Pokémon turns 30 this year. Beginning life as a video game which spawned a wildly successful trading card game and an anime series, the franchise – based around collecting an assortment of fanciful “pocket monsters” – has become an inescapable piece of the world’s pop-culture furniture.
A dedicated 30th-anniversary card set is due to be released to celebrate the occasion. A wave of nostalgia has created high demand for trading cards, with resale prices rising and sellers adopting anti-scalping measures and guarding against increasingly audacious thefts.
