Travis...heh heh heh....<GGGGGGGGG>.
Pokemania fires up collectibles, stock markets
By Richard Chang
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pokemon! If you haven't heard enough of that word by now,
brace for November when the ''Pokemon'' movie hits theaters and kids will want anything
Pokemon -- from trading cards to dolls to video games -- for Christmas.
By then, a cuddly doll of the yellow Pokemon (short for Pocket Monster) Pikachu may become so hot that desperate parents
will pay scalpers several times retail for it. Already, a hard-to-find trading card of another monster, Charizard, commands up to
$40 in the secondary market.
As for the big bucks, Grand Toys International Inc.'s (Nasdaq:GRIN - news) stock doubled to a 12-month high of more than
$30 last week, after the Canadian company said it had a license to make the Japanese products. The stock of other Pokemon
toymakers and licensees also got a boost as the rage for Pokemon -- which came to the United States from Japan as a
handheld video game just a year ago -- spread to the financial markets.
''A lot of people have compared it to Beanie Babies. There's so much going for it,'' said Douglas Kale, managing director of
Beckett Publications which in July launched a monthly Pokemon magazine (www.beckett.com), with a price guide. The
circulation has grown from 330,000 to 430,000 in just one month, through sales at newsstands, major bookstores and hobby
stores.
Beanie Babies, of course, are those cuddly little bean- stuffed animals that were the rage a few years ago. The maker, Ty Inc.,
abruptly announced on the Internet Tuesday it would stop making them, causing an outrage among millions of fans.
''The real hard-core collectors still collect Beanie Babies, but the general public has gone to Pokemon. That's the craze going
into school and that'll be craze going into the holiday season,'' said Perry Drosos, vice president of marketing and design at
toymaker Hasbro Inc. (NYSE:HAS - news), a Pokemon licensee.
What Pokemon has over Beanie Babies is a constantly upgraded video game and trading card game; the No. 1 U.S. children's
TV show airing Monday through Saturday; and a potential blockbuster movie. Pokemon also has a universe of its own,
inhabited by 150 cartoon ''monsters,'' that is a creative wellspring for ever more collectible products and licenses.
Pokemon began as a Nintendo Game Boy handheld video game, followed by a trading card game, in which the player tries to
capture all 150 wild ''monsters'' to train and do nonviolent battle with other Pokemon. As the Pokemon learn new skills, they
grow and sometimes evolve into different Pokemon. Check out the Web site www.pokemon.com for everything you want to
know on the subject.
Pokemon's franchise is so widespread, dominating posters, key chains, schoolbags, and most of all, the psyche of 2- to
15-year olds, that some schools have even banned the game.
''My 6-year-old nephew is so addicted to the damned thing we timed him out on it. He's not allowed to talk about it,'' said
Steve Fritz, a New York writer on animation.
Still, Pokemon has much more support from parents than video games like Power Rangers and Mutant Ninja Turtles, which
augurs well for the products' wider popularity and longevity.
''From the adult perspective, this is a pretty nonviolent game. The characters are completely asexual. Nobody dies. There's not
much in it that a parent can worry about. This is pretty harmless,'' said Jeffrey B. Snyder, a researcher at Schiffer Publications
(www.schiffer.com), who is writing a book on Pokemon collectibles with the help of his 9-year-old son.
This may have helped Pokemania grip Japan for about four years, and become the hottest collectible in the United States within
just a year. More than 3,700 Pokemon products are listed on Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com), and more than 18,000 items are up
for sale on eBay (www.ebay.com).
''Demand increased from the moment it hit,'' said Eddie Tsang, manager of Chameleon Comics and Cards, a hobby store in
Flushing, N.Y. ''It hasn't stopped. Prices for the cards have gone up a lot, even on a wholesale level.''
A pack of 10 Pokemon trading cards, with common, uncommon and maybe rare ones, sell for the recommended retail price of
$2.99, or more at stores. Since the point of the game is to collect all 150 Pokemon monsters, rare cards are selling for up to
$50 at dealers or on the Internet. Even 10-packs are hard to get because Wizards of the Coast (www.wizards.com), the
licensee, does not make enough to meet the demand.
As a result, counterfeits are showing up. Nintendo, which owns the Pokemon license, warns buyers to check for blurry printing
or wrong colors, question retailers if a product seems suspicious, look for the official Nintendo seal, and beware of
outrageously low resale prices.
Jim Silver, co-publisher of The Toy Book, a monthly toy industry publication, predicts that Pokemon cards will be hottest toy
category for Christmas, followed by the Game Boy games and Hasbro plush toys. Of these, the yellow Pikachu doll will be the
most popular, he said.
Scalpers are bound to emerge as the supply tightens or runs out at Christmas, so buy early. As for the stocks of Pokemon
licensees, speculative rallies are likely as the shopping rush ensues, but beware. Grand Toys is now worth $13, far below the
$40 Pokemon-inspired run-up took it just last week.
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