For most people, Pokémon cards are childhood keepsakes tucked away in old drawers or binders. For Gary Haase, they became the centrepiece of a lifelong collecting obsession that eventually grew into one of the most valuable Pokémon card collections in the world. Known as “King Pokémon”, the Las Vegas collector began collecting Pokémon cards in 1998, importing them from Japan before the trading card game was available in the United States. Decades later, Guinness World Records lists Haase as the owner of the most valuable Pokémon card collection, with an estimated value of $10 million. His collection is not simply large; it contains rare cards from the earliest years of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, including highly sought-after vintage cards. Haase’s story began long before Pokémon existed, however, with a childhood fascination with collecting everything from bottle caps to trading cards.
How Gary Haase turned a childhood collecting habit into a $10 million Pokémon card empire
Haase’s passion for collecting began during childhood, long before Pokémon became a global phenomenon. According to Guinness World Records, he collected items such as Coca-Cola bottle caps as a child before developing an interest in trading card games in the late 1960s. He began collecting sets based on popular television shows of the period, including The Addams Family and The Munsters. That early habit of seeking out complete sets eventually became the foundation for his later obsession with Pokémon. When the Pokémon Trading Card Game appeared in Japan in 1996, Haase was already an experienced collector who understood the appeal of preserving cards from the beginning of a new franchise. In 1998, he began building his Pokémon collection and went a step further by importing Japanese cards before they were available to American buyers. That early access allowed him to acquire cards from an emerging hobby at a time when few people could have predicted just how valuable some of them would eventually become. Guinness says his lifelong collecting has since filled three storage lockers in three different US states, and Haase has no plans to stop.
Why Haase’s Pokémon cards became so valuable
The $10 million estimate attached to Haase’s collection is not based simply on the number of cards he owns. The value of Pokémon cards can depend on several factors, particularly rarity, edition, condition, grading, popularity and demand. Guinness World Records notes that cards from early sets, rare promotional releases and unusual misprints can command substantial prices. A card’s condition can be equally important. Professional grading services assess the condition and authenticity of individual cards, placing them inside protective cases and assigning grades that can significantly influence their market value. The characters depicted can also affect demand, with Pokémon such as Pikachu, Charizard and Gengar remaining particularly popular among collectors. Haase’s collection benefits from this combination of historical significance, rarity and condition. His holdings date back to the early years of the Pokémon card phenomenon, when many cards were produced decades ago and have since become increasingly difficult to find in exceptional condition. His reputation within the hobby has also brought him into contact with major collectors and celebrities. Guinness records that he has sold cards to figures including Logan Paul and Steve Aoki.
The rare cards that define the Pokémon collecting world
Haase’s collection exists within a market where some individual cards are worth extraordinary sums. Among the most famous is the Pikachu Illustrator, a promotional card produced for winners of an illustration contest held by CoroCoro Magazine in Japan. Guinness World Records says only 39 were printed, making it one of the rarest Pokémon cards ever produced. Another prized category is the first-edition, holographic, shadowless Base Set Charizard, which comes from one of the earliest print runs and has become one of the defining cards of the hobby. There are also extremely scarce cards such as the Trophy Pikachu Silver from the second international Pokémon Trading Card Game tournament, believed to exist in only 14 copies, with just four known to have been found, according to Guinness. Haase has himself been directly connected to the market for these high-value cards. Guinness notes that Logan Paul bought a PSA 10 First Edition Charizard from Haase for $150,000 in 2020. Paul later acquired a PSA Gem Mint 10 Pikachu Illustrator through a private sale for $5.275 million in 2021, illustrating just how far the market for rare Pokémon cards has travelled from the inexpensive packs sold to children in the 1990s.
From a childhood hobby to the “King Pokémon”
What makes Gary Haase’s story remarkable is that the collection did not begin as a calculated investment. His interest in Pokémon grew naturally from a collecting habit that had already lasted for decades. When he started importing Pokémon cards from Japan in 1998, the trading card game was still in its early stages in the United States. The original Pokémon Trading Card Game had launched in Japan in 1996, while Wizards of the Coast introduced it to North America in 1999, after which the cards rapidly became a global phenomenon. The earliest cards that Haase acquired therefore came from a period when Pokémon collecting was still developing rather than an established multimillion-dollar market. By 2022, Guinness World Records estimated the value of his collection at $10 million, securing his record as the owner of the most valuable Pokémon card collection. In March 2026, Guinness again highlighted Haase, noting that he began accumulating Pokémon cards in 1998 and that his stash had reached an estimated $10 million by 2022. His collection has since occupied storage units across three states, but the collector shows little sign of slowing down. For Haase, Pokémon cards remain what they were at the beginning: objects worth searching for, preserving and adding to a collection that has grown far beyond what even the most optimistic collector could have imagined.
