Pokémon card 'Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat' sold in Dutch stores from Saturday

A Pokémon promotional card featuring an impressionist rendition of its fan-favorite character, Pikachu, will be available in some retail outlets in the Netherlands starting on Saturday. The highly sought-after “Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat” was made as a giveaway for patrons attending the Pokémon exhibit at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, but many people were shut out of the promotion due to resellers making repeat visits to get as many cards as possible. Several museum workers were also implicated in a scandal around the exhibit, as well.

The card features Pikachu as a stand-in for Vincent van Gogh in one of the artist’s most famous self-portraits. “The cards were extremely popular, and we heard that fans were asking if they could be available again in the Netherlands,” said Simon Benton, the vice president in charge of trading card game sales for The Pokémon Company International.

The promotion card will be given away with purchases of at least 29.99 euros in Pokémon card game merchandise. Stores involved in the promotion include Bruna, Game Mania, Intertoys, Media Markt, Primera, Smyths Toys Superstores, Top1Toys, and various other specialty shops.

“I’m very pleased that we were able to print a very large quantity of cards so that fans can get their hands on one,” Benton said. The company did not specify the exact number of cards produced for the revised promotion. The Pokémon Company did say there will be a strict limit of one card per person, but it did not say how this will be monitored.

The Pokémon x Van Gogh Museum exhibit was a big hit for the Amsterdam museum. Most time slots sold out during the limited run from September 28 through January 7. Visitors were given the opportunity to take part in a Pokémon-themed scavenger hunt about Van Gogh and several of his paintings. Upon completion, they were given a token to collect the promotional card.

At the same time, the museum was woefully unprepared for the volume of grey-market traders looking to get their hands on the cards by any means necessary. As the museum became overwhelmed, the tokens were also handed out to individuals who did not participate in the scavenger hunt, and to people who were known to have visited multiple times.

Once the museum wised up, many of the cards were being sold on eBay and second-hand goods websites for hundreds of euros. The museum had the same problem when it came to stocking products related to the exhibit, including posters, canvas replicas, and postcards.

The museum parted parted ways with four employees in mid-December who were accused of misconduct. They were believed to have given inside information about how visitors could snatch up tickets, and thus remaining Pikachu cards. One employee allegedly stole an entire box of the individually-wrapped Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat cards cards.

Van Gogh Museum staff was also accused of stashing replica paintings on display in the museum’s store, purchasing them with a discount for 120 euros, and then reselling them on eBay and Dutch website Marktplaats for up to 2,500 euros. A spokesperson for the museum said they were looking into the allegation, but said it should not have been possible for this to have happened.