Oct. 17 marked the release of Santa Cruz skateboard blind bags containing illustrated decks of some of the Pokémon Trading Card Game’s best art. Classic cards like the base-set Charizard and more modern cards like the “Moonbreon” from Evolving Skies are randomly packaged in these new products. If that sounds cool to you, here’s the bad news: You’re probably not going to find any of these in a store.
There are 30 decks in all, and three rare “chase” golden foil variant designs, of which only 500 exist in the world. The boards aren’t just blown-up reproductions of their cardboard counterparts, though. The designs expand beyond the cards, usually in ways that capture the monster’s elemental essence. The Blastoise skateboard, for example, is flush with water waves.
Much like their inspirations, the Santa Cruz blind bags are selling out immediately through a combination of eager fans and salivating scalpers. The skateboards normally retail for $139.99, but on resale sites like eBay or Facebook Marketplace, the prices quickly become exorbitant. On the low end, for less desirable designs, there are boards going for somewhere around $250. In the mid-range, for fan-favorite cards depicting Eeveelutions or starters, price tags hover around $1,500. The scarce chase boards, which depict a cacophony of multiple cards in a single picture, are listed between $5,000 and $9,000.
To put this into perspective: You could probably purchase a handful of the rare cards depicted on these boards and still have a healthy chunk of change left over. It’s bonkers, yet par for the course for nearly anything related to Pokémon these days.
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