Retired decorator sells Pokemon card collection for £1.6m
A retired decorator from Woking has sold his Pokemon card collection at auction for £1.6 million, a UK record.
The Full Story
A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story.
A retired decorator from Woking in Surrey has sold a collection of Pokemon cards found in his attic for £1.6 million at auction, a UK record. The seller, who has not been named, collected the cards about 25 years ago and had no idea they were worth anything until he read in his local paper that a single card had fetched more than £6,000.
The auction included dozens of folders of Pokemon trading cards, described as master sets. One folder alone sold to an online buyer for £100,000. The entire set then sold for £1.6 million, with the sale reported as a UK record.
The cards first came to the UK from Japan in 1999. The report noted that early Pokemon cards, from Pikachu and Charizard to Jigglypuff and Eevee, were described as playground gold. Fans said rare cards can be expensive because they are hard to find in good condition and because they bring back childhood memories.
The sale turned a collection that had been gathering dust in an attic into a major auction result. The former decorator had wanted to remain anonymous.
On screen
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Key Claims
Claims reported during this story's coverage, grouped by how many channels reported each one. Select a dot to see the source excerpt.
| Claim |  |
|---|---|
| Only on one channel | |
| A complete Pokemon card set sold for £1.6 million, setting a UK record. | |
| One folder from the collection sold to an online buyer for £100,000. | |
| The seller of the Pokemon card set was from Woking in Surrey. | |
Channel Perspectives
What each channel focused on, with key quotes.
The BBC report frames the sale as a human-interest story about an anonymous retired decorator discovering unexpected value in his attic. It gives space to the auction itself, including a £100,000 sale for one folder, and to nostalgia around Pokemon cards. The item is brief and sits within a wider bulletin that also covers cricket and weather.
- “a Retired decorator has become a millionaire after selling at auction his collection of Pokemon cards that were gathering dust in his attic”
- “the entire set sold for 1.6 million pounds a UK record”
- “he had no idea They were worth anything until he read in his local paper that a single card fetched more than six thousand pounds”
Broadcast Timeline
News broadcasts tracked for this story, in time order.