I recently came across a listing of a factory sealed xy flash fire masterset on eBay. Apparently it was given out to top 1-4 of worlds back in 2014. I was just wondering if there’s other examples of factory sealed mastersets around?
9 Likes
Leonhart has a bunch of these from different sets he actually showed them in his latest video. From yesterday
6 Likes
Thanks man - checking it out now!
1 Like
I guess I’m also wondering about how to price this…
How much did you spend on this thing you know nothing about?
20 Likes
It was an impulse buy, someone listed it on eBay and I bought it immediately 
2 Likes
I have nothing more to say.
5 Likes
Well it’s 2025 it’s probably appreciated about 40% since then
5 Likes
For sure the Charizards would make up the majority of the value. The set like much of XY did not have the best print quality and there’s no reason to believe the cards inside are psa 10 candidates. You can pick up the charizards in LP-NM for about 1k. Obviously this item is scarce but the price factor for that just depends on the individual.
5 Likes
Yes, I have seen several EX-era and D&P-era factory sealed master sets.
Factory sealed master sets were popularized by WoTC. The MTG equivalent are called MOL (Magic Online) Complete Sets and come in Regular and Premium (i.e., foil) versions. You’d have to collect one of each card online to redeem the entire set in physical copy within the allotted timeframe. That led to bot farmers who have businesses collating online cards to redeem the physical ones and sell them for profit. Some of the older foil complete sets are worth a pretty penny. WoTC employees could take these complete sets on occasion (e.g., holidays, work-related redemptions).
I believe TPCi gave some of these complete sets to employees, but it sounds like they were also used for Worlds competitors.
@cataclysm80 Do you know more about these?
2 Likes
I had heard from someone who had shared them on reddit that they may have gone to playtesters as well. They had shared photos of sets from BW well into XY all in boxes similar to these.
2 Likes
can you share the listing sold on ebay? i couldnt find it on the last sold
I gotcha. For posterity’s sake too.
No offer. No hesitation. There was just no time for games like that.
7 Likes
What do you do with it?
The set is complete and it’s in the box right?
This is a really cool item, thanks for sharing!
Also sealed product and its contents aren’t really comparable but fwiw a booster box of flashfire is ~9k, with 1/72 packs having a secret
2 Likes
Dunno. Trade it for chips at the casino?
Theoretically. Though it seems like it could be a target for reseal shenanigans.
I think it could have appeal as a complete-in-package novelty item, unless someone is looking to just dump it for less or close to the cost of building the actual master set.
3 Likes
Yes 
Sports cards used to have factory sets.
I’ve heard they were available at the end of the year, but I’m not sure if that means December for the holidays (a good time to sell stuff), or the end of the sports season.
Either way, WotC decided to do a complete factory set in 1993, which was called Collectors Edition.
Richard Garfield was strongly against factory sets for TCG. The whole idea of a TCG is that cards are supposed to have different rarities, everybody isn’t supposed to have every card in the game. So printing the cards at equal rarity with one of everything, and allowing players to buy that product, was a bad idea.
To solve the problem, WotC made Collectors Edition have a different card back with square corners, and these cards weren’t tournament legal.
The next complete sets were made for WotC customer service.
If a customer had a damaged card and contacted WotC. customer service could pull the card from one of these complete sets and send it to the customer as a replacement.
Since WotC was doing this for Magic, I suppose they would have also done it for Pokemon.
When the product went out of print / wasn’t supported by customer service anymore, leftover sealed sets (and open sets) would be given to employees to get rid of them.
Eventually Magic Online became available, and allowed digital complete sets to be redeemed for physical cards.
These complete sets are a special print run with their own printing plates, which have one of each card in alphabetical order.
Regular sheets often have multiple copies of cards, and definitely aren’t in alphabetical order.
10 Likes
I’m confused, did that Leonhart video that came out yesterday say 2024 the entire time? Does he just re-upload stuff without acknowledging it or?
Have you heard about these complete sets in the context of post-WoTC eras (e.g., EX, Diamond & Pearl, Black & White, XY)? This is the first time that I’ve heard about The Pokemon Company International (TPCi) using complete factory sets as prizes for Worlds.
And along that line - Worlds always has several sets in rotation. Did winners get complete sets of every set in rotation for that specific Worlds? Or did TPCi hand out what they had leftovers for?
It is super interesting to me! @dylan do you know more about this?