For The Love Of God Stop Throwing Out Your Kids' 'Pokémon' And 'Magic: The Gathering Cards'

It’s a horror story chilling enough to make any gamer’s blood run cold. You return to your childhood home, finally determined that this is the time you take all your stuff with you. But as you reach the attic/basement/bedroom that’s now been converted into a gym your parents never use, you discover that your dumb progenitors have thrown out your precious collectibles. “You haven’t played with those Pokémons in years!” they say. “Well, those Magic cards were taking up space!” your stupid parents shout over your teary screams. Please, moms, dads, parents around the world, we beg you: stop throwing out your kids old cards. 

History is littered with millionaires who could have been after their folks threw out or gave away valuable collections. Sure they weren’t valuable when you bought them, but that’s why you HODL folks. That’s why you hodl. A first edition Charizard, for example, can go for hundreds of dollars. Not bad for a card that made its way into the collections of many early adopters. But say you happen to have had a shadowless Charizard. That puppy (ok fire lizard) broke records when it sold for over 420 THOUSAND bucks. Yeah, you feel pretty dumb right now don’t ya Deborah? Could have paid off the house if you hadn’t gotten rid of our precious Pokes in that garage sale couldn’t you?

Even less rare original Pokémon cards like Chancey and Venosaur are still selling for fifty to a hundred dollars. Which adds up when you parse through the sometimes thousands of cards in many old school collections. Oh you don’t have an old school collection? Because your dad said “I need this room for my office, I donated your stuff to a church.” What do you need an office for dad, you’re retired. 

Magic: The Gathering card collections have had even more time to get tossed or lost in the shuffle. The game came out in 1993 and if you happened to be a big enough dork lucky enough to buy a pack of Alpha cards, you better pray that your parents left your sh*t alone. Many cards in the set, especially the “power nine”, now sell for thousands of dollars. Even the basic lands from the set go for about one hundred bucks a pop. If you had a Black Lotus that got chucked? You missed out on selling a card that sold for over 500,000 dollars. Ok, time for us to go stare into space and think about what might have been if our parents hadn’t ruined our lives.