How many trophy cards like the original trophy pikachu’s are released?
Is there a 1st place , 2nd place 3rd place trophy card for every single year?
If so, why aren’t there more posted on ebay?
Are there multiple copies released or just 1 per winner?
So there should be 3 copies per tournament from 1998-2018 just with slightly different arts?
As a player I can help with this one a little bit! When play pokemon took over the game again, the system of organized play changed - at one point under Wizards only players under age 15 could play in tournament settings [This may mean lower quantity trophy cards in the early years, but I don’t have much knowledge about these early world championships]. World Championships have since ran under Play Pokemon and have/had 3 age divisions: Juniors, Seniors, Masters (Kids, Teens, Teens and older basically). Each age category has a champion, 2nd place, 3rd, and 4th place finisher.
Both the card game and video game players receive these cards [At least its been so in modern years, I don’t know how it was in the early years]. But for example, this means there were 6 Pokemon 1st place Trophy cards for last year produced and distributed. 1 for each winner in each age division between VGC and TCG. And likewise 6 2nd place, 6 3rd place, and 6 4th place cards.
As for why these cards don’t appear on ebay - I can’t answer that really, but I have a couple of possible ideas. Collectors like SMPratte and others try and buy these cards from winners at the Pokemon World Championships. A friend of mine for instance sold one of these to SMPratte when he was younger. Picking up these cards at the event itself ensures the few of these items that exist are bought/brought into collections immediately. Additionally players often talk to each other and hear from other top players which of these collectors at worlds offers the most for these trophy cards and know that there is/will be someone willing to buy these cards at worlds itself. Other people just like to hold onto these cards because they are beautiful and so limited too. IE another friend of mine recently sold a “Champion” Champions Festival, first by asking around fellow players if they were interested and then fished around on virbank first where it was sold. The card never even got close to touching ebay before it was sold. People/players know that ebay is not the safest place to sell a higher end card and its poor reputation also hurts ebay as a result
Nice, very interesting. So there’s 6 of each copy for most recent years. I’d really like to know when the cut off year was for just having 15 or below category; and when it evolved into multiple categories. This would mean that those cards are in extreme rarity and the later years cards have at least 6 copies each. Thanks for the effort in this info.