New English booster boxes of Pokémon cards now open above their list price. The 2025 sets opened at a median 1.52× of list in their release month, against 0.64× for the 2023 sets, on our index of TCGplayer market prices. The fall in 2026 that made headlines is the ordinary cooling of sets that open high, and it left them above list. The buyer behind the change is an adult who mostly collects. And none of the premium reaches The Pokémon Company: it sells at list, and everything above list is earned by shops, resellers and marketplaces.
Every price on this page is a marketplace or vendor reading, not a sale TPC books. The grade marks say which are filed, reported or our estimates.
A market above list
The index divides each box’s month-end market price by its list price. Read across cohorts, it shows something no other layer of the card business does: resale is the one layer whose trough fell below the boom before it. The 2023 sets opened at 85% of the 2021–22 sets’ level, below list and below where the pandemic boom had started; the 2025 sets then opened 2.4× higher than 2023’s. Print, by contrast, has stayed far above its pre-boom level throughout (see Trading cards).
Resale fell below its last boom in 2023, then opened 2.4× higher
English booster-box market price in the release month, as a multiple of list price, median of each year’s sets. The 2026 bars are estimates on a different price basis.
- Median of the year’s sets, release month
- 2026 sets, estimate
The medians rest on few sets: five in 2021–22, four in 2023, three in 2024 and only two in 2025. Open “Show the numbers” for each.
Built from and .Show the numbers
| Sets | Median of the year’s sets, release month, × list | 2026 sets, estimate, × list | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021–22 sets | – | ||
| 2023 sets | – | ||
| 2024 sets | – | ||
| 2025 sets | – | ||
| Chaos Rising, 2026 | – | ||
| Pitch Black, 2026 | – |
Median of the year’s sets, release month. Month-end TCGplayer market price of a booster box in its release month, divided by the list price of the day ($143.64 to 2022, $161.64 from Scarlet & Violet). 2021–22 has five sets, 2023 four, 2024 three, 2025 only two. 1× is list price.
2026 sets, estimate. Midpoints of eBay sold ranges reported by ICv2, divided by $161.64: a different price basis (3% below to 9% above TCGplayer on matched products) and a launch-week peak.
How a box ages after release has changed too. The 2021–23 sets opened below list and stayed there for months. The 2024 sets opened at 0.67× and stood at 1.16× six months later, the first cohort on file to rise after release rather than drift. Older sets show where that can lead: Evolving Skies closed its release month in 2021 at $185, about 1.3 times its list, and sells for $2,183 today.
The 2024 sets were the first to climb after release
Booster-box market price as a multiple of list price, by months after release, median of each year’s sets. 1× is list price.
- 2021–22 sets
- 2023 sets
- 2024 sets
- 2025 sets
- Estimate
Older sets sat at or below list. The 2024 sets climbed above it within six months, and the 2025 sets started above it.
Built from .Show the numbers
| Months after release | 2021–22 sets, × list | 2023 sets, × list | 2024 sets, × list | 2025 sets, × list | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Release | |||||
| 1 | |||||
| 2 | – | – | – | – | |
| 3 | – | ||||
| 4 | – | – | – | – | |
| 5 | – | – | – | – | |
| 6 | – | – |
2021–22 sets. Median of five sets (Evolving Skies, Fusion Strike, Brilliant Stars, Lost Origin, Silver Tempest); four at six months. 1× is list price.
2023 sets. Median of four sets; three at one month. No six-month reading on file.
2024 sets. Median of three sets. They opened below list and were above it by six months.
2025 sets. Median of only two sets (Journey Together, Destined Rivals), so indicative.
The fall is normal
Sets that open above list fall. The four English sets on file that did so dropped a median 36% from their launch peak. That base rate rests on four sets, all from 2021 and 2025, so it is a guide, not a law. The two 2026 sets fell 18–26% on eBay sold prices, inside that range, and still sell above the shelf price.
The 2026 sets cooled, but stayed above list
How far US resale prices sit above the shelf price for two 2026 sets, at release and later. eBay sold prices reported by ICv2.
- At release
- Late August 2026
The resale premium more than halved, but it did not go away.
Built from and .Show the numbers
| Product | At release, % above list | Late August 2026, % above list | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chaos Rising booster box | |||
| Pitch Black booster box | |||
| Elite Trainer Box |
At release. eBay sales reported by ICv2 against shelf prices of $161.64 a box and $49.99 an Elite Trainer Box. The release-month date is approximate; premiums are our calculation from rounded prices.
Late August 2026. Only two sets are covered.
Singles cooled with sealed product. Between 20 July and 9 October 2026 the chase cards that lead TCGplayer’s dollar rankings fell between 20% and 45% in market price.
Japan runs its own clock
Japan’s market moves on its own, and its readings are rougher: flea-market price estimates from one tracker, not observed sales. Japanese boxes from 2024 traded at 0.74× of list three months after release, while the 2025 sets held well above it. In April 2026 every older Japanese box measured jumped in a single month; by autumn the back catalogue had eased from 3.15× to 2.78× list. The cause of the jump is not established, and it is a single-source series.
The first set at the new ¥200 pack price, Abyss Eye, opened at 2.42× list and stood at 1.37× five months later. At list, demand still outruns supply: Storm Emeralda, in July 2026, went out by lottery at Pokémon Center and with a ten-pack cap at Lawson.
Japanese sets do not move together
Japanese box price as a multiple of list price, by months after release, median of each year’s sets. Flea-market estimates. Dashed: a single 2026 set, estimate.
- 2023 sets
- 2024 sets
- 2025 sets
- Abyss Eye, 2026 (a single set, estimate)
- Estimate
The 2024 sets fell below list, while the 2025 sets held their premium.
Built from and .Show the numbers
| Months after release | 2023 sets, × list | 2024 sets, × list | 2025 sets, × list | Abyss Eye, 2026 (a single set, estimate), × list | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Release | |||||
| 1 | |||||
| 2 | – | – | – | ||
| 3 | |||||
| 4 | – | – | – | ||
| 5 | – | – | – | ||
| 6 | – | ||||
| 7 | – | – | – | – | |
| 8 | – | – | – | – | |
| 9 | – | – | – | – | |
| 10 | – | – | – | – | |
| 11 | – | – | – | – | |
| 12 | – | – |
2023 sets. Median of six sets. Box prices are flea-market estimates from PRICE BASE, not observed sales. 1× is list price.
2024 sets. Median of five sets; they rose again by twelve months.
2025 sets. Median of six sets. The twelve-month reading is left out because it falls inside the April 2026 price jump.
Abyss Eye, 2026 (a single set, estimate). The first ¥200-a-pack set, against its ¥6,000 list price, May to October 2026.
Who pays, and where it trades
The buyer behind the new regime is an adult. In the United States, Circana found that nearly one adult in five had bought Pokémon cards “for themselves in the past six months”, and that only a quarter of them play. That is about 3 buyers who do not play for every adult who does, on one survey that leaves out adults buying for children. Collectors set the top of the market: in recent English sets the median top-rarity card sells for over a hundred times a common.
No marketplace reports Pokémon sales in dollars, but they describe the same surge and now its slowing. eBay told investors its Pokémon card sales grew by triple digits for three quarters in 2025, then “Pokemon decelerated as expected due to tougher year-over-year comparisons”; by early 2026 sports cards contributed more to its growth. On TCGplayer, Pokémon ranked second to Magic by value of sales at the end of 2025. Graders are still expanding: the industry graded a record 3.61m cards in July 2026, and PSA has committed $200m more to capacity.
A set’s value sits in its rarest cards
Median market price of a set’s top-rarity cards, as a multiple of the median common card in the same set, 1 November 2026. Vendor prices.
In each of these sets, the rarest cards sell for over a hundred times a common.
Built from .Show the numbers
| Set | Top-rarity card, median, over a common card, median, × a common | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Scarlet & Violet 151 | ||
| Mega Evolution | ||
| Prismatic Evolutions | ||
| Surging Sparks | ||
| Paldea Evolved |
Top-rarity card, median, over a common card, median. TCGplayer market prices on 1 November 2026, base finish. Commons sell for 11–16 cents. On the highest-variant finish the ratios roughly halve, because the commons cost more.
None of it is TPC’s revenue
Resale is not TPC’s money, and it should never be added to it. TPC sells at list in its own Pokémon Center stores, answers shortages with more printing, never a higher price, and rations only in its own channel. Every step after it charges more: a discount online hobby shop listed a 2026 box at about a fifth above list, GameStop shelved boxes at about half above, and the year’s new boxes opened on eBay at about one and a half times list. Marketplaces then take 13.25% on eBay and 10.75% plus a transaction fee on TCGplayer. A box bought at list and resold on eBay netted its seller 25% to 32% of list at the 2026 launches, before shipping, on our estimate.
The premium is charged after TPC
Price of a booster box as a multiple of list price, by where it is bought, late 2025 and 2026. Shop asking prices and eBay sold prices.
- TPC’s own store
- Shops
- Resale, range
TPC sells at list. Every step after it charges more, and the resale price can fall below a shop’s.
Built from .Show the numbers
| Where it is bought | TPC’s own store, × list | Shops, × list | Resale, range, × list | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pokémon Center (TPC’s own) | – | – | ||
| A discount online hobby shop | – | – | ||
| GameStop shelf, 2025–26 | – | – | ||
| eBay, 2026 sets at launch | – | – | (1.45–1.52) | |
| eBay, 2026 sets by late August | – | – | (1.13–1.24) |
TPC’s own store. TPC sells at list in its own Pokémon Center stores and online.
Shops. Asking prices against the $161.64 list: GameStop’s booster display in November 2025 and March 2026; Miniature Market’s Pitch Black preorder in October 2026. Shops set these themselves.
Resale, range. Booster boxes of Chaos Rising and Pitch Black: eBay sold prices reported by ICv2, against the $161.64 list.
How big is resale in total? Nobody knows. No marketplace splits Pokémon out, and our model, $1.3–4.1bn a year worldwide, multiplies two assumed shares. A range that wide is an illustration, not a size, and it is not quoted elsewhere on this site as one.