'Pokémon is very much a luxury hobby – I just sold a card for $147k'
All it took was the bang of a hammer – and Tord Reklev is £70,000 (NZ$147,000) richer. Not a bad profit for selling a single Pokémon card.
The 28-year-old, from Trondheim, Norway, is the world’s number one-ranked player of the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) and earns enough money from sponsorships, tournament winnings and online coaching sessions to describe himself as a full-time player.
At an auction house in central London, Reklev is cashing in his spoils from the latest tournament – a trading card given out as a prize for his second-place victory at this year’s World Championship event. He says he will stash the money in a savings account.
“Investing takes a lot of time and effort if you want your money to propagate,” he says. “I am just very busy with the card game. I am not dreaming of a luxurious villa or mansion. Just to have enough money to do what you want is the dream.”
Rekev has been a Pokémon fan since the age of six when his mother first bought him a booster pack. “She actually taught me how to play the game,” Rekev recalls. “She said it seemed like a waste just to collect the cards rather than play with them, so my mum taught herself then she taught me.”
At the time, Pokémania was in full swing, and Rekev soon found himself succeeding in local tournaments. In the years since, Pokémon has taken Rekev to competitions all over the world.
Speaking to The Telegraph from the Stanley Gibbons Stamp Emporium on the Strand in London, UK, he says he has visited eight different countries in the last two months playing the card game.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” he says. “I don’t think I could have found a career path that has made me as happy as this.”
Granted, Rekev is one of the few players able to turn his former
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