The phenomenon of cards has made a stratospheric rise in recent years and has moved what it was schoolyard entertainment to fancy shop windows. The ones that have swelled the most are those of pokemonwhich have gone from being a game to becoming an object of desire of collectors and investors that moves millions of euros per month. A fever that has also reached Andorra and what three content creators, Godeik, Agustín 51 and Mateoz, stage name of Mateo Molinohave used to turn their passion into All Envelopesa business with three vending machines and a physical store in preparation that, beyond the speculation that has taken over the sector, seeks to go one step further and be a space that takes care of the original purpose of cards: playing.
A shopper at one of the machines.
“pokemon is the most popular, but we want to cover all collectible cards, such as One Piece, Dragon Ball or even football“, he explains Molino, responsible for management. The initial location, about 30 square meters, will predictably open at the end of October or the beginning of November in Carrer de l’Aigüeta. They want to sell everything from recent envelopes to exclusive cards worth thousands of euros – the jewel in the crown they want it to be a Luffy, character from One Pieceof 15,000 euros–, with the prospect of opening a new place in 2027 dedicated to card games.
A Pikachu card was auctioned for almost 16.5 million
The initial response from the vending machines has been good. “This month we were very surprised by the number of people interested in One Piecehowever pokemon it’s still very far ahead”, he says. With the thirtieth anniversary of the franchise, which has been accompanied by a collection to celebrate, demand has skyrocketed: the eight boxes of commemorative envelopes that they distributed among the machines they sold out the same dayalthough the price per box exceeded 100 euros. “Recent collections, when they have a lot of anticipation, fly”, he summarizes, indicating that in this same collection you can play cards of around 3,000 euroswhich fuels the purchase even more.
The euphoria, however, also has a flip side. Scarcity fuels reselling and skyrockets prices before the products reach the shops. according to milla box that leaves the distributor for around 40 euros it may end up costing 100 to a store without direct access to the supplier. “Get material from pokemon at a good price and quickly is very complicated”, he regrets millwhich highlights that there are people who take advantage of the situation to raise prices “by 100% or 200%”, a practice that he denounces. To this are added the fraud risks, which are increasingly common. “We had to be very careful looking for suppliers in the Japan so that they don’t sell us manipulated envelopes”, he explains. And on top of all of this, there is the problem of those who have seen the hen that lays the golden eggs in the cards and they buy massive amounts of productwhich makes it even more difficult for those who buy for the love of the franchises to get into the hobby. “There are people who don’t even know which collection they buy, they just look at how much they can earn”, he laments mill. Faced with this, promoters consider limiting the number of products that each person can buy.
Meanwhile, the market moves dizzying numbers. In February, a Pikachu card was auctioned for nearly $16.5 million, with many going for over $100,000.
