Target has temporarily halted the sale of Pokemon, MLB, NFL, and NBA cards in stores, citing safety concerns. The cards can still be bought online, but starting on May 14 the cards will not be able to be bought in-store.
If you're interested in the economics of cards in gaming, we've got a few primers to get you started, such as Magic: The Gathering Cards, Digimon Cards, and Pokemon Cards.
Why Did Target Stop Selling Pokemon Cards For A Period?
“The safety of our guests and our team is our top priority,” a Target spokesperson told Polygon. “Out of an abundance of caution, we’ve decided to temporarily suspend the sale of MLB, NFL, NBA and Pokémon trading cards within our stores.”
This is due to customers deciding that Target stores are the right place to battle, but instead of battling with their cards to see who's the best Pokemon master, they've instead decided to duke it out with their fists. Pokemon collectors in particular have been very aggressive while looking for rare cards to resell, with Target having already set a limit on the number of card packs that can be bought. Even then, customers have apparently been camping out overnight to get cards, which should be surprising but at this point it's just another whacky thing that's happened in the past year.
It's gotten to the point that people have been sending millions of cards for PSA to grade in the hopes of earning some cold hard cash. PSA has actually halted their grading services as of April, with the hopes of getting back and running in July.
“Our records show that Pokémon card submissions have increased steadily over the past 10 years, but never more so than in the past 12 months,” PSA spokesperson Terry Melia told Polygon. “For example, more than one million Pokémon cards were submitted to PSA for grading in 2020, and already in just the first three months of 2021, we are on track to quadruple that amount this year.”
Pokemon cards have sold for an insane amount of money over the past year or so, and it doesn't look like it's letting up. We'll have to see how far this goes, right now it looks as though it's only going to get crazier.
