We have a Jake DeBrusk trade to announce. Sort of.
If you ever go to a card show, of which there are many, a lot of the vendors will have a camera set up in their booth in order to create content, whether it’s a livestream or short videos on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube.
One of those vendors posts on those sites under the name Shiny Cardboard Collector. At the Overtime Card Show in Calgary, Alberta last week, he made some major trades with a lot of cards and cash changing hands. He posted a few of those deals online, and one of them caught the attention of Canucks fans.
In the video, Shiny Cardboard Collector holds up two cards that he’s about to trade, then says, “We’re here with Jake,” as the camera pans over to the man making the trade.
It’s Jake DeBrusk.
Evidently, the Vancouver Canucks winger is a fan of Pokémon.
When asked how long he’s been collecting Pokémon cards, DeBrusk replies, “About five months,” then laughs and adds, “It’s an expensive hobby.”
It’s a good thing that DeBrusk has a job that pays him $5.5 million dollars per year through 2031, then.
DeBrusk then names Kyogre as his favourite Pokémon and says that 1st Edition Charizard — one of the most highly sought and expensive cards of all time — is the card he most wants in his collection.
It’s neat to see a professional hockey player with an unusual or unexpected hobby, so seeing DeBrusk randomly show up in a Pokémon card video is a real treat. DeBrusk was one of my favourite players to talk to last season, as he’s very genuine and warm, so, on a personal level, I’m excited to have another topic to talk to him about in the locker room.
But aside from all that, we now have an important task: analyzing this major trade.
Breaking down a big Jake DeBrusk trade
The trade includes a total of eight cards and a whole bunch of cash. There appear to be at least ten $100 bills on the table, along with a massive stack of $20 bills. From what I can tell, there are at least 25 bills, so that’s at least $1500 in cash.
DeBrusk is getting two PSA-graded cards: a Pretend Team Skull Pikachu and a 1st Edition Neo Genesis Lugia Holo. The Pikachu card is a PSA 10, which means it’s in flawless Gem Mint condition, while the Lugia is a PSA 7, which is Near Mint condition.
If that means nothing to you, let’s get into the weeds a little.
The Pretend Team Skull Pikachu is part of a series of cards where Pikachu, the most popular Pokémon of all, wears a poncho to dress up as another Pokémon. It's adorable.
These cards are exclusively released in Japan with a limited print run, making them hard to find and increasing their value. This particular card has Pikachu dressing up as a “grunt” or lackey of Team Skull, a street gang in the Pokémon universe that has become one of the most popular groups of antagonists among Pokémon fans due to their skull-based aesthetic and sly social commentary.
According to Price Charting, an ungraded Pretend Team Skull Pikachu can sell for around $2000.
That’s wild enough already, but a card graded by Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) as a Gem Mint PSA 10 can sell for a whole lot more. The most recent PSA 10 Pretend Team Skull Pikachu sold for $7,302.
The Lugia card is not quite as valuable, but still an expensive card. The Pokémon: Neo Genesis set came out in 2000 and was the first to feature Generation II Pokémon, including Lugia, a legendary Psychic/Flying type. That means the cards are a little older, so it’s harder to find them in the type of condition that would earn a high grade from PSA.
According to Price Charting, the latest eBay listing of a PSA 7 Lugia holo card sold for $1,356.
So, if we’re going off the values on Price Charting, DeBrusk got approximately $8,658 worth of cards.
What DeBrusk gave up in this trade
Unsurprisingly, DeBrusk also had to offer up some valuable cards in the deal.
The two PSA-graded cards DeBrusk has on the table are a PSA 10 Rayquaza VMax and a PSA 8 Vaporeon Gold Star, as well as four ungraded single cards that are left unnamed in the video.
The Rayquaza VMax appears to be from the Evolving Skies set, and it’s a pricey card. Price Charting has the most recent PSA 10 sale at $1,595.
The value of the Vaporeon Gold Star card is another very valuable card, with the most recent sale on Price Charting of a PSA 8 coming in at $1,725.
That’s a total value of $3,320 between the two cards. Combined with the cash on the table, that’s approximately $4,820 in value that DeBrusk is giving up in the trade, plus the four ungraded singles.
Given that he’s getting over $8,000 worth of cards, that means the fairness of this trade really depends on those four singles.
I can identify a few of those singles, thanks to DeBrusk showing up briefly in another video posted by Shiny Cardboard Collector from the same card show. In that video, DeBrusk hands over his card binder to let him take a look, likely in preparation for this very trade, which gives us a clearer view of a few of the cards.
From that, I can identify three of the four singles on the table: a full-art Squirtle from Pokémon Stellar Crown, a full-art Starmie V from Pokémon Astral Radiance, and an Umbreon from Pokémon Celebrations.
Price Charting has an ungraded Squirtle as typically selling for between $50 and $75, an ungraded Starmie V as selling for around $70 to $100, and an ungraded Umbreon going for around $60 to $100.
If the Umbreon wasn’t from the Pokémon Celebrations set and was instead the Umbreon Gold Star from the Pokémon POP Series 5, which has the exact same art, it would be a lot more valuable. That card sells for $3000+.
With an ungraded card, a vendor might want to grade it and hope for a PSA 10, which would increase the selling price to around $200-$300 for those three cards.
As-is, unless that one card I couldn’t identify is incredibly valuable, DeBrusk did quite well in this trade. He traded a little over $5000 in cards and cash and received two cards worth approximately $8000.
How you see this trade might depend on your perspective, of course. Only one of the people involved in the deal got $1,500 in cash that he can actually exchange for goods and services.
