Scalping in the world of Pokémon trading cards is arguably at its worst point. It's so bad that collectors are actually wishing that the latest Pokémon partnership features no promotional cards.
The Pokémon Company and the Natural History Museum in London, UK, have announced a collaboration to bring an "exclusive" Pokémon pop-up shop to the museum from January 26 to March 22, 2026. It will feature new products made only for this partnership, including "apparel, stationery, a brand-new exclusive plush," the event announcement reads. The one type of Pokémon product that's clearly missing from the list, and probably for a good reason, is a promotional trading card.
While there are no signs that the Pokémon x Natural History Museum store will include such a card, Pokémon fans fear one could still be part of it. This fear, which would've been anticipation and excitement in normal times, is due to the Van Gogh Museum partnership fiasco in the Netherlands. It was Pokémon's previous museum collaboration, and it became the most infamous Pokémon TCG scalping incident in history.
In September 2023, Van Gogh Museum visitors could get an exclusive Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat promotional card as a gift with the purchase of any Pokémon products. TCG scalpers, expecting the Pikachu card to be in high demand in the secondary market due to its exclusivity, stormed the Museum shop and bought all its merch stock to hoard Pikachu cards, as you can see in the video below.
Unfortunately for legit Pokémon fans, scalpers won the Pikachu Van Gogh war. The Museum didn't restock cards after the incident and stopped giving them away for safety reasons, only three weeks after the exhibition opened. Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat, which was supposed to be a free promotional card, went on sale in secondary markets for $89 shortly after its giveaway at the museum. At the time of writing, two years after the incident, the card's most recent sale on TCGPlayer happened for $699.
Chances are low that history will repeat, but fans aren't excited
That's why some Pokémon fans are worried about this National History Museum event. Suppose there's a last-minute announcement of an exclusive promotional card. In that case, scalpers can easily ruin the entire experience for legit museum visitors and Pokémon fans by flocking to the pop-up store and claiming all the cards for themselves.
"Honestly I low key hope there isn't [a promotional card]," a fan wrote in the r/PokemonTCG subreddit. "The Van Gogh Museum collab was cute, but scalpers ruined it," another one remembered. "Hope they hype it everyday that the next day there will be exclusive cards. Waste 2 months of the scalpers life please," a fan wishing revenge on scalpers added.
While there's no indication today that a promotional card is coming to this museum shop, who knows how far scalpers will go? Pokémon plush collecting is also big among fans, despite not being as big as trading cards. We can still expect some people to go to the museum to buy plushes to resell them at double the price later.
The post New Pokémon Museum partnership has fans fearing a repeat of the 2023 scalping nightmare appeared first on Destructoid.
