Are Pokémon Card Prices Going Up? 90 Days of Cardmarket Data

Between 22 May and 20 August 2026, the median Pokémon card priced in euros on Cardmarket rose 4.7 percent. Add up the same market as a total instead, and it looks like 16.4 percent. Both numbers are correct. The gap between them is the whole story.

The short answer

Over those 90 days the median English-language card rose 8.3 percent and the median German card rose 4.7 percent. Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese cards did not move: the median change in each of those three markets was 0.0 percent.

The figures come from cards that carried a price at both ends of the window: 7,104 English, 5,989 German, 7,741 Japanese, 1,694 Korean and 2,313 Simplified Chinese.

Why "the market is up 16 percent" is misleading

Add up every German card price in a set and compare set totals, and the German market looks 16.4 percent higher than 90 days ago. That is arithmetically correct and practically useless.

A set total is dominated by a few very expensive, very thinly traded cards. Team Rocket Returns in German is a clean example: its three Gold Star cards were priced at 10,000, 7,000 and 7,000 euros as of 20 August 2026. Between them they account for most of the set's total across 111 priced cards. When one is relisted at a different price, the set total moves by tens of thousands of euros without a single ordinary card trading.

Measured that way, Team Rocket Returns "gained 368 percent" in 90 days. No collector experienced that. The median tells you what happened to a typical card; the sum tells you what happened to the most expensive one.

The spread matters more than the middle

For German cards over the same 90 days:

• The bottom quartile fell 0.7 percent or more.

• The top quartile gained 28.2 percent or more.

• 56.8 percent of cards rose, 27.1 percent fell, and the rest did not move.

A typical 4.7 percent sits in the middle of a very wide range. Half the market moved by more than a quarter in one direction or the other.

The same card moves differently in each language

Median change over the 90 days, by market:

• English: 7,104 cards, median +8.3 percent, top quartile above +33.3 percent, 62.6 percent rose.

• German: 5,989 cards, median +4.7 percent, top quartile above +28.2 percent, 56.6 percent rose.

• Japanese: 7,741 cards, median 0.0 percent, top quartile above +24.9 percent, 48.3 percent rose.

• Korean: 1,694 cards, median 0.0 percent, 38.6 percent rose.

• Simplified Chinese: 2,313 cards, median 0.0 percent, 36.7 percent rose.

Most price trackers cannot show this, because they price one market and convert the result into other currencies. A German print and its English twin are different products with different supply, and over these 90 days they behaved differently. CollectHolo prices each language from its own market, which is why the rows above can disagree. You can see it per card on any card page.

What this means if you hold cards

• A market-wide percentage tells you almost nothing about your shelf. Value your own cards, at the language and condition you actually own.

• Treat any set-level total with suspicion, including ours. Ask how many cards carry the value.

• If you buy across markets, the language you buy in changed your return over these 90 days by roughly 8 percentage points between English and Japanese.

Method and limits

• Window: 22 May 2026 to 20 August 2026.

• Price basis: the lowest available listing (Cardmarket "price from") for the default variant, in EUR. Not a sold price.

• Each card needs a price at both ends, matched within a three-day window on each side. Cards priced under 1 euro at the start are excluded.

• Median of per-card percentage change, never a sum.

• Italian is excluded: there is no usable price data at the start of this window.

• This covers 90 days. Our own price history begins in March 2026, so no year-over-year comparison is possible yet.

If you want to check a single card rather than a market, the guide on what a Pokémon card is worth walks through which price to trust.