The record sum paid at auction for a rare example is part of a boom in trading cards – and the prices can be staggering
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or £12m, you could buy a seven-bedroom mansion in Hampstead, north London, or a Bugatti La Voiture Noire, one of the world’s most coveted sports cars, with a few hundred thousand quid to spare. Alternatively, you could blow it all on a Pokémon card.
This is what AJ Scaramucci, son of financier and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, did earlier this month when he bought the world’s only Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) 10-graded Pikachu Illustrator card, one of the rarest and most coveted Pokémon cards ever, at auction. The seller, YouTuber, wrestler and occasional boxer Logan Paul, made a mighty profit after flipping the card for about £8m more than the £3.9m he originally paid for it in 2021.
But trading cards aren’t just a hobby for the ludicrously rich, they’re booming across the board. In the US, Walmart Marketplace saw trading card sales increase by 200% between February 2024 and June 2025, and eBay said last July that trading card sales had surged for 10 straight financial quarters. In the UK, Pokémon are such hot and valuable tickets that they have become the target for a spate of thefts.
