Though originally given away for free, when visitors to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam completed a ‘treasure hunt’ style activity sheet, or purchased an item from the venue’s Pokemon Collection, the Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat Promo Card was soon being sold for very high prices online.
The cards seemed to almost exclusively end up in the hands of scalpers, who caused chaos by descending upon the Museum in large numbers.
This meant that the cards didn’t end up in the hands of younger fans; it was initially created as part of a collaboration between the Museum and The Pokemon Company, in order to attract kids to the Van Gogh Museum and introduce them to the artist’s work.
The card’s art is based on Vincent Van Gogh’s famous ‘Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat’, so it was a great way for young Pokemon fans to instantly be connected to one of the most famous and celebrated artists of all time.
Yet its limited availability caused numerous issues at the Van Gogh Museum; not only did the droves of scalpers cause chaos in the establishment, but it seems that even the employees there got caught up in the frenzy too.
Four members of staff at the Van Gogh Museum were suspended and then fired due to numerous allegations of misconduct related to the Pokemon exhibition, including one who allegedly embezzled a box of the cards.
When reports first surfaced that the Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat Promo cards would be reprinted and returning, it was assumed that they’d be available via the Van Gogh Museum once more.
However, the Museum has now confirmed that not to be the case, given the issues that it caused them during the August 2023 promo period, along with the fact that the Pokemon collaboration (with two examples above of the art it featured) closed on the 7th of January 2024.
Instead, Pokebeach have confirmed that these cards will be distributed via dedicated gaming stores and larger retailers across the Netherlands, though in the same report they also note that the smaller stores will be receiving cards in much smaller numbers than the mainstream chain stores.
That’s because there’s already been an issue with ‘pre-scalping’, whereby stores or their customers are using pre-order volumes to sell the cards at massively inflated prices before they’ve even arrived.
In response to this, game stores will only be receiving 10 copies of the card each and not the 100 that they were previously assured of.
However, it’s estimated that there will be around 100,000 Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat cards available when this new printing is released.
Where And When You Can Buy The Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat Promo Card
The promotion begins on February 10th, with customers able to secure themselves one card by spending at least €29.99 in participating stores.
Are you looking to get your hands on a Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat Promo card?
If you didn’t manage to snag one during the previous Van Gogh Museum promotional period, hopefully you can get yourself one of these highly sought after cards this time around; they’ll be available in the Netherlands from the following stores:
- Bruna
- Game Mania
- Intertoys
- Media Markt
- Primera
- Top1Toys
They’ll also be available in much smaller numbers from independent gaming stores; the best thing to do is to check and see if your local store is expecting stock and, to avoid disappointment, whether or not they’re still expecting to have spare cards, after their pre-order volumes were cut down to just 10 copies.
