The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam stopped giving out Pokémon playing cards impressed by the Dutch artist after followers of the sport prompted a frenzy within the present store and resellers positioned themselves outdoors the constructing.
The particular playing cards featured a picture of Pikachu, the beloved mascot of the Pokémon universe, in a felt hat and painted within the model of Vincent van Gogh’s 1887 work “Self-Portrait With Gray Felt Hat.” To acquire them, followers should now go on eBay — the place they will value as a lot as $620.
The playing cards have been a part of a collaboration between the museum and Pokémon Firm Worldwide to have a good time the museum’s fiftieth anniversary and acknowledge the hyperlink between van Gogh and Japanese artwork and tradition. The museum additionally displayed work of Pokémon, together with Pikachu and Snorlax, which have been dispersed amongst van Gogh’s self portraits and well-known sunflowers.
To get one of many particular playing cards, ticket holders needed to full a scavenger hunt within the museum, strolling by van Gogh classics in addition to Pokémon-inspired items of artwork. Each one that accomplished the hunt obtained a card. Till Oct. 13, that’s.
“Because of latest incidents throughout which a small group of people created an undesirable state of affairs,” Lisette van den Brink, on behalf of the museum, stated by e-mail, “we’ve got needed to make the troublesome determination to now not make the particular Pikachu x Van Gogh Museum promo card obtainable within the museum.”
The collaboration was aimed toward attracting new audiences to the museum. However what the establishment didn’t foresee was chaos.
Footage that circulated on social media confirmed a frenzy within the present store as folks lined as much as get the playing cards, and resellers gathered outdoors.
“It was chaotically busy,” stated Nikki Meijer-Vosters, a lifelong Pokémon fan and collector who visited the museum just lately and partook within the scavenger hunt along with her husband and son. They every received a Pikachu card. She stated that it was noticeable that the museum was full of people that have been there solely to see the Pokémon artwork and go away with the particular card.
After she left the museum, Ms. Meijer-Vosters stated, folks outdoors supplied her cash for the playing cards. She refused their affords and as a substitute took the playing cards dwelling and positioned them in a particular folder along with her assortment of different Pikachu playing cards.
Demand for Pokémon buying and selling playing cards has been on the rise lately, and it shot up through the pandemic.
The Van Gogh Museum isn’t the primary establishment to expertise turmoil on account of the playing cards. In 2021, Goal briefly suspended gross sales of the playing cards over a risk to the protection of its clients and employees.
Uncommon playing cards have offered for astronomical costs reaching into the tons of of 1000’s. Final 12 months, the YouTuber Logan Paul broke a document by spending greater than $5 million on one.
The Pokémon card sport, first launched in 1996, is a method sport that permits gamers to battle each other utilizing the characters of the broader Pokémon franchise.
Pokémon — brief for pocket monsters — catapulted again to reputation in 2016 with the discharge of Pokémon Go, a cell sport by which gamers catch and prepare characters utilizing augmented actuality. The sport introduced folks outdoors and prompted some chaos and safety scares.
Ms. Meijer-Vosters, the Pokémon fan who left the museum with three playing cards, lives within the city of Hilvarenbeek within the southern a part of the Netherlands. She stated she had been a fan of Pokémon since she was a younger little one and began accumulating the playing cards.
“Now, as an grownup, I can cross it on to my infant,” she stated. “There’s nothing higher.”