I thought I’d try something a little different from the standard video game and anime expos that I usually attend. The Birmingham Card Show in the UK is a massive trading hub where you can find 200 vendors selling a mix of trading cards, with a rather strong focus on the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG).
We jumped in the car and journeyed to the Midlands’ biggest city to see what rarities we could find on display at Birmingham Card Show #6, an event run by UK Card Shows.
The Two Sides of the Chansey Coin
Long-time followers may know that I’ve been into Pokémon for quite a few years and may have read some of my reviews of the video games, such as Pokémon Legends: Arceus or Pokémon Scarlet/Violet. What you may not have realized is that I’ve been following the series since the original release of Pokémon Red/Blue, and when I was young, this included collecting and playing the Pokémon TCG. As such, I have quite a collection of early Pokémon cards, with some cards as far back as the first English set, which was released in 1999.
Back then, Pokémon card trading was around, but it was a fairly small phenomenon. If you were lucky like me, you had a local card shop which ran games, sold packs at retail price, and maybe had some rare singles (individual unsealed cards) for sale like the elusive shiny Charizard. But in recent years, it’s exploded. Scalpers ensure that most people can’t get popular packs anywhere near retail price. People are getting cards graded based on condition and encased in plastic slabs to sell (graded slabs). YouTubers and influencers are recording themselves opening packs, trading, and making big money. It’s gone from a pastime where children battled in the playgrounds to an arena where adults fight to make the best trades and add to their collection. But one thing has never changed: plenty of people still want that same 1999 Charizard, at least if it’s been kept in good condition over the years.
This is an arena that I’m personally not too interested in battling in, but I armed myself with knowledge over a couple of months of research, put my Pokémon team together (highlights including the original Blastoise and Venusaur cards), then entered the Birmingham Card Show. But I didn’t go alone.
My friend is a collector and trader of the Pokémon TCG and is very interested in the buying and selling aspects, wanting to attend primarily to buy and trade. An additional perspective on the show for this article was certainly welcome, especially given his deeper knowledge of the market. Plus, it never hurts to have a huge, musclebound guy by your side when you are carrying around some incredibly expensive items.
A Museum of Cards
Tens of thousands of cards were on display throughout the many stalls. The vast majority of them were filled with traders of single cards, both graded slabs and ungraded ones protected in plastic sleeves. And while this article mostly speaks about Pokémon cards, as that was approximately 95% of what was on offer, there were also One Piece, Dragon Ball, Magic: The Gathering, Gundam, and even Final Fantasy cards on show.
On the floor, I found cards ranging from fairly common singles sold around £2 GBP ($2.67 USD) each, all the way up to holy grails priced around £70,000 ($93,492 USD). If you don’t mind the staggering cost, it was certainly a collector’s paradise.
As someone who unfortunately doesn’t have £70,000 to spend on cards (and if I did, I’d use it to pay off my mortgage), I still appreciated it from a different angle. While I enjoyed viewing the cards in general, it was also a great opportunity to appreciate the work of the incredible artists who have contributed to the franchise over the years. As a series fan, I enjoyed seeing thousands of these on display in a single room. This by itself made it worth attending the Birmingham Card Show. That said, it’s certainly not what most people would want to go for, which is buying, selling, and trading.
Small Businesses with Big Prices
Almost all of the stalls appeared to be small businesses, with most interested in buying, selling, and trading. The experience with them was somewhat mixed.
As you’d probably expect from any sort of business trying to make a profit at an expo, the display prices were somewhat to very high. Luckily, most were open to negotiation… to a point.
While certain factors can change things, the market price of cards is often considered to be based on the last few cards of the same type and similar condition sold on eBay. Some of the sale prices for cards were as much as 50% higher than these. On trying to negotiate, some still wouldn’t drop below 20-30% higher than this. My friend, who was interested in picking up a number of graded cards, managed to find most of what he wanted available immediately at a lower cost on eBay. He was less than impressed.
Also worth noting is the inconsistency. When asking about prices, even though vendors were looking at the same websites (and of course, we were looking too), they made wildly different claims of the market value of certain cards. More positively, some vendors were actually pretty chatty and informative, some even going as far as explaining prices for items they said they’d personally not want to buy. Some explained their thought processes too, saying how it might be difficult to sell certain vintage cards.
We did find some reasonably decent deals hidden away, but these were few and far between and often weren’t open for negotiation. And in fairness, some were just a little more expensive than online, so between considering it a convenience fee and having the chance to inspect the card before purchase, that small additional expense may feel worth it to some. But overall, it’s quite difficult to recommend buying at these events unless you’ve found something that you’ve struggled to find online due to rarity, or if you manage to find some of the few better deals.
Trading and selling were more or less the same. It’s fairly typical to get offers of a percentage of the market value at these shows. But at least from what I saw, most sellers weren’t budging from 70% for any card offered, even the rarer or higher-demand ones. While trading in person is certainly more convenient, that is a lot of money to lose out on. Plus, it wouldn’t feel great to watch someone offer you 70% of market value, only to turn around and stick it in their display case for 130%. On top of that, they’re also just not interested in cards that they can’t quickly turn around.
While my friend left without spending his hard-earned money on new cards or trading any of his graded slabs, I had more success.
Collectors Throw Around Cash
Plenty of private collectors attend these events alongside the official vendors, and some are open to making deals of their own. The offers I was getting from the traders were unsurprisingly not what I’d been hoping for, so instead I managed to make a deal with a private collector who was attending the show as a regular attendee and looking for cards.
We went over to one of the free tables, and he went through my binders. It took a while, and he lowballed me at first, but we eventually went through everything, priced things up, and agreed on a fair price for the rare cards that I’d brought with me. It was perhaps a little lower than what I could’ve gotten selling each individually, but it avoided the hassle of listing them all and dealing with eBay and any disputes. I ended up walking away minus most of my rarer cards, but £900 ($1,202 USD) richer in cash for what, to me, were just some cards I’d had in binders tucked away in a box for the past 20 years. He walked away happy as he’d been looking to add a lot of these to his personal collection. I do have to say that I was surprised when the guy just started pulling stacks of cash out of his bag.
While not as impressive, after checking in with a few of the traders, I eventually found one interested in a stack of old common cards, which wouldn’t have been worth selling on eBay individually after the cost of postage. That was an additional £25 ($33.39 USD) in my pocket for about 50 cards.
Aside from the common cards, I didn’t have much luck negotiating with the official vendors. However, attending was still entirely worth it because I met a private collector who wanted exactly what I had. And that might be the flights and hotels for my next Japan trip funded in exchange for some cards I bought for pocket money back as a child.
Pika Plushies and Space to Spare
While trading cards took up most of the floor at the Birmingham Card Show, some stalls did sell other things too.
Plushies were the most frequent item. I saw quite a few Pokémon plushies of varying quality. There were some rather cute ones, including a Piplup I was tempted to take home. There was also a Zapdos with a very flat face; I had to try incredibly hard not to laugh at how bad it looked. Pokémon keychains, what appeared to be 3D-printed figures, and similar cheap unofficial goods were also on sale.
Card-related goods were unsurprisingly available too. Some rather pricey binders were on sale, as well as more reasonable ones. Card sleeves and top loaders to protect cards were available too, along with other cases and ways to protect your collection.
Most of the attendees were adults (and honestly, some of the kids there seemed to be more dragged along rather than having particular interest), so most of the goods on sale were more oriented towards the collectors willing to spend big money than to the kids who might pick up an Eevee keychain. But almost everyone enjoys a good donut at least, and they were on sale.
Verdict
Birmingham Card Show was an interesting experience. Full of card vendors, there are some amazing collections on display, and even for non-collectors, there’s some wonderful art to appreciate. However, you’ll definitely want to negotiate prices, and even then you might be better off going to eBay.
The atmosphere is certainly one where fans have come together, and everyone has some love for what they’re doing. I saw plenty of people geeking out over finding their grails or just seeing some of the cards on display. It was worth the trip… and I’m not just saying that because I came away richer from it.
Many thanks to UK Card Shows for providing us a Press Pass for Birmingham Card Show.
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A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
