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 reward store and scalpers positioned themselves exterior the constructing.
To acquire the particular playing cards, which characteristic a picture of Pikachu, the beloved mascot of the Pokémon universe, in a felt hat and painted within the type of Vincent van Gogh’s 1887 work “Self-Portrait With Gray Felt Hat,” followers should now go on eBay — the place the cardboard can price as a lot as $620.
The playing cards have been a part of a collaboration between the Museum and Pokémon Firm Worldwide to have fun 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 who accomplished the hunt acquired a card. Till Oct. 13, that’s.
“Because of latest incidents throughout which a small group of people created an undesirable scenario,” Lisette van den Brink, on behalf of the museum, mentioned by e mail, “we’ve got needed to make the troublesome resolution to not make the particular Pikachu x Van Gogh Museum promo card accessible 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 reward store as folks lined as much as get the playing cards, and scalpers gathered exterior the museum.
“It was chaotically busy,” mentioned Nikki Meijer-Vosters, a lifelong Pokémon fan and collector who visited the museum lately and partook within the scavenger hunt together with her husband and son. They every bought a Pikachu card. She mentioned that it was noticeable that the museum was full of people that have been there solely to see the Pokémon artwork and depart with a particular card.
After she left the museum, Ms. Meijer-Vosters mentioned, folks exterior supplied her cash for the playing cards. She refused their presents and as a substitute took the playing cards house and positioned them in a particular folder together with her assortment of different Pikachu playing cards.
Demand for Pokémon buying and selling playing cards has been on the rise in recent times, and it shot up throughout the pandemic.
The Van Gogh Museum will not be the primary establishment to expertise turmoil because of the playing cards. In 2021, Goal quickly suspended gross sales of the playing cards over a menace to the protection of its clients and staff.
Uncommon playing cards have bought for astronomical costs reaching into the lots of of hundreds. Final 12 months, the YouTuber Logan Paul broke a report by spending greater than $5 million on one.
The Pokémon card sport, first launched in 1996, is a technique sport that permits gamers to battle one another utilizing the characters of the broader Pokémon franchise.
Pokémon — brief for pocket monsters — catapulted again to recognition in 2016 with the discharge of Pokémon Go, a cellular sport wherein gamers catch and prepare characters utilizing augmented actuality. The sport introduced folks exterior 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 mentioned she had been a fan of Pokémon since she was a younger youngster and began amassing the playing cards.
“Now, as an grownup, I can move it on to my baby,” she mentioned. “There’s nothing higher.”
