A pensioner from Surrey has made a fortune from his son's old Pokemon trading cards, which had sat in boxes under his roof for 15 years, People reports. The story was reported by infohub.kz.
The man began collecting rare cards in the late 1990s, when his child became interested in Pokemon. Rather than buying random packs, the Briton chose to purchase complete sets on online marketplaces such as eBay and stored them in special albums. When his son grew up and lost interest in the hobby, the father did not get rid of the collection, instead putting it away in the attic.
Some fifteen years later, the man read a newspaper article about similar cards being sold at auction and decided to show his albums to appraisers.
Specialists at the Ewbank's auction house in Guildford valued the find at 270,000 pounds sterling, but interest from collectors around the world exceeded expectations. Bidding on the 41 complete sets pushed the final price to 1.56 million pounds sterling, or about 2.1 million dollars. The Legendary Collection set featuring the rare character Charizard brought its owner 100,000 pounds sterling, against a pre-sale estimate of up to 20,000.
Experts called the auction the most successful in the history of British card sales. The former house painter and decorator himself admitted that the joke about treasures found in the attic turned out to be plain truth in his case. He kept one complete set for himself as a memento.