Target Stores Have Stopped Selling Pokemon Cards
You won't find Pokemon trading cards in Target stores around East Texas this week, and they decided to ditch NFL, MLB, and NBA trading cards too because of a violent confrontation recently in another state.
If you're the type that stays home on Black Friday to avoid crowds, then you would probably never get into a fistfight over something like Pokemon cards. I'm right there with ya. I went to Walmart one time on Black Friday and almost got trampled over two-dollar bath towels, and that was the end of my Black Friday in-store shopping experience. Maybe I just lack passion and need to care more about towels, but I'd never pop anybody in the face over the chance to grab some, and I know you wouldn't either.
There was an armed confrontation in a Target parking lot in Brookfield, Wisconsin last week, and now to be on the safe side, Target has stopped selling all of its Pokemon, NFL, MLB, and NBA trading cards. Some of those cards can sell for five times what the buyer paid for them, so rather than risk the tension in stores, Target decided to moved sales of those things online instead. They will keep selling them online.
I talked to my Pokemon card-collecting 9-year-old about their popularity, and she thinks they're less popular with kids now because of the pandemic. She traded them daily in 2019 with her friends at school, but she said that now because of COVID, kids don't trade them as much "because of germs and stuff." It's frowned upon by the teachers, and the cards have lost momentum with the kids because of the pandemic, at least in her 3rd-grade class here in Texas. So, is it the adults that are the most into trading cards? Maybe. I haven't heard of any kids getting into fights over them at least.
Whether it's Pokemon, Jose Altuve, or Patrick Mahomes, you're going to have to look online for the trading cards rather than in Target stores for now and they'll come to your door in secret. Is it too early to buy for Christmas?