Buyers in their 30s and 40s take 67.2% of Bunjang's high-ticket Pokemon card value

Buyers in their 30s and 40s were 41.6% of the people transacting above 150,000 won on Bunjang and 67.2% of the money ^[3]. Per head, that is about 1.6 times the average for that tier ^[1]. The other 58.4% of buyers split 32.8% of the value, so the older cohort spent roughly 2.9 times as much per buyer as everyone else above that threshold ^[2]. Their share of value runs 8.5 points higher in the expensive tier than it does across the platform as a whole ^[8].

The Pokemon Trading Card Game launched in 1996 ^[14]. The people now writing the large cheques in Seoul are the children it was first sold to.

Sellers moved in the same two days. Transaction value rose 2.8-fold while the number of transactions rose 1.5-fold ^[6], so the average ticket was about 1.9 times bigger ^[3]. About 37% of the sellers in that window had no record of selling Pokemon cards on the platform in the previous 90 days ^[7]. "It appears that both existing collectors and sellers who had held onto their cards for a long time entered the market together following the new expansion pack release," a Bunjang official said ^[8].

The investment case rests on a long series. Card Ladder data cited by The Wall Street Journal last year has Pokemon cards returning about 3,821% since 2004 against 483% for the S&P 500 ^[9]. That is 39.2 times money against 5.8 ^[4], or roughly 19% a year against 8.8% if the series runs to 2025 ^[6]. Cumulative production passed 85 billion cards by the end of March, sold in more than 90 countries ^[10]. Eighty-five billion units is not a scarce supply, and any premium sits in particular cards at particular grades; a category index does not tell a seller which ones. A U.S. venture investor, unnamed in the Seoul Economic Daily account, has argued that the cards could work as a "global currency" in extreme circumstances, citing how widely accessible they are ^[11].

In my view what Bunjang measured this month is adult discretionary spend timed to a publisher's release calendar, and the clearing price belongs to whoever holds the old inventory. The counter-case is in the same release: if dormant sellers keep arriving at 37% of the total, they set that price, and the older buyers' share of value falls without any cooling of enthusiasm ^[7]. Bunjang reported shares and multiples, not won totals ^[9]. One platform, 17 days, and a comparison base with no anniversary pack in it ^[1] will not settle whether Korean thirty- and forty-somethings have adopted an asset class or bought a reprint.