The Most Underrated Pokemon Card Product

There's a lot to be said about today's Pokemon card market. You've seen it through your FYP, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts. We're seeing Pokemon investors, scalpers, and everything in between fight for whatever scraps there are left of Pokemon Cards. And wherever you get your Pokemon content, we're all seeing the dark side of the Pokemon Card hobby. But what does that mean for the casual collector? What does that mean for you and me?

I think there's one Pokemon Card product that is way under-valued, unknown, and underrated. That is Korean Pokemon Cards. If Prismatic Evolution is a sign of things to come in the Pokemon Card hobby, then Journey Together, Team Rocket, and Black & White are going to challenge the most hardened collectors. Every set is instantly bought out and re-listed at ridiculous prices. And with the amount of hyped sets coming out, can Pokemon really keep up with the demand? They promised printing of Prismatic Evolutions through the year, but what about the rest of the sets? What about 151 that is still impossible to get a hold of? Blooming Waters was a nightmare of a release and is doesn't promise much progress going forward. So why do I think Korean Pokemon Cards are underrated? Why not Japanese Pokemon Cards? Well I would answer, JAPANESE IS CRAZY EXPENSIVE TOO!

Have we all seen the prices on Japanese boxes?!?

"A rising tide lifts all ships"

And if this statement is true, English Pokemon Cards are the tide that is raising the price on all these Pokemon Cards. However, I would argue Korean Cards are sort of sneaking past. A little submarine if you will, in this rising market.

Korean Pokemon Cards

1. A joy to open

   Korean cards offer the same sets as Japanese Pokemon. Their booster boxes generally consist of 30 booster packs of 5 cards each. Each box guarantees a certain amount of pulls. No SAR in Korean, but you are guaranteed 3 ARs. Specialty sets/high class sets have better pull rates than the normal main line sets

2. Price per pack

   Korean cards out perform any other Pokemon Card product out there in terms of price per pack. A typical mainline set goes for about $30 at our store. Whereas a Japanese box goes for around $45-$50 and the same box in English goes for $120-$160

3. Quality

   Everyone knows Japanese cards are the gold standard when it comes to print quality and consistency. I do believe that Korean cards are of equal or greater quality than English. Consistency in the print is way better. English cards are a coin flip when it comes to centering these days. I've pulled so many English cards with random white spots on the fronts and backs

   
   
   

   

   
   
   

4. Availability

   Disregarding anything said above, Korean cards are readily available online. I guess the same can be said for English and Japanese, but the mark-up on some of these sets is absolutely ridiculous. Korean cards can be found with a relatively low mark-up. For example, Korean Terastal Festival goes for $55 at our store

Now obviously, I am a Korean Pokemon Card shill. It is what it is. But in between my opinion on this hobby, is a little bit of truth. I really do believe Korean Pokemon Cards are going to be the best option for collecting for some collectors. Not all collectors, but some. I'll get into that in a future blog post. But thanks for reading and don't spend too much money on Pokemon cards. Things will get better. Hopefully... Kevin of PokeKoreTCG