TPCi Warns Hobby Stores About Selling League Promos and Materials, Sends Timeline for When Items Can Be Sold

By: Water Pokémon Master · Posted Posted onFeb 22, 2024 at 6:22 PM · 22 Comments

TPCi has sent hobby stores a timeline outlining when they’re allowed to sell the promo cards and materials TPCi provides them for Pokemon Leagues.

The company specifies that Play! Pokemon Prize Packs can never be sold. We saw this violated last month when hoards of Prize Pack Series Four appeared on eBay, seemingly from dubious hobby stores.

If a store manages to obtain singles from Prize Packs (such as if they buy them from a player), the stores can only sell those cards three years after their printed copyright year — and only starting in 2025. This means you should not see any Prize Pack singles being sold at hobby stores with Pokemon Leagues until next year.

Prerelease staff promos can only be sold three years after their printed copyright year.

This guidance is following up on an e-mail TPCi sent hobby stores in December warning about the misuse of League materials. TPCi cited issues such as “selling Play! Pokémon Prize Packs, selling League stamped promos (Prize Pack singles or Staff promos) regardless of source, selling free promotional material provided by Play! Pokémon for League participation, selling Prerelease Build & Battle Boxes before the listed date for sale, or using Prerelease Kits for anything other than in-store events for attending players.”

TPCi warns, “Failure to follow these guidelines can result in disciplinary action,” including “the removal of a Pokémon League from your store or a suspension from all Play! Pokémon programs.”

The company states their timetable will allow “new cards to consistently enter the market, which [will provide] an evolving selection of new promo cards for our stores, Leagues, collectors, and players to purchase and sell!”

This is the timetable TPCi provided, with some minor edits by us for clarity:

Material Type Embargo Length
Play! Pokémon Prize Packs Not for sale; previous series should be used as directed by the Play! Pokémon program
Old League stamped promos (prior to Prize Packs) Eligible for sale; these promos have the “League” stamp, not the newer “Play! Pokémon” stamp
League stamped promos (including Prize Pack singles) Three years from card’s printed copyright year, starting in 2025
Prerelease staff promos Three years from card’s printed copyright year
League prizing (playmats) Two years from item’s printed copyright year
Marketing materials Not for sale; can be distributed when new marketing materials are provided by the Play! Pokémon program
Non-League Championship Series items No embargo; can be bought and sold upon release

If you suspect a hobby store is misusing their League materials, you can file a support ticket on Pokemon.com.

View thread (22 replies)
Water Pokémon Master said:
How so?
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I can't get these cards if card shops aren't allowed to resell them. I espcially apparently can't get an unopened pack to open myself and have a little bit of surprise because everyone's gonna want to open them to sell individually, I guess, on Facebook Marketplace.

But I mostly don't like companies telling the people who buy their products what they can and can't do. That's not a good solution to scalping. That's corporate overreach.
 
Nintenfreak said:
I can't get these cards if card shops aren't allowed to resell them. I espcially apparently can't get an unopened pack to open myself and have a little bit of surprise because everyone's gonna want to open them to sell individually, I guess, on Facebook Marketplace.

But I mostly don't like companies telling the people who buy their products what they can and can't do. That's not a good solution to scalping. That's corporate overreach.
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The Play packs are intended for participation and are given for free to stores holding leagues. Selling them instead of giving them out is a scumbag move.

The people who earn the packs can still sell them, just not the stores.
 
There are two very murky points about this announcement.
First, the actual announcement e-mail (and I have it in front of me) does not mention that this applies only to stores. Obviously it was sent to the stores, so it's meant to be for them, but it creates funny situations where a player might receive a playmat, turn around to sell it back to the store and suddenly the store has a "laundered" playmat. It is a minor point, but a consequence of Pokemon in general not recognizing the secondary market for legal reasons.

A more important point is the STAFF promos. Unlike every other material, these cards are meant for the people working at the store, judging, or helping with the event. It is meant to be a reward for unpaid labour they're providing. To have an embargo on that product is ridiculous. It's the only item on the list to be blocked from any secondary sales for three years - because, if you see it online, someone broke the embargo.
 
Hukutus said:
The Play packs are intended for participation and are given for free to stores holding leagues. Selling them instead of giving them out is a scumbag move.

The people who earn the packs can still sell them, just not the stores.
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Cool I look forward to all those people selling their unopened packs on the secondary market so those of us in rural areas can get them
 
Oof, the three year wait is rough, the cards either won't be legal or about to be rotated by then. And the fact this only applies to stores that have Leagues honestly hurts those stores, as then the stores that don't have Leagues (or official ones, at least) have a TCG product they can sell, but the League store can't. It also screws over League stores that have already been buying cards from players who wanted to sell theirs (kids espc love to sell some of the valuable ones they aren't using to buy more packs), and now have a bunch of stock they can't sell for quite a long time. The ban on selling the packs themselves is 100% justified, but not big on the singles ban,,, I get why they're doing it, just not very comfy with it.

Also, sure would be nice if my Staff promos ever came in for me to even be able to sell them years from now. Haven't gotten the past two set's worth (and really wanted my Cleffa n Kissy,,, :< )... making me wonder if they're getting stolen in the mail now (it's either that, or they aren't sending them out like they should be, but we've been getting everything else just fine...). *sigh* Some people just ruining things for everyone else,,,
(Hope our Series 4 come in soon, tho, so I can at least start giving those away)
 
Coolpilot said:
And the fact this only applies to stores that have Leagues honestly hurts those stores, as then the stores that don't have Leagues (or official ones, at least) have a TCG product they can sell, but the League store can't.
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There is no such thing as a "League store", which means you perhaps opened my third eye as to why this is worded so vaguely. The recipient of these promos are not "stores", they're Leagues. You are absolutely allowed to run a League in a public place that's not a store.
I think TPCi purposefully tries to conflate stores and Leagues - not unfair when it comes to customers, but they're trying to have a cake and eat it too.
 
TrainerSkitz said:
The time is so that the card is guaranteed rotated (with the exception of cards like switch that are always in rotation) and only sold for collection value not playability values which can get out of hand
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That's not exactly why. It's more to ensure that stores aren't trying to bypass the rule against selling the prize packs by simply opening the packs and selling the contents. TPCI doesn't care about the secondary market at all, but they do want to make sure the League materials are being distributed to players as intended.
 
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