A woman in Massachusetts, United States, has made waves on social media after reportedly selling three 1st Edition vintage Pokemon card booster boxes worth up to $15,000 each for just $30 a piece at a yard sale. After realizing the heartbreaking mistake, she posted to Facebook in the hopes the buyer would see her plea and return the cards that her father owned.
In a screenshot posted to Twitter (X) by user @ericwhiteback, the woman, who appears to be posting to a local Facebook group, wrote, “SOS! On August 26 in Oakam [Massachusetts] there was a yard sale, where I accidentally sold my father’s Pokemon collectors items not knowing what they were…If you are one of the two gentlemen that bought these items PLEASE consider returning them. I am begging. My father is a wreck and I am beside myself.”
The items in question? According to the seller, “it was three factory sealed team rocket pokemon trading pack boxes. They are worth over 20000$. I sold them for 30$ [each].” If you look in the bottom right corner of the photo she posted, you’ll see the 1st Edition stamp, which makes them a whole lot rarer than the standard Team Rocket Unlimited run. Both were released in English in 2000.
A quick search on eBay’s recently sold tab reveals that 1st Edition Team Rocket sealed booster boxes have sold for around $13,500 a pop—not quite “over 20000$,” but still a lot to lose out on.
As for whether the woman got the Team Rocket Booster Boxes back, they were unfortunately “re-sold to a local card shop just days after the yard sale,” according to another Twitter (X) user, @bowman1951.
Posting his own alleged experience after seeing the woman’s plea on Facebook, Bowman wrote, “My wife sees this post in a yard-sale group on FB earlier today and asks me to look into it with my contacts. 30 min later, I discover they had walked into a Pokémon shop who bought them two days after the yard sale occurred.”
That’s not all. Allegedly, the owner of the local card shop the boxes were reportedly sold to is refusing to sell them back to the woman. “Apparently, he still has one of them so I shared this with the original owner. She contacted the shop and said she would buy it back,” he continued. “He’s refusing to sell. First he lied about it being gone but someone told me privately he was trying to pack it out just two days ago.”
Whether that’s true or not is unclear, but one thing is for certain: always make sure you know what you’re selling before you strike a deal you may come to regret.
