Pokémon Mew Oreos sell for thousands of dollars on Ebay

The best quick money program of the year isn’t GameStop’s stock, cryptocurrency, or next-gen console resale. His…Pokémon Oreos? Oreos sporting designs of Mew, the psychic-type feline Pokémon, currently sell for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars On ebay.

Wait, are there any Oreos Pokémon?

Earlier this month, Oreo announcement a limited edition of his signature sandwich cookies with Pokémon themed designs. The full lineup of offerings is well short of the full list of 6,298,524 Pokémon monsters, including 16 Pokémon from multiple generations: Bulbasaur, Charmander, Cyndaquil, Dratini, Grookey, Jigglypuff, Lapras, Mew, Pancham, Pikachu, Piplup , Rowlett, Sableye, Sandshrew, Snivy and Squirtle.

Honestly, that would be a pretty cool cross-brand collaboration, if, you know, the employees at Nabisco (which produces Oreos) hadn’t gone on a well-publicized strike since the start of the summer.

Read more: Pokémon Oreos would be cooler if Nabisco workers didn’t go on strike

Sorry they are reselling for How many?

Of the 16 models available, Mew is by far the rarest. This track with source material; in the game, Mew is an exceptionally rare Pokémon. Typically there was only one in each game, and you had to use something like a GameShark or another problem in the game to acquire the elusive creature. According to the Pokémon info-trove site Serebii, Mew has a catch rate (the probability that your Poké Ball will successfully catch a Pokémon) of 45. For comparison, a Cannon Fodder Poké as Rattata has a capture rate of 255. So yes, the psychic-powered little purple Pokemon is Mew and far in between.

This scarcity has now been reflected in the real world of internet cookie trading. The eBay auction site is full of listings with some truly mind-boggling numbers: $ 20, $ 200, $ 623.33 (???), $ 2,000, and so on, until five-digit sums. And these aren’t all bunk bed listings, where something rises and languishes with no offerings for a dog’s age. In fact, at the time of this writing, a list, which received 34 offers, is currently running offers of $ 13,300. (Proceeds benefit charities.) Many of them have dozens of “watchers,” or people who have added these items to their watch lists, indicating their interest in bidding.

According to the Food Resources website Eat by date, Oreos have a shelf life of less than a month.

But is it really that surprising? Come on, it’s Pokémon! Sure it would get out of hand and become a collector’s game with ridiculous price tags and unexpected behavior. Spurred on by a number of factors, including production issues due to covid-19, the Pokémon company cannot print cards fast enough to answer the question.

Scarcity has also spurred some unacceptable physical behavior. Remember a viral video from early summer, when dozens of shoppers stormed a Pennsylvania Walmart at the opening bell in an attempt to score cards. (Target physical sale temporarily interrupted Pokémon cards to cancel fights and the like.) And last week in Hiroshima, Japan, a man assaulted and then stole a box of 150 cards from a student.

I have to catch them all, I guess, no matter the cost.