In a surprise twist, GameStop recently announced internally that some of its stores would begin buying and selling graded collectibles like Pokémon cards. There were immediately a bunch of questions like “how?” and “why?” One YouTuber recently tested exactly how the process works. Pokémon trading card collector and controversial YouTuber Lee “Leonhart” Steinfeld visited a GameStop at a mall near Dallas, Texas, one of the few test sites for the new initiative.
Greeting the poor employee in the morning right when the store opened, Steinfeld turned over a bunch of cards, including a Miriam trainer and a full art Squirtle from the base Scarlet and Violet set, to see how they were appraised and what he could get for them. “These are cool,” the employee, who Steinfeld recorded , says while thumbing through the PSA graded cards in their acrylic cases. “So, how does this whole grading thing work?” (The GameStop employee later told Kotaku he didn’t feel ambushed and was happy to learn on the spot but also didn’t know Steinfeld was filming him.
) GameStop announced the trade-in program earlier this month and began rolling it out immediately without taking the time to do much training. While scanning codes on the graded cases pulls up what the card should look like and the amounts the store can offer, it’s up to employees to go through an eleven-point checklist to make sure the cards aren’t fraudulent. Steinfeld’s thumbnail for the YouTube video is misle.