Calgary family finds box of Pokémon cards valued at roughly $48,000

A Calgary family is giving thanks after they discovered an old box of Pokémon cards worth roughly $48,000 during Thanksgiving dinner.

Kirk Ledene was visiting his parents on the holiday when his mother asked him to go through some of his old boxes left in the basement. 

He went down and found an old wooden box he'd made in shop class. Inside were some old hockey trophies as well as items he'd purchased at an auction house he worked at in the early 2000s.

And buried amongst the long-neglected items was an unopened box of Pokémon cards.

He brought the finds upstairs to show his kids. 

“I showed the trophies off to the kids, and their jaws dropped when they saw the box in my hand,” said Kirk. 

An initial search online revealed the box in question — a Wizards of the Coast Night booster box from 1999 — could be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

“It basically became like a piece of China, like don't touch it, don't breathe on it,” said Kirk. 

Colleen Ledene, Kirk’s wife, was skeptical at first. “The only thing we talked about at Thanksgiving dinner was this stupid box,” she said. “At first I was like, this is really silly."

But she slowly started to realize it was actually a life-changing find.

A Calgary couple found a box of Pokémon cards worth roughly $48,000 while sorting through old boxes over Thanksgiving. (Underwood/CBC)

Online world of collecting

Next, the family dove into the online world of collectible cards, something that was entirely foreign to them.  

They first reached out to auction houses and started to receive messages from interested buyers via social media after their son made a TikTok about the discovery. 

After a lot of messaging and searching across social media platforms the couple found a collectibles dealer in Los Angeles — Edward Heikali, who runs E&A Collectibles. Since starting the business in 2020, he has focused on sealed vintage items, just like the box of Pokémon cards the Ledenes found. 

“The value of it now is somewhere around the $40,000 US range and it's been steadily going up,” said Heikali. 

The value of such boxes is dictated by basic supply and demand and the possibility that the cards within are themselves valuable, said Heikali. 

He says stories like the Ledenes' happen quite often.

“A lot of the business that we do is helping people like Colleen that find these things and they then find us,” said Heikali.

For the Ledenes, choosing a buyer and deciding whether to ship or travel with the box to make the sale was a lot to think about. 

“There's so many, like, logistical things and you know, like, customs or tariffs and stuff you don't know about or you have to think about,” said Kirk. 

In the end they felt comfortable with Heikali and agreed to ship him the box via UPS.

“We just trusted this guy a lot,” said Kirk. "He would send all the forms that would be needed at customs so that just kind of relaxed both of us, making us know that he's done this a few times.”

The fact that Heikali operates a business and is not just an individual buyer also put their minds at ease.

Timing could not be better

The box has now been shipped and the Ledenes are anxiously awaiting the wire transfer.

Heikali says he'll look to sell the box to a collector or another business. 

“It'll likely go to someone who's going to open it himself or to a business that is going to open it on behalf of their customers,” said Heikali.

For Kirk and Colleen, the timing of the discovery couldn’t be better.

"It felt like a little bit of an answered prayer ... just with everything going on in our life right now," Colleen said.

They don't know exactly what they'll do with the windfall, but a down payment on a new house, a family trip, and a dinner out with the folks — to thank them for not throwing out the box years ago — are all in the cards.