A Calgary Basement Held a Box of Pokémon Cards Worth About $48,000
A Calgary family's Thanksgiving produced an old box of Pokémon cards worth roughly $48,000. Kirk Ledene was at his parents' for the holiday when his mother asked him to go through some of his old boxes in the basement.
The couple ended up talking with Edward H., who runs E&A Collectibles in Los Angeles. His explanation for the price of such boxes is straightforwardly economic: supply and demand, plus the possibility that the cards inside are themselves valuable.
That second clause is where the interest lies. A buyer is paying partly for what might be in the box, which makes the figure a bet rather than an appraisal.
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The strangest part of collectible pricing is how much of it rests on a possibility. The box is worth something because the cards inside might be.
Edward keeps that bet at arm's length, though. He says he'll look to sell the box on to a collector or another business, so someone else ends up holding the maybe.