From Pokémon to Iron Man: Why 21st-century collectors are looking beyond art

Earlier this year, a single Pokémon card, specifically a Pikachu Illustrator, set a new Guinness World Record when it sold in the US for $16.5 million, about £12 million. The buyer was a young venture capitalist, A. J. Scaramucci, who declared that this marked the start of ‘a planetary treasure hunt’, with a Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil and a Declaration of Independence manuscript next on his list. He has since bought, for $2 million (about £1.5 million), the Marvel comic in which Iron Man first appeared.

With his Treasure Trove, a venture specialising in ‘alternative assets’, Scaramucci may be more voracious than most, but his approach to collecting is emblematic of our times. According to reports from Sotheby’s and Christie’s, 21st-century collectors look beyond art (although Impressionist and Modern painters are increasingly on their radar) to Hermès bags, fine wine, jewellery and watches (for the latter, one-third of the bidders at Sotheby’s are under the age of 45).

Some purists may sneer at this magpie penchant, yet is it so different from the past? In the 17th century, John Tradescant the Elder and his son, the Younger, embarked on ‘a planetary treasure hunt’ when they scoured the world looking for the plants, seashells, coins, weapons and stuffed dodo they gathered into their Ark, eventually the basis of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum.

Victorian translator and businesswoman Lady Charlotte Schreiber was as devoted to collecting fans, board games and playing cards — surely the Pokémon of her time — as to ceramics. Later Victorians were no less eclectic, gathering butterflies and zebras (Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild) or Egyptian antiquities and medical memorabilia (Henry Wellcome).

With a sense of curiosity and wonder, trends and nostalgia remain powerful collecting drivers, even if we’ve traded 1980s vinyls for the relics of a vanished Scotland with which Sir Walter Scott filled Abbotsford. The 17th century had Tulipmania, the Victorians the fern craze; we have trainers and Labubu toys.

Yet collectors now have an additional spur. In an increasingly digital and uniform world, we hunger for the tangible and unique — none more so than the youngest generations. According to a survey this year by insurers NFU Mutual, an extraordinary 71% of Gen Z call themselves collectors. Whether they seek Monets or trading cards, first-edition books or comics, their passion can only be a good thing and, with the curiosities of one age often becoming the treasures of another, it would be a rash curator who wagered against Pikachu joining Lady Charlotte’s cards in the British Museum.

This feature originally appeared in the October 7, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.