This story was produced by our colleagues at the BBC.

In the heart of midtown Manhattan on Wednesday evenings, you can find Jared Alday at Montasy Comics for its weekly Pokémon trading card tournament. He got hooked last year.

“I was just going around a local card shop. It looked nice. Like, ‘Ooh, Pokémon. This is my childhood.’ Got a pack, opened it up. From that moment on, here I am,” he said. “It was just pure fun.”

As collectibles go, Pokémon cards have remarkable staying power over their nearly 30-year run.

“The statistics say that from 2004 until, I guess, 2025, Pokémon cards, as a group, are up 3,800%,” said Peter Earle, the director of Economics and Economic Freedom.

Earle’s been following Poké-flation and said their value soared during the pandemic.

“A lot of people received stimulus checks and they were home. So a lot of people at the same time reached into closets, pulled out shoe boxes, and said, ‘Hey, I remember these things. They're pretty great,’” he said. “The combination of cash and time produced the perfect conditions for a speculative run, and that has continued far longer than anyone — myself included — thought it would.”

While other players treat cards as a game, Earle said some now view them as a serious investment — part of a growing market of alternative assets, along with sneakers, comics, even crypto. But he warned that chasing quick profits and Pokémon cards could backfire.

The ‘90s Beanie Baby boom showed how quickly the craze could fade, with stuffed toys once sold for hundreds were now worth just a few dollars.

Sellers are also seeing prices soar. “Oh, absolutely,” said Jimmy Chen, the owner of Montasy Comics.

Some customers buy cards purely as investments, he said. For others, it's nostalgia.

“And then on top of that, a lot of the millennials now have more disposable income, or that they're able to sell some of their Pokémon cards to invest in something else,” Chen said.

Alex Rafala loved Pokémon as a kid. Two years ago, he rediscovered it. What keeps him coming back isn't the potential payday.

“We're not super happy with the scalping situation that's happened. A lot of those people don't seem particularly interested in the cards or the lore or the franchise at all. They're really just trying to make a quick buck by gassing up prices on cards that we want,” he said. “It makes it a little inaccessible.”

Whether they're prized investments or just pieces of shiny cardboard, Pokémon cards have become something bigger than a childhood hobby. For some investors, they found new ways to diversify their portfolios. For players and collectors, the real value isn't in dollars, but in the memories, the community, and the game that keeps on evolving.