WOKING.- Two extremely rare sealed items from the Pokémon trading card game, each valued at up to £15,000, will headline the launch sale of Ewbank’s Auctions’ new Trading Cards department on August 25.

The Pokémon TCG sealed Base Set Booster boxes each date to 1999 and come in the original shrink wrap, containing 36 sealed booster packs. The vendor has kept them in mint condition since running the gift shop where these were kept as wholesale products.

“Base Set is the first ever Pokémon set released in English back in 1999 and features some of the most expensive and iconic cards such as Charizard, Blastoise and Venusaur,” says specialist Roy Raftery, one of the UK’s leading experts on trading cards. “Both boxes are sealed, authenticated and in immaculate condition.”

Another collection consigned here comes from a former employee of Wizards of the Coast – distributors of Pokémon – who worked for the company in the 1990s.

The 190-plus lot auction will also present numerous other rarities, with estimates outside the two star items ranging from just a few pounds up to £1,800. In all, Ewbank’s expect the auction to make around £66,000.

As well as sealed booster packs and special issues like the Southern Island Collection, all estimated for between £200 and £800 each, the sale will offer complete sets of various issues as well as individual cards, led by a Team Rocket Expansion – 1st edition Dark Blastoise holo card in near mint condition, which is expected to fetch up to £120.

“The Team Rocket expansion is the fourth Pokémon set released way back in 2000,” says Raftery. “This auction contains a complete set of 83 cards, including all the Holo foils and the secret Holo, Dark Raichu all in 1st edition! A complete Team Rocket set of near mint 1st edition cards recently sold for £2,400 at auction.”

Bidders in the auction will also be able to compete for trading cards from Magic The Gathering, Yu-gi-oh!, Harry Potter and Star Wars. Some of the Magic the Gathering highlights include sealed theme decks and tournament decks going as far back as the Urza’s Saga expansion.

“Pokémon, Harry Potter and other games may be relatively new concepts, but the tradition of Trading Cards goes back generations, as the US baseball cards demonstrate,” says partner Andrew Ewbank.

“It’s important for auction houses to diversify and remain relevant to all ages of buyer, so we are delighted to be able to offer this exciting range of rarities to a whole new cross section of clients, using the best expertise on offer.

“The global collectable card game market is expected to reach $18 billion by 2025, starting from a base of around $10 billion in 2019, which shows just how important this area of interest is to collectors.”