“To find a booster box like this one still sealed in its original shrink-wrap is no easy task due to the low print run, few have remained sealed and even fewer have come to market,” Heritage wrote in the booster box’s listing. While the booster box sold by Heritage Auctions on July 24th had some visible damage to the box itself - the auction house rated the box as “Very Good” condition, despite some wrinkling and “blunting” - it estimated that all of the cards within the booster packs would have remained in Gem Mint condition, the highest possible rating for collectible trading cards. The original Base Set of Pokémon cards featured 102 unique cards based on the franchise’s first generation of Pokémon, including cards that now individually rank as some of the most valuable Pokémon cards in existence, such as the first-edition holographic Charizard. The booster box includes 36 booster packs, each with 11 cards inside, for a total of almost 400 cards. The sealed first-edition Base Set booster box dates from the Pokémon TCG’s original English-language release by Magic: The Gathering maker Wizards of the Coast in January 1999. A sealed booster box of first-edition Pokémon cards has sold for $384,000 at auction in the latest display of the trading card game’s exploding value.
