The Pokémon 30th Celebration cards are here, and so are the scalpers

Pokémon turned 30 this year!

Their original Gameboy games Red and Green (or you may know it as Red and Blue) came out in Japan back in February 1996, and to celebrate, The Pokémon Company put out a special card set called 30th Celebration. The trading card game didn't come until later in October the same year.

Anyway, the card sets dropped last September 16, and yes, it's been CHAOS.

A few things make this set different:

• Every single card is foil.
• There are 30 Pikachu cards, each drawn by a different artist. You get one in every pack, so completing the Pikachu run is a hobby in itself.
• A Classic Collection of 30 reprints of the most iconic cards from the past three decades, with the anniversary logo.
• A new rarity called Futuristic Rare, starting with Mew and Mewtwo, illustrated by the Japanese artist YOSHIROTTEN.

It's also the first Pokémon set ever to launch worldwide on the same day. Usually Japan gets it first and everyone else waits.

How much is it here?

Toy Kingdom is selling the Elite Trainer Box for ₱4,799. Yes, I've seen receipts!

The ETB's have been spotted at Toy Kingdom in SM Mall of Asia in Manila, and SM Lanang here in Davao City. Folks I know also snagged theirs from Toys R Us in Abreeza. My guess is that any mall with a Toy Kingdom and Toys R Us carries it too.

The catch: from what I've heard, they only release a limited number per day, so it's first come, first served. Toy Kingdom sells them when the mall opens, but Toys R Us sell them at randomly selected times in the afternoon.

If you're hunting, it may help to ask their respective staff when they put out new stock.

Meanwhile, resellers online are asking ₱11,000 for the exact same box. That's more than double. Jeez.

But it's the same story in other countries. The official price in the US is US$49.99, and resellers there were asking around US$150-200 on launch week. Even GameStop listed it at triple the price and got a lot of heat for it.

My Advice: Don't panic buy

Here's the part scalpers don't want you to hear. This is supposedly the largest print run of any Pokémon set to date, and it will keep being printed for months. The pull rates are also a lot friendlier than recent sets. So the prices you're seeing right now are the hype talking, not the actual supply.

More products are coming too. The rest of the lineup rolls out in waves on October 2, October 30, November 6 and December 4.

Some advice if you're just starting to look:

• Check Toy Kingdom and Toys R Us first before paying reseller prices.
• Local hobby and card shops also get stock, but usually through pre-order allocations, so get on their lists.
• If you're buying on Lazada, Shopee or Facebook, check who the seller is. Plenty of listings are resellers with a hefty markup.
• There's no official booster box for the English version of this set. Packs only come inside the Elite Trainer Box, bundles and tins. The Japanese version does come in a sealed booster box though, so if you see one sold online, check which language it is before you buy.
• If you just want packs, wait for the Booster Bundle on October 2. It's six packs with no extras, and it's the cheapest per pack of anything in this set.

Whether you're collecting for nostalgia or for your kids, just don't let the hype make the decision for you. ₱4,799 is already steep. ₱11,000 is just silly. :)