What is a TCG "Big Box"?

Question

Found this on an eBay listing. Reverse image searching and typing "Pokemon Big Box 2002" (copyright year on the back) turn up nothing. If anyone can find this information, what countries was this sold in, who stocked it, and how many are confirmed to still exist?

Thanks in advance.

Comments

@Amethyst I have to be honest, I was disappointed that the seller didn’t state where they purchased it in the listing, especially since they even wrote that they can’t find anything about it online or any evidence of other copies existing! They have to know we’d all be curious, lol. I would guess it’s either that they don’t remember, or they purchased from another collector (so not from the retailer directly). Please update us if you reach out and they respond to you!

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https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonTCG/comments/16ejilt/does_anyone_have_any_information_about_this/
There seems to be a Reddit Page about this.

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@Anchor that's fascinating, thanks. I actually messaged the seller on eBay a few weeks ago and didn't get a response back, so this might be the most information we'll ever get on this product. I'd give it a while longer just to see if the guy gets back to me, but I would accept a paraphrase of that link as an answer eventually.

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Any update @ame?

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Nothing new. A summary of the Reddit thread's explanation is more than sufficient for an answer.

Answer 1

Not much is known about this item in particular. There's been nothing officially documented that is available to the public on sales and retailers, however, apparently the "Big Box" was sold as a repackaged bulk to increase card sales. Multiple people claim they recall it being sold at ToysRUs in early 2000's, and one recalls it originally costing around $20.

Pokémon was in such a lull at this time that Chain stores used to repackage their packs that couldn't be sold even at clearance in hopes people would buy them for volume, that's why these are always a hodgepodge of packs, series, and items.
This specific one is officially licensed Pokémon product but the same reasoning applies since it also has the Base2 trainer video included, as well as packs up to midNeo era. It also sounds like sometimes they'd throw in other language packs as “a great deal” even though generally they weren't sought after.
They claim 1/1 because most of these have been opened or ripped apart by now. I haven't seen this specific one but there's always the chance that in someone's basement a grandparent put away a birthday gift that was forgotten about. The reality is that the price is just for bragging and the real value is only 2-3x the cost of all the contents and that's just due to rarity.

They're calling it "one of one" because the boxes had many different variations. They're assuming theirs is the only one still out there with that exact variation of packs. I have two of these, both of which are very different assortment from each other and this one here.
(For example: one of mine has four rocket and four jungle along with neo destiny, the other I think is base set, fossil and jungle, no neo)

Crazy how much this is going for. I remember saving up my allowance to buy these at Toys R Us for ~$20 in the early 00s. Got some great pulls from the Neo Destiny packs

This answer will be updated if more info about this item is found.

Source

Comments

Thanks! Sorry this took so long to select.