Brazil's Pokémon card market has grown among adults, pushed by nostalgia and by the hope of a gain. Folha C-Level wrote on 17 October 2026 about collectors holding sealed packs and about a 1998 Pikachu Illustrator card sold in February for 16.5 million dollars — about 86 million reais at the then rate. The copy, one of 39 issued for an illustration contest, was the only one known with a perfect PSA grade. That is not the price of a kiosk pack and not a guarantee for the rest of the set.

The Pokémon Company counted more than 75 billion cards produced by March 2025 and 85 billion by March 2026, with more than 10 billion a year after 2019. In Brazil official distribution sits with Copag. Google searches for „Pokémon” rose, between 2021 and 2026, 60% on the previous five years, with a peak that recalls 2016, the year of Pokémon Go. Liga Pokémon, a local marketplace, and graders such as Manafix describe the same criteria: rarity, condition, the character's popularity, use in tournament decks.

Diogo Pires, 44, sold part of a collection kept for two decades for about 20,000 dollars and put a slice into a home, according to reports that follow Folha. Other collectors keep sealed boxes from the early sets. Specialists quoted in the piece say liquidity is the catch: not every card listed at a high price finds a buyer. This is not investment advice. A playing card can lose its buyer overnight; a regulated deposit or fund has other rules.

In September Folha had already written up the same Goldin / eBay record. Collectibles markets now talk like sports-card markets, but they remain niche, with private graders and volumes that do not show in a stock index. Anyone who buys boosters as if they were shares is mixing a hobby with a financial instrument.

The 86 million reais figure is one auction, one object, one buyer. The rest of the shelf — common cards at 0.25 reais, new sets every two or three months — runs on another engine: children, players, nostalgia. The news is that Brazilian adults have come back to the album, not that Pokémon is a safe asset class.

Image: One of Many Tims, Pokemon card vending machine, Gare Centrale, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; archive machine, not the February 2026 auction.

Sources consulted: Nostalgia and profit hopes drive the Pokemon card market - Folha; Rare Pokemon cards reach $16.5 million - Folha.