Where to sell Pokémon cards? (2024)

Pokemon is a very collectible card game. Thanks to how popular the series is around the world, the cards are popular among collectors and players alike. Sometimes, you wind up with duplicate cards you don’t need extra copies of, or you want to sell off a card to get some money. There are multiple options on where you can sell Pokemon cards of varying ease and difficulties. This guide will go over the best ways to sell your Pokemon cards and where.

Where to sell your Pokémon cards

There’s two places we’d highly recommend when it comes to selling you Pokémon cards online, TCGPlayer and eBay. We’d also recommend looking into in-person sales, though you will never get quite as good a deal as you would online. If you end up packing the most expensive cards from the Temporal Forces expansion, definitely consider TCGPlayer as your first option.

TCGPlayer

TCGPlayer is one of the largest trading card online marketplaces. You can set up a seller account for free, and sell any Pokemon card you own through the website. TCGPlayer supports all printings of all Pokemon cards from the first set to the latest release, so they’ll always be listing available.

TCGPlayer lets you set your own prices for your cards, so you will always be able to get the price you want for what you are selling. However, if you have a newer account, you’ll want to list a little lower to guarantee a sell, as buyers will often only buy from accounts that have a lot of positive reviews, and selling lower is a way to get around this reservation.

eBay

eBay is a good choice to sell your Pokemon cards either in bulk, or if you have one that has a dynamic pricing (which is generally the case with high-end cards). Other storefronts may not let you sell bulk, but eBay lets you list a bulk of Pokemon cards and sell as bulk. Bulk refers to cards that are usually only worth a few cents, and are almost impossible to sell otherwise. Bulk is a way to sell these cards and make some money off of something that would otherwise just sit around in your collection. Some game stores will accept bulk, but they control the price you sell for. With eBay, you can set the price to feel more comfortable with what you are getting out of selling your bulk.

When it comes to high-end sales, eBay is the best go-to. First edition cards, especially from old sets work best on eBay as you can let people auction for the printing. While there’s a range for prices of high-end cards based on past sales, these fluctuate greatly because of how rare it is to see the cards on sale. Auctions let the consumer control the price, and can get around the headache of having to set a price and sit on a card for potentially months. The benefit of auctions is you may sometimes get more than what you expected to sell it for, though you may also get less money than you wanted. High-end sales are a bit more random, but with the rarest cards like Charizards, it’s the best way to get the most bang for your buck. Cards that are graded tend to sell better, as it’s a way for the buyer to ensure the card is of high quality, and is a real card as opposed to a potential fake. 

Your local game store is a standout option

The last best place to sell your Pokemon cards is at your local game store (also known as an LGS). It is one of the simplest ways, as they will directly give you a price so you don’t have to research how much cards are worth and set your own prices or worry about shipping and selling yourself. 

Selling your Pokemon cards at a local game store is the easiest way to sell as it takes the headache away from you. It also gives you a chance to barter a bit, pushing closer to the price you want for the lot. 

When selling at a local game store, it’s important to note you will often not be getting the market price. Most game stores buy under market value so they can make a profit off the purchase. However, some highly-sought after cards, such as high-end or meta-relevant cards may be bought closer to what their actual value is. Stores usually have a “buylist” for cards like this so you know what cards they are actively looking for and will spend more on. 

✓ Johnny’s Annotation:

The Local Game Store Trade-Off: 

Local game stores are a convenient way to sell your cards, as you just have to hand them the cards you want to sell and they’ll handle the rest. The downside to selling at a local game store is that you will likely not get what their are worth on the market. The trade-off is the convenience. It’s easiest to sell at a local game store at the cost of making less money off the sale than you would had you sold to someone directly.

Some local game stores will buy bulk off of you as well. Not every store will, but they usually accept a large quantity of bulk cards for a handful of dollars. Since bulk more often just sits around in a box, this is another great way to easily get rid of it. 

When it comes to local game stores, when selling to them they pay out in one of two ways. One way is directly with cash, giving you the money for the cards they purchased. The other way is with store credit, which gives you money you can only spend at their store. Generally speaking, stores will give you more in store credit when buying your cards as opposed to if they are just giving you cash. The store credit buy rate is much closer to the market price of your cards compared to the cash price they give you which is sometimes as low as half of the market price. If you frequent the store, selling your cards for store credit may be your best option since you are going to be spending more at the store anyway and you get a fairly close price to what you would have gotten if you sold it yourself to a direct buyer.

---

That’s as much advice we have on selling your Pokémon cards. You might also want to cross reference what the most expensive One Piece TCG cards are, alongside what the most expensive MTG cards are. Each of these will help you figure out the ins-and-outs of selling cards from your favourite TCGs.