium over the box close to $400 but this is just limited to a few sales so the price is still quite volatile.

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🔵 Journey Together booster box sells for ~$245

Listing

Journey Together is generally considered to be an underwhelming set for a lack of true top chase cards but its star is slowly rising. Compared to other booster boxes, Journey Together might be currently priced the lowest, making it a really good option for casual collectors or those wanting to hold it long term. It’s true that Journey Together might not have a “top chase” compared to other sets in the form of an ultra popular Pokemon, but Journey Together has some really underrated cards that are still popular to many collectors and are bound to do well in the future.

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💎 Singles & Graded Cards Highlights

🔵 Pokemon Celebrations Light Toxitricity sells for $800 in a PSA 10

Listing

Celebrations as a set is soaring especially in anticipation of the 30th anniversary of Pokemon next year. In particular, modern Pokemon that have been reprinted in the style of vintage sets have been doing particularly well. Light Pokemon (featuring Light in the Pokemon name like Light Dragonair) were introduced in the Neo Destiny Pokemon as a counterpart to Dark Pokemon from the same set. Light Toxitricity was created as an homage to this set and has had a couple of large sales in a PSA 10. However, price data is extremely limited (with a PSA 10 pop of 53).

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🔵Poke Card Creator Kids WB! Pikachu promo sells for $50k in a PSA 10

Listing

Back in July 2004, the Pokémon TCG released the special “Poke Card Creator Pack” as part of a creative contest run by Kids’ WB! Children ages 5 to 15 were invited to submit original artwork featuring one of five designated Pokémon. The winners’ illustrations were turned into five unique cards, including the Pikachu promo numbered 5/5, distributed in a limited release of just 5,250 packs. There are only 12 of these cards graded in a PSA 10.

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🔵Special Delivery Charizard sells for $177.5

Listing

The Special Delivery Charizard card was released as a promotional card in 2022 to celebrate the launch of the official Pokémon Center online stores in the UK and Canada. To get a copy, customers in these regions had to register for a one-time use code, which was then provided via email after a purchase of at least $20 (or £20 in the UK) was made.

The price was relatively stable around the $80 mark from May to July before it started rising to the $160 average.

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🕰️ Vintage & Niche Market Highlights

🔵Japanese Fan Club Edition Shining Magikarp sells for $5.5k

Listing

The Japanese Fan Club Edition Shining Magikarp (Promo #129) was redeemed through the Pokémon Card Fan Club program between May 2001 and December 2002 after collectors amassed 600 GET Points. The card was identical to the version released in the Japanese Awakening Legends (Neo Revelation) expansion, except in this Fan Club version the Magikarp itself was embossed with gold holofoil while the background remained standard.

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🔵 Deoxys collector box sells close to $7k

Listing

This collector box contains 2 EX Deoxys booster packs, 1 Team Rocket Returns EX booster pack, and 2 series 1 packs. The Deoxys booster packs currently go for around $1600 each, Team Rocket Returns packs for about $900, and POP Series 1 packs for about $70. The top chase of POP Series 1 is the Tyranitar Ex Holo #17 going for close to $10k in a PSA 10 while the other packs contain the elusive Gold Stars. Overall this box went for quite a premium.

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🔵 Ishihara GX sells for $48k

Listing

The promo card Ishihara GX (card number #TPCi01) was created exclusively to celebrate Tsunekazu Ishihara’s (President of The Pokemon Company) 60th birthday and awarded only to select guests attending a private event held during the 2018 World Championships in Nashville. It was never released to the public and the print run is estimated at fewer than 200 copies. The card features Ishihara himself illustrated as a Basic Ultra Beast GX with 350 HP. Another copy of this card autographed has sold over $200k.

😴 Potential Sleepers

Lance's Charizard V #SWSH133 - Celebrations

PSA 10 - 3743 pop / 8040 total - $180 average

Ungraded - $10 average for near mint condition

With Celebrations on the rise again this year and most of the top chases going up in price drastically (in particular the metal Pikachu & Charizard cards), there are still a few cards that are undervalued (in my opinion). Lance’s Charizard V has all the right factors for both value and collectability. One of the most popular Pokemon and trainers, and not a heavily graded card for those collecting for value, (limited language print which to my knowledge was just Japanese and Indonesian).

This card also has a really cool connection to the Japanese exclusive Lance’s Charizard from the VS expansion which has also exploded in popularity recently. The value of Celebrations cards may only be bolstered by the upcoming 30th anniversary next year.

📚 Educational Commentary – Collector’s Corner

How can you stay up to date on restocks of Pokemon cards?

Keeping up with Pokémon card restocks is all getting notified in time. Start by turning on stock alerts wherever you shop most. Many retailers like Target offer a “Notify Me” option on product pages so you’ll get an email or notification the moment something is available again. Truthfully I don’t always trust retailers to always deliver those notifications in a timely manner so if you can I think social media is generally a better option at the very least as a backup.

For example, restock tracking accounts on X/Twitter like @TCGTracker along with free Discord servers that post real-time restock alerts. These communities are usually very quick to share when something hits the shelves online. Beyond that, you can set up your own system. Tools like Visualping can monitor specific product pages and alert you as soon as they change to help keep you up to date as well.

🫐 Berries For Thought

💭 What are you most hyped for in anticipation of the 30th anniversary?

💭 Buying Pokemon cards in odd places seems to be more commonplace now. Where is the strangest place you have bought Pokémon cards and did it feel fair?

Share your thoughts on the above questions by replying to this email! (I read all of them 🙂)

Note: sold listing links sometimes redirect to active listings after some time but should still be discoverable by searching for the listings manually.