Key Notes
- The Woking collector sold 41 Pokémon sets after storing his collection in an attic for 15 years, with the reported auction total reaching £1.56 million.
- The Legendary Collection master set made £100,000 at the hammer, or £130,000 including buyer’s fees, and included a near-mint Charizard.
- Ewbank’s described the result as a UK trading-card auction record, while a possible European record remained an auction-house claim.
A retired painter and decorator from Woking, Surrey, has sold a long-forgotten Pokémon card collection for £1.56 million at Ewbank’s. The October 21 auction drew international bidders to cards that had spent around 15 years in his attic, with the leading set reaching a £100,000 hammer price.
The anonymous collector had 42 sets, of which 41 went to auction and one stayed with him. BBC News reported that Ewbank’s described the result as its most successful sale in more than three decades. The collection had been expected to fetch substantially less, with specialists suggesting it could reach £270,000.
A Newspaper Story Prompted the Attic Search
The owner’s interest began after his son started collecting and trading Pokémon cards at school in the late 1990s. He bought complete sets for himself rather than simply adding to his son’s play collection, finding a seller in Malaysia through eBay. When his son’s enthusiasm faded, the carefully stored cards were put away.
Ewbank’s pre-sale account describes the moment he reconsidered their value: he read a local newspaper story about an individual card selling for more than £6,000. Recognizing that he owned similar material, he took a sample to the auction house for assessment.
One set originally bought for around £300 later achieved £75,000 at the hammer. That was a result for a particular complete set, rather than evidence that every £300 purchase in the collection returned the same amount. The sale brought together years of collecting and preservation, not one lucky opening of a recently purchased pack.
The £100,000 Lot Was a Complete Master Set
The standout was the Legendary Collection Complete Master Set. Ewbank’s lot listing identifies 110 standard cards, another 110 reverse-holographic Firework cards and four Box Toppers. Its Charizard was described as near-mint.
The lot’s pre-sale estimate was £15,000–£20,000. Bidding took it to £100,000 before buyer’s fees, while the auction house’s published result is £130,000 including those fees. Both figures describe the same purchase at different stages of the bill; the £100,000 was not paid for the Charizard card alone.
The condition report also provides more detail than a blanket description of every card as perfect. It grades the lot’s cards from excellent to near-mint and notes discoloration on the Blastoise Box Topper. For readers comparing auction headlines, completeness and the condition of specific pieces are part of what was actually offered.
An Exceptional Sale, With a Qualified Record Claim
Ewbank’s called the auction the UK’s most valuable trading-card sale and suggested it might also be a European record, according to the BBC. Those are claims about the combined auction result, rather than a verified world record for a single Pokémon card.
The £1.56 million collection total should likewise be read as the reported sale figure. It does not establish the owner’s final take-home proceeds after his selling costs. The leading lot’s catalogue result illustrates why hammer prices and fee-inclusive totals need to remain distinct.
Sold under the title Pokémon: A Decade of Masters (1999–2009), the collection covered multiple releases rather than a single expansion. Its reported total combined the wider sale; the Legendary Collection result was one component of that larger collection.
