Quite a Card
London Card Show (Sandown Park Racecourse 15/2/2026) - Guest Review by Dr Terror
On Sunday 15th February, the incredibly irritating YouTuber Logan Paul (whose brother Jake seems to enjoy getting paid huge amounts of money to have his jaw broken by Anthony Joshua) sold a single Pokemon card for 6.3 million dollars. You might want to read that last sentence again to make sure you didn't imagine it. For a piece of card!
Illustration by Simon Ellinas
Clearly, I was way out of touch with what currently passes for reality, but help was at hand: my godson Frankie of Frankcards knows all about Pokemon cards and offered to show me this world I knew nothing about. Sometimes the most theatrical of events are wholly experiential (when Manchester United were pelted with coins by Turkish fans in Istanbul and reporters asked Alex Ferguson if his players were scared, he replied 'Obviously you've never been to a Glasgow wedding'). So bring it on! This is famously the biggest card show in Europe
In fact, there was little to be frightened of. If you've ever been to a comiccon or a film or TV festival, the vibe and the t-shirts are remarkably similar.
The One That Got Away
Of course, what I DIDN'T understand was the cards themselves, but Frankie was on hand to explain all. It wasn't just Pokemon cards that were represented. One Piece was hugely popular and slightly less so the football cards that Topps and Panini have always done, plus quite a lot of associated merchandise. I didn't see any playing cards, cigarette cards or library cards, but I guess what was on display reflected the mood of the times.
I busied myself buying up the cheap cute ones (Pikachu - not the Logan Paul one - Tony Tony Chopper, Dan Burn of Newcastle United) while Frankie did daring deals with great flourish and bantered with friends on the stands. He knew all the prices (I saw cards ranging from a quid to ten grand...and I'm sure it went higher) but this was not a soulless exercise in capitalism. He really loved the designs, the beauty of the artwork, and had his clear favourites: Tyranitar, Raichu, Gligar and the rest.
In fact, it was not unlike the Antiques Roadshow or Cash In The Attack or the Parson's Pleasure episode of Tales of the Unexpected where John Gielgud plays the dodgy dealer dressed as a country vicar. But, quite honestly, better.
So consider me a convert! Logan Paul might drive up prices and make the world wring its hands. But I wish we'd had Pokemon cards when I were a lad.