GameStop to expand trade-in program to graded Pokémon TCG cards

GameStop plans to buy individual Pokémon Trading Card Game cards from individuals as long as they are graded by a Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), extending the video game and pop culture retailer's trading model to another secondary market.

According to Polygon, GameStop will soon accept individual cards graded PSA 8 or higher on the popular collectible grading company’s 10-point rubric. After speaking to multiple locations in different states, Polygon reported that stores will not accept anything worth more than $500 and that none of the workers knew when GameStop would be able to sell graded individual cards in retail stores; corporate offices have only communicated details about purchasing to customers.

Rumors of this new strategy surfaced on fan site PokéBeach earlier last week, where it was also claimed that GameStop would be buying up individual titles from other hugely popular trading card games as well. This makes sense given Magic: The Gathering’s well-established secondary market and the massive popularity of Disney’s Lorcana. Star Wars: Unlimited and Yu-Gi-Oh! might take a respectable fourth and fifth place, but they’re likely to end up hitting GameStop shelves, if the rumors are true.

Polygon wouldn’t confirm that GameStop would offer in-store credit for the redemption value of the cards, but it’s hard to imagine anything else. The U.S. company’s roughly 3,000 stores have survived (albeit barely) on the buying and selling of new and used video games, supported largely by collectibles, T-shirts, plush toys, and other pop culture items. Dicebreaker has reached out to GameStop’s corporate office for confirmation and more information.

A GameStop manager told PokéBeach that corporate leaders have lost faith in physical media and instead think that replicating a model that hobby stores have cornered for years is “the obvious next step” and “the future.” Most likely the scenario where they compared the continued thriving market for rare and expensive TCG singles to the crash of GameStop’s stock price after a bizarre short-selling strategy by amateur internet investors artificially boosted its price for a brief, entertaining moment in 2021.

It’s not known when GameStop will accept cards from other established card graders, such as Beckett or Certified Guaranty Company (CGC). The program doesn’t exactly mirror that of LGS branches, which often buy a broader range of individual cards, including ungraded cards and bulk cards. Still, it’s troubling to imagine a bankrupt company wading into territory that often means the difference between life and death for brick-and-mortar hobby stores.