Pokémon card collectors found ultra-rare cards worth THOUSANDS in an attic
The world’s largest collection of Pokémon cards includes a pair of super-rare cards worth thousands that were found in an old shopping bag in an attic.
UK brothers Owen and Conner Gray own the record-breaking collection together.
Verified in July, it stands at an astonishing 48,339 unique items.
The siblings obliterated the previous record of 34,310 set by Benjamin DeGuire (USA) in 2023.
Owen and Conner’s collection is super organized, laid out “in order of history”.
While it’s mainly made up of the kind of cards many of you will have traded while you were in school, the brothers have lots of other memorabilia too.
They’ve got folders full of cards in loads of different languages, dating back to the 90s all the way through to this year.
Conner said: “We have all of them bar the Dutch language. That became impossible for us to find.”
Owen, left, and Conner
“Anyone with any Dutch first edition, let us know,” Owen quipped.
A lot of the more expensive cards have been removed from the folders, graded, and put into special protective packaging.
Many of the items are worth thousands on their own, but two cards in particular - found within shoppings bags from someone's attic that they bought at auction - came as a surprise for the brothers.
Owen said: “There were probably about 3-4,000 cards just thrown into JD Sports bags and in that combination were two gold star Charizards, which today are worth anywhere between £5-25,000 each.
“They weren’t in bad condition at all.”
The collection also proves once and for all that Pikachu never had a black tip on his tail.
There’s been much discussion about the character’s appearance over the years, with it even being linked to the Mandela Effect, a social phenomenon that sees a large group of people misremember something.
The first collectible set, with Pikachu
It was named after the fact that many people discovered they had a false memory of Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s when he actually died in 2013.
Despite what some people think they remember from their childhood, Pikachu’s tail never had a black tip.
That’s an irrefutable fact after taking a look around Owen and Conner’s collection.
Opening up one folder, Owen said: “This is, we believe, the first ever collectible set from Pocket Monsters, which then became Pokémon.
A Blastoise card worth £3-4,000
“This is probably one of my favourite sets because it’s how it all began.”
And the Pikachu pictured in the set has black tips on his ears, but not on his tail.
The tip of his tail is actually white in this image, but that appears to just be a highlight.
Owen also showed off a Blastoise card, the type he said he “probably traded at school for some Pogs”.
Today, it’s worth around £3-4,000.
Conner also highlighted a Charizard card they think is worth around £7-8,000.
A Charizard card worth £7-8,000
“The slogan is ‘gotta catch ‘em all’ and that’s what we’ve tried to do,” Owen laughed.
But despite their love of collecting the cards, they both admit they’ve never actually played with them.
Owen said: “The advice I would give other collectors who want to collect Pokémon cards…”
“Save their money,” Conner joked.
The collection is now on its way to America for a tour around collector shows in 2025.