Some Poke " TMAX, GRIN and KIDE" stocks will be on FIRE today and next week..
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Pokemania fires up collectibles, stock markets
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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
GRIN.O 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. HAS.N, 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.
REUTERS
Rtr 18:08 09-01-99
Copyright 1999, Reuters News Service
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