Oreo has again sparked a sugar rush on eBay with the release of its latest limited-series cookie, a collaboration with Pokémon.But to catch these pocket monsters, it may require hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Nabisco — the parent company of Oreo — released the Pokémon-themed sandwich cookies earlier this month.The cookies feature depictions of 16 of the video game’s most popular characters, including electric mouse Pikachu and fire-breathing lizard Charmander.Some characters’ cookies, such as Dratini, Lapras and mythical Pokémon Mew, are “harder to find than others,” according to the snacks maker.
Pokéman fanatics and other collectors have already snapped up many of the cookies, which are now being resold on eBay at exponentially higher prices.Individual cookies are going for hundreds of dollars, while sealed packages are priced in the tens of thousands.
To be sure, the Pokémon cookies taste like classic Oreo cookies.They also mostly look the same, the only difference being that one side of each cookie has the image of a Pokémon character instead of the traditional Oreo brand logo.
Oreo is capitalizing on a resurgent craze in Pokémon cards, said Dani Sanchez, a YouTube content creator in Los Angeles who has collected them for more than 15 years.Galvanized by nostalgia, Pokémaniacs have returned to buying and selling old trading cards online with a vengeance .
Pokémon cards once worth a dollar 20 years ago are now selling for $200,000, Sanchez told CBS MoneyWatch.
With the Oreo x Pokémon collaboration, “You have the potential to find the rare Pokémon in there, and obviously it makes it more fun for people who like collecting things,” she said.
The cookie fetching the highest price on eBay is Mew, the rarest of the bunch, with a dozen sellers listing it for $25,000 and one seller looking for $30,000.Hundreds of the Mew Oreo have already been sold, according to eBay listings.
“The rarity of the designs embossed on the cookies range from easy to find to hard to find, and the hardest to find (Mew) is featured on an extremely limited amount of the total cookies produced,” Oreo said in a statement.The choice to make Mew the most limited character in the collaboration taps into the video game’s mythology.
“Mew has always been that one legendary Pokémon,” said Sanchez, who bought three sealed packs of the Pokémon Oreos at a Ralph’s in Los Angeles and plans to keep them as collector’s items.”Because it was so powerful and said to be the creator of the universe and everything, they have always made Mew very evasive and something of a myth.”
Customers can still buy their own pack of Pokémon Oreos in grocery stores or on the Oreo website, but the company hasn’t said how long the cookies will be available.
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Brooks has covered business and economic development for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and the Bristol Herald Courier.He also covered higher education for the Omaha World-Herald, the Florida Times-Union and The Ledger in Lakeland, Florida.
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