We scraped over 1000 Pokemon cards that have recently been sold on eBay using our web scraping tool and we found out a few things. We wanted to see how much are Pokemon Cards worth on eBay.
For those who don’t know what eBay is, it’s one of the biggest e-commerce companies in the world. It allows for both consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer models to operate.
There are many different types of products that are sold on eBay every day, from used clothes to cars and trucks. But we’re only interested in Pokemon cards.
Are your old Pokemon Cards valuable?
— ParseHub (@parsehub) December 7, 2020
We scraped the 1,000 most recent cards sold on eBay and learned tons about the Pokemon Card craze! pic.twitter.com/GLeeYxuhPP
Recently Pokemon cards have been on the rise again with big YouTubers and influencers starting to collect or sell them again.
Pokemon cards have always been popular, but there has been a recent spike of searches according to Google Trends.
During the first week of October is when you can see the spike in interest in Pokemon cards worldwide.
Australia has been the most interested in Pokémon cards with The United States coming in second.
But with so many different types of Pokemon cards sold at different prices, is it worth selling those old Pokemon cards you have lying around somewhere? We wanted to find out!
Here at ParseHub, we scraped over 1000 Pokemon cards that have recently been sold on eBay. We found out several things like the cheapest and most expensive item, what type of cards are being sold, popular Pokemon cards and which country had the highest average sold.
How much are your Pokemon Cards worth on eBay?
Please note that all dollar values are in CAD.
We scraped a total of 1,050 Pokemon cards which were sold for a total cost of $77,807.42 CAD on eBay. An average of $74.10 (which is pretty good).
The lowest-priced items were sold for $0.01 which was:
- “Pyroar BREAK 24/114 - Ultra Rare Holo - Steam Siege 2016 - Pokemon Card”
- “1st Ed English Venonat 63/64 Jungle Set Nintendo WOTC Card Pokemon 1999”
Both from the United States
The most expensive item was “Pokemon Card Game Sword Shield High-Class Pack Shiny Star V 20BOX” which was sold for $2189.71 from Japan
But since this is a pack (multiple cards) the highest single card sold was a
The median of the sample was $20.10, and the mode was $1.29.
So who knows, maybe those old cards you have lying around can give you some extra cash. But then again, the median and the mode price is on the lower side.
With the data we extracted, we also wanted to see the average cost sold by country and the card type.
Pokemon card sold by country
With no surprise, 62.19% of Pokemon cards were sold from the United States and Japan coming in second with 19.62%. Canada came in third with 7.71% of total cards sold.
| Country | Total Items Sold | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | 64 | 6.10% |
| Belgium | 2 | 0.19% |
| Canada | 81 | 7.71% |
| Croatia, Republic of | 2 | 0.19% |
| China | 1 | 0.10% |
| France | 28 | 2.67% |
| Israel | 1 | 0.10% |
| Japan | 206 | 19.62% |
| Netherlands | 2 | 0.19% |
| Singapore | 2 | 0.19% |
| Slovenia | 1 | 0.10% |
| Unite States | 653 | 62.19% |
| Left Blank | 7 | 0.67% |
It was interesting to see that Australia only has 6.10% of the Pokemon cards sold but have the highest interest and searches.
Maybe the correlation is mostly Australians are buying the Pokemon cards instead of selling them.
For the average cost, Belgium had the highest average cost with $352.05 and Singapore came in second with an average cost of $189.65, but to be fair, only 2 items were sold from each country.
| Country | Total Amount Sold | Average Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Israel | $6.50 | $6.50 |
| Netherlands | $21.50 | $10.75 |
| China | $66.46 | $66.46 |
| Croatia, Republic of | $97.68 | $48.84 |
| Slovenia | $130.34 | $130.34 |
| Left Blank | $286.83 | $40.98 |
| Singapore | $379.29 | $189.65 |
| Belguim | $704.10 | $352.05 |
| France | $2022.35 | $72.23 |
| Canada | $4498.27 | $55.53 |
| Australia | $5706.66 | $89.17 |
| Japan | $19308.27 | $93.73 |
| United States | $44,579.17 | $68.27 |
For the bigger countries like Japan, the United States, Canada and Australia it kind of got interesting.
The United States sold the most at $44,579.17 but only had an average of $66.46. This is less than the total average sold.
Japan and Australia had higher averages at $93.73 and $89.17 respectively.
Canada’s average was on the lower side at $55.53. Canadians seem to be selling their cards but aren’t selling valuable pokemon cards.
It was also interesting to see that Canada and Australia had around the same number of items sold, but Australia had a 60% higher average than Canada.
This could mean that Australians have more valuable Pokémon cards than Canadians.
Same with Japan and the United States.
Japan had a 27% higher average cost than the United States but only had 19.62% of items sold compared to the United States which had 62% of the items sold.
We also looked at One37pm and found that the most valuable collector Pokemon cards are printed in Japanese (which could explain the reason for the higher average).
Cost by Pokemon card type
There are several types of Pokemon cards and different Pokemon. While the Pokemon does have a factor in price, it’s the type of card that makes it valuable.
We’re no Pokemon card expert, but here is how we filtered our extracted data:
| Uncommon | Common |
| Rare | Rare Holo |
| Reverse Holo | Ultra Rare |
| Secret Rare | Promo |
| Pokemon EX | Pokemon GX |
| Pokemon Legend | Energy |
| Trainer | Pack |
| Japanese | 1st/ Shadowless |
| Full art | Rainbow Rare |
| Tag Team | VMAX |
We got these category types from Dotesports and TCG Player.
Check out our table below for the results:
| Card Type | # of cards sold | Total Price | Average Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common | 13 | $45.16 | $3.47 |
| Uncommon | 22 | $348.61 | $15.85 |
| Rainbow rare | 2 | $46.27 | $23.14 |
| Energy | 6 | $149.23 | $24.87 |
| Tag Team | 10 | $300.27 | $30.03 |
| Trainer | 32 | $954.32 | $29.82 |
| Ultra Rare | 74 | $2526.02 | $34.14 |
| Reverse Holo | 48 | $1967.43 | $40.99 |
| Full Art | 54 | $2132.14 | $39.48 |
| Rare holo | 50 | $2167.05 | $43.34 |
| Pokemon GX | 62 | $2905.64 | $46.87 |
| Rare | 214 | $13850.88 | $64.72 |
| Promo | 156 | $10348.85 | $64.33 |
| Japanese | 231 | $16012.02 | $69.32 |
| Pokemon-EX | 123 | $9859.98 | $80.16 |
| VMAX | 24 | $2094.21 | $87.26 |
| Pack | 98 | $9596.11 | $97.92 |
| Pokemon Legend | 26 | $3400.76 | $130.80 |
| Shadowless/1st edition | 118 | $15531.08 | $131.62 |
| Secret rare | 14 | $3238.61 | $231.33 |
To no surprise, at the bottom, you had common Pokemon cards (basically mass-produced and most likely everyone will have them) that had the lowest average sold at $3.47.
The highest priced common Pokemon card was a "POKEMON CHARMANDER 50/82 TEAM ROCKET SQUIRTLE PIKACHU COMMON CARD NM/MINT LOT” sold for $23.46
2nd lowest was uncommon Pokemon cards with an average cost of $15.86
At the top, we got Secret rare Pokemon cards with an average cost of $231.30.
The lowest secret rare Pokemon card was sold at $6.58 which was “Pokemon Card Champions Path Drednaw V 069/073 Secret Rare Holo Full Art NM/M”
The highest secret rare Pokemon card was sold at $1,120.92 which was “PSA 10 Pokemon Champions Path Secret Rare Shiny Charizard V Card 79/73 079/073”
Coming in 2nd and 3rd are shadowless / 1st edition Pokémon cards with an average of $135.05 and Pokémon legend cards with an average of $130.79
1st edition cards had both the lowest and highest item sold which was the “1st Ed English Venonat 63/64 Jungle Set Nintendo WOTC Card Pokemon 1999” sold at $0.01 and a “1st Edition Dark Charizard Holo• Team Rocket Pokemon Card #4/82 - PSA 10” sold at $2,084.14
Meaning even if you have a 1st edition Pokémon card, it may not always be your lucky break. But with an average of $135, it seems like you can still make some decent money.
The highest Pokemon legend card was a “2004 EX Hidden Legends Kyogre ex GEM MINT PSA 10 Holo Card Ultra Rare” for $782.03
We tried to find any of the most expensive Pokemon cards in our sample according to heritage auctions, and one37, but only got a 1st edition shadowless Blastoise which sold for $1,564.08 (maybe if we extracted 3000 cards we would’ve had better luck... who knows).
We noticed that there was also quite a bit of Japanese cards sold in our sample (231 to be exact), and had a total cost of $16,012.02 sold on eBay with an average price of $69.32
The highest sold Japanese item was a “Japanese Charizard, Blastoise Venasur base set” sold at $1,042.72. Now that would be a pretty cool set to have.
Cost By Pokemon
We also wanted to see the average price for 25 of the most popular Pokemon cards sold. We based our list On a business insider article: More than 52,000 people voted for their favourite Pokémon in a massive Reddit survey — here's which ones got the most votes
Here’s the list (I snuck in Pikachu because who doesn’t like Pikachu..):
| Pokemon | Number of Items Sold | Total Price | Average Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blaziken | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Luxray | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Absol | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Arcanine | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Infernape | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ninetails | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Torterra | 1 | $3.95 | $3.95 |
| Mudkip | 1 | $5.98 | $5.98 |
| Gardevoir | 2 | $13.85 | $6.93 |
| Lucario | 7 | $90.27 | $12.90 |
| Garchomp | 1 | $16.98 | $16.93 |
| Ampharos | 1 | $29.98 | $29.98 |
| Typhlosion | 3 | $103.62 | $34.54 |
| Umbreon | 8 | $317.08 | $39.64 |
| Snorlax | 5 | $231.05 | $46.21 |
| Flygon | 3 | $166.35 | $55.45 |
| Eevee | 9 | $551.35 | $61.26 |
| Scizor | 5 | $357.25 | $71.45 |
| Pikachu | 83 | $6305.22 | $75.97 |
| Squirtle | 5 | $397.97 | $79.59 |
| Dragonite | 11 | $946.9 | $86.08 |
| Gengar | 16 | $1421.49 | $88.84 |
| Charizard | 94 | $18111 | $192.67 |
| Blastoise | 25 | $7470.15 | $298.81 |
| Tyranitar | 2 | $680.84 | $340.42 |
| Bulbasaur | 3 | $1898.44 | $632.81 |
| Total | 285 | $39119.64 | $137.26 |
285 items were sold of the most popular Pokémon bringing in $39,119.64 (50% of $77,807.42).
Only a quarter of the items sold, but half of the total revenue!
No surprise, Charizard is at the top of the list with the highest total cost at $18,111.
But Bulbasaur had the highest average of $632.81. To be fair though, only 3 Bulbasaur items were sold and had a range of $2.00 - $1,857.35
Blastoise was in second in the total amount sold with $7470.15 and 3rd in an average cost of $298.81.
It was interesting to see Pikachu for the third-highest sold with $6305.22 but had a lower average cost than Gengar, Dragonite and Squirtle. Meaning a lot of Pikachus are being sold but are not as valuable as other Pokemon cards.
Closing thoughts
As Pokemon cards continue to grow with popularity with the recent spike, this may cause some inflation in price. After seeing prices in the $1000 and even $100,000 for a single card shows how valuable Pokemon cards can be.
From the information above, we came up with a few conclusions.
Most Pokemon cards are being sold on the lower side, most of them being sold at $1.29 and a median of $20.19. The reason the average is high is that the rare and valuable Pokemon cards are being sold at a higher price, bringing the average higher.
Just because you have 1st edition/shadowless Pokemon cards, doesn’t necessarily mean you're going to make some money on eBay. It has to be one of the popular Pokemon like Charizard or Blastoise. Don’t think anyone really wants a Metapod or Rattata.
But with an average price of $131.62 you have to like your chances of it being sold for that price.
If you have common or uncommon cards, I would save your energy. You're probably losing money from the percentage eBay collects. Considering the highest card sold was $29.97, you’re not going to make much money. But then again, your cards are probably just collecting dust, so I guess something is better than nothing.
If you have a secret rare card, I would put it on eBay and see what I could get. With an average price of $231.33, that’s definitely something to think about. But again, depends on the Pokemon that you have.
The value of the Pokemon card depends on the card type and also the Pokemon. Considering that the 25 most popular Pokemon cards created 50% of the total cost at only quarter of total items sold really shows this.
Americans are selling the most Pokemon cards, but they might be selling fewer valuable cards because they have a lower average cost than Belgium, Singapore, Slovenia, Japan, Australia and France.
Hopefully, this can help you decide whether or not to sell your Pokemon cards. And answer how much your Pokemon cards are worth. Besides at ParseHub, that’s our goal, to help everyone make better decisions.
What should we scrape next? Sports cards? Jewelery? Let us know what you think!
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Happy Scraping & Pokemon Catching!
