Rare Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering trading cards in Lichfield auction

Rare Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering trading cards in Lichfield auction

THE second part of a gigantic collection of trading cards accumulated by a dad-of-two from Scotland is going under the hammer with a Staffordshire auctioneer.

Last year, an impressive haul of rare Pokémon sold from The Lichfield Auction Centre at £200,000.

Now the final half of Gordon White’s collection is also up for sale with Richard Winterton Auctioneers.

It includes a treasure trove of Magic: The Gathering cards – the first trading card game which pre-dates Pokémon and is a forerunner of the entire phenomenal genre.

Join the auction here

Mr White, a delivery driver from Livingston in West Lothian, once ran a Pokémon league, acted as a judge in UK events and has rubbed shoulders with some of the world’s most powerful Pokémon players and executives.

Before the sale of the first part of his collection, the 58-year-old revealed that he was selling up after deciding to quit playing the card game after 15 years.

The first part of Gordon White’s huge trading card collection realised £200,000 in November 2022.

Created by Richard Garfield, Magic: The Gathering – colloquially known as just ‘Magic’ or MTG – was released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast and is since believed to have been played by at least 35 million people.

Commonly regarded as the first trading card game, Magic drew from traditional fantasy role-playing yet boasted far more cards and more complicated rules than most other card games.

Lot 26, a Magic: The Gathering Seventh Edition foil set in excellent to mint condition, is estimated to fetch up to £10,000.

“Magic is the first trading card of its type where you collected cards and then sent them off to do battle. It’s an absolute landmark in the early days of trading cards,” said auctioneer Richard Winterton.

“Wizards Of The Coast became a big name from Magic: The Gathering. It was after Magic that Wizards Of The Coast got the licence to do Pokémon for the west.”

Lot 3, a complete Magic: The Gathering Urza's Legacy set, including the rare Beast of Burden pre-release promo card numbered 122/143.

Highlights in the auction include Lot 26, a Magic: The Gathering Seventh Edition foil set in excellent to mint condition, estimated to fetch up to £10,000.

Other Magic foil variant sets include Lot 3, the complete Urza's Legacy with the Beast of Burden 122/143 pre-release promo card and Lot 5, a complete Mercadian Masques with the Overtaker 89/350 pre-release promo card. Each lot is estimated at £3,000-£4,000.

Lot 5, a complete Mercadian Masques with the Overtaker 89/350 pre-release promo card.

“This is the first time we've had full sets of Magic: The Gathering,” added Mr Winterton.

“A collection of this magnitude does not come up for auction very often.

“Gordon initially chose to sell his collection through us as he saw how we had marketed other important Pokémon collections and the team has been painstaking in their attention to detail cataloguing these incredible cards.”

The auction features two Pokémon Emerging Powers factory sealed booster boxes.

The auction also features highly collectable Pokémon set to sell for thousands of pounds, such as the complete Pop Series 5 with all 17 cards including the ‘extremely rare’ Espeon 16/17 and Umbreon 17/17, and a complete EX Keepers Set including all gold star cards.

There are also two Pokémon Emerging Powers factory sealed booster boxes.

Highly collectable Pokémon set to sell for thousands of pounds in the sale include the complete Pop Series 5 with all 17 cards, including the extremely rare Espeon 16/17 and Umbreon 17/17.

Other cards in the sale include VS System Marvel and DC, Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter from the early 2000s.

The 75 lots are estimated to total between £44,000 and £57,000.

Mr White said: “For me, the fun is the completing – not the collecting, it’s the completion.

“And as far as I’m concerned, I’ve completed it so it’s time to pass it all on.”

The auction is live online now and starts to close at 5pm on Sunday, February 19.

For valuations and other enquiries, contact Richard Winterton Auctioneers on 01543 251081, email office@richardwinterton.co.uk.