Pokémon cards have become a major investment, with live streams of people opening packs alone becoming a cottage industry. One guy thinks Pokémon cards will have much more value as a post-apocalyptic currency.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke to an investor and collector named Peter Levin, who is so bullish on trading cards that he owns “well north of half a million” of them, A collection that, should his view of the future come to life, will make him one of the wealthiest people on the face of the Earth.
In response to a question about whether card collecting is a niche hobby or a global phenomenon, Levin said, “I’m absolutely convinced that if the world suffered an apocalypse tomorrow, the following day the global currency would be Pokémon cards.”
A Collector With 500,000 Trading Cards Says Pokémon Could Be the Currency of the Apocalypse
This is one of those moments where you wonder whether this guy is making an astute observation about the true power of an industry or trying to justify his 500,000 pieces of cardboard with pictures on them. You hear a lot of that going around with the marketing hype surrounding AI. A lot of people who are deeply, maybe even completely invested in something just so happen to be the ones telling you that thing is the future.
As evidence of his firm belief that Pokémon trading cards are a worthwhile investment, he claims that they are “beating the S&P 500 by 3000 percent,” and credits the grading and authentication market for turning trading cards into financial assets. Yes, thank you, grading and authentication services, for taking something explicitly for kids and turning it into the cornerstone of some investment bro’s retirement plan.
Money works only because we collectively agree something has value. We overvalue Pokémon cards because we have become silly, frivolous people with too much money and an even greater abundance of nostalgia for times when we didn’t worry about adult stuff.
But if society collapses, would we still care about Pokémon cards? Would our value of nostalgia for relatively carefree childhoods supersede our need for food, water, clothes, and shelter as bargaining chips? Medicine might be good too.
The past 10 years of American life have proven that things can always get dumber than you could have ever imagined, so, sure, why not? I’ll buy a cow for a PSA 10 Pikachu or whatever.
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