“200 Million Yen Pokémon Card” Discovered Among Belongings at a Haunted House… How a 300-Yen Pack Came to Be Worth 335,000 Yen

An out-of-print card was unexpectedly discovered there.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Pokémon, and Pokémon cards (hereinafter “Poké Cards”) are experiencing an unprecedented “boom.”In February of this year, American YouTuber Logan Paul sold “Pokémon Illustrator”—considered the world’s rarest Pokémon Card—for approximately $16.49 million (about 2.6 billion yen).This was recognized by Guinness World Records as the highest transaction amount ever for a trading card sold at auction.

“The ‘Pokémon Illustrator’ card that Logan owned is a prized item—one of only 39 in the world. Early rare cards that are now out of print are trading at astonishingly high prices among collectors,” said a trading card shop employee.

A large number of rare cards were found in unopened boxes—I received this report from Mr. Noriyuki Kamezawa, CEO of “Kansai Clean Service,” a company specializing in specialized cleanup services, back in May of this year.

“There was a case where a male homeowner died in an accident right at the entrance of his single-family home in the Kansai area. It’s what’s known as an ‘accident property.’The client who requested the cleanup was his daughter. We had purchased the property—along with all the remaining household goods—with the intention of cleaning it and listing it as a pre-owned home for sale. While our staff were sorting through the deceased’s belongings, a staff member cleaning the second-floor bedroom came to call me, looking quite excited.

When I went to see what was going on, I found a plastic storage bin in the closet packed to the brim with a massive collection of Pokémon cards.

It seemed the deceased man had been collecting them in secret from his family, and even his daughter, the client, was unaware of this.“After we investigated, we determined that the cards were quite valuable, so we conducted a separate appraisal just for the Pokémon cards. We purchased them separately from the property for approximately 45 million yen. The total number of unopened Pokémon cards came to 9,987,” said Mr. Kamezawa.

The market value at the time was between 50 million and 60 million yen. However, buoyed by the momentum of Pokémon’s 30th anniversary, prices continued to rise. Mr. Kamezawa continued:

“When I posted information about this card on social media, I received a direct message from a trading card shop offering to buy it for 160 million yen in cash on the spot.They also said, ‘It’s a miracle to find such a large quantity of unopened boxes.’ It seems the price also varies depending on whether the boxes have their shrink wrap (protective film); apparently, those with shrink wrap fetch an average of 1.3 times the price.

The list price for a Pokémon Card pack is usually around 200 to 300 yen, but these were selling for 100,000 to 200,000 yen. The most valuable set was *Pokémon Card Neo: Awakening Legends* with shrink wrap; a pack that originally cost 300 yen was selling for 335,000 yen.“Since there were a total of 60 packs, the appraised value came to 20.1 million yen,”

Mr. Kamezawa attempted to contact the aforementioned Logan through the auction house “Goldin.”

“It was Goldin that auctioned off the first Pokémon cards Mr. Logan owned. Since the company had a close relationship with Mr. Logan, they proposed a YouTube collaboration through the auction representative. However, the response was, ‘I’m too busy to come to Japan,’” said Mr. Kamezawa.

Even so, Mr. Kamezawa continued to receive “courtesy emails” almost every week, stating things like, “We are confident that this auction is the market that will maximize the card’s value.” While Pokémon cards are released in various countries and come in multiple languages, the Japanese versions hold the highest value; however, their appraised value in the United States—the home of trading cards—exceeds that in Japan.

“Goldin’s estimated auction value was $1.05 million to $1.5 million—equivalent to 170 million to 240 million yen—but they assessed that ‘there is a very real possibility it could go even higher.’ They said that listing the cards separately in small batches, rather than as a single lot, would ultimately fetch a higher price,” said Mr. Kamezawa.

Mr. Kamezawa decided to sell. A representative from Goldin is scheduled to visit Japan in September. Upon arrival, they will take the physical cards back to the U.S. and run them through a CT scan to confirm that they are unopened. The cards are expected to be listed for auction at the end of this year.

How much will the “200-million-yen Pokémon card” found in the accident-prone property fetch at auction? All eyes are on its fate.

From the September 4, 2026 issue of *FRIDAY*