Retiree's forgotten Pokemon collection sells for £1.56m at auction

A retired decorator has become a millionaire after his forgotten Pokemon collection sold for £1.56 million at auction.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, did not realise how much the collection might be worth until he saw an article about a single card selling for £6,000.

When he checked, he discovered he had several cards of the same type, which had been in his attic for 15 years, and took a sample to Surrey-based Auctioneers Ewbank’s to be assessed.

The collection was expected to make more than £250,000, but smashed expectations when it went under the hammer on Wednesday, after YouTubers, collectors and investors bid up to £100,000 for a single lot.  

The man had purchased the sets on eBay after his son started collecting and swapping the cards in the 1990s while at school.

The cards, which were all carefully inserted in the bespoke Pokemon binders, still sealed and in mint condition, came to auction as new, having been stored in the attic after the man's son lost interest in Pokemon.

The man said: "He had his own cards, but he never got to touch these. I know people always talk about finding treasure in the attic, but in my case that is literally true. I had no idea what I had until the team at Ewbank’s explained it to me."

Head of Trading Cards at Ewbank’s, James Spooner said: "When we saw what he had – all in mint condition – we couldn’t believe it, or the fact that he had no idea what they were worth.”

"When we then discovered that he had 42 such sets, our jaws hit the floor. We got to sell 41 of them, and he kept one."

Ewbank’s has been staging dedicated auctions for trading cards for five years and has notched up sales totalling more than £1.1 million.

He added: "Even with that, this is easily the most valuable collection we have handled so far  - we thought it might go as high as £270,000, then the pre-sale bids started coming in and we realised we were on to something much bigger."

“The day before the sale we already had £825,000 in commission bids.”

Andrew Ewbank, who runs the business which was set up by his late father, Chris, said it is the biggest total the business has taken for a single sale ever. 

He said: "The buzz was incredible, especially because the collectors could not believe how good this collection was – extensive, untouched, complete, and with just about every rarity you could hope for."