Type "pokemon cards ankeny" into Google right now and you get a Yelp list, a GameStop store page, and a wall of big-box product listings from Ace Hardware, Dollar General and Five Below. What you don't get is a straight answer about which counter in this town will actually have the card you're looking for.
So here's ours, including the parts that don't flatter us.
There are six places in Ankeny worth walking into for Pokémon cards, and they are not interchangeable. We're at 613 S Ankeny Blvd, open seven days a week. Singles, vintage, Japanese singles, and sealed product going back to the Sword & Shield era — including single packs from out-of-print sets in the feeders, which is the part nobody else in town has. Plus a buying counter that pays cash the same day you walk in.
Two things Ankeny doesn't do, so you don't waste the drive: sanctioned Pokémon League play — that runs at our Southside and West Des Moines stores, both of which are Pokémon League locations — and sealed Japanese boxes, which we don't stock anywhere. Ankeny is a Wizards Play Network store, which is Magic, not Pokémon.
What we actually keep on the floor
The Ankeny store opened in February 2025 and it carries the widest TCG lineup of our three locations — all six of the majors, not just the two that move fastest. For Pokémon specifically, the floor breaks into four things:
- Sealed — current sets and a deep back catalog. Not just what's new. Covered in detail below, because it's the thing we're most unusual for.
- Singles. The case, and the binders behind the case. This is the part that matters most and the part we'll spend the most words on below.
- Japanese singles. Singles only — we don't carry sealed Japanese boxes.
- Vintage. WOTC-era through the mid-2000s, graded and raw.
Sealed product, and why ours isn't just the current set
Walk into a big box and the Pokémon sealed you can buy is whatever is printing right now. That's the entire selection at Target, Walmart and GameStop, and honestly it's most of the selection at a lot of card shops too — sealed ties up money, so most shops move it and don't look back.
We keep the current sets, obviously — Chaos Rising, Pitch Black, Phantasmal Flames and Perfect Order. But the part actually worth driving for is the back catalog.
We consistently stock sealed running from the Sword & Shield era, through early Scarlet & Violet, and up through the current Mega Evolution sets — booster bundles, Elite Trainer Boxes, blisters and tins from sets that stopped printing years ago. Out-of-print sealed doesn't come back. Once the print run ends, the only supply is what's already sitting on shelves somewhere, and most of those shelves are in people's closets rather than in a store you can walk into.
And the packs from those same sets are in the feeders. That's the part people don't expect. If you want to open something from a set that hasn't been printed in years but you don't want to commit to a sealed box to do it, you can buy a single pack. Nowhere with a national supply chain can do that, because their inventory turns over every time a new set lands.
Straight talk: older sealed costs more than it did when it was on shelves, and if you just want to open packs for fun, current-set product is the better value per pack. Buy the older stuff because you want that specific set, not because you assume it's an investment. We'll tell you which is which.
A note on the links above: what you see on this website is a fraction of what's in the store. The online catalog is sealed product we can ship. The case is a different animal and it changes weekly, because it's built out of what people bring us. If you want to know whether a specific card is in the case right now, call the store at 515-513-0739 — someone will physically go look. That is not a call center.
Singles are the whole point, and packs are usually a bad way to get one
Here is the advice we give at the counter that costs us money.
If you want a specific card — a specific Charizard, a specific alt art, a specific card to finish a deck — do not buy packs to get it. The odds are terrible and everyone who has ever chased a card this way knows it. Buy the single. You will spend less, you will get the card today, and you will not end up with four hundred bulk commons you now have to store.
Packs are for the experience of opening packs. That's a genuinely good reason to buy them, and we sell plenty. But it's a different purchase than "I need this card," and shops that blur those two things are taking advantage of people who don't know the difference yet.
Straight talk: if you walk in with a specific card in mind, ask for the binder before you look at the sealed wall. If we don't have it, we'll tell you rather than sell you a box and hope.
Japanese singles and vintage
Japanese singles, and a straight answer on sealed. We do not stock sealed Japanese boxes — not at Ankeny, not anywhere. If you came here looking for a Japanese booster box, we're not the shop, and we'd rather say that here than have you find out at the counter. Call around, or buy from an importer you've vetted.
What we do keep is Japanese singles. Different print run, different card stock, and for a lot of collectors the Japanese version of a card is simply the better-looking one. Worth knowing before you buy: Japanese cards aren't legal in most sanctioned English-format play, so they don't help you build for a tournament. If you're collecting, which is most people buying them, that doesn't matter at all.
Vintage is where you should be most careful, and not just with us. The counterfeit market on WOTC-era Pokémon got sophisticated somewhere around 2021 and the fakes coming out now will pass a squint test. We check every vintage card that comes across the buy counter before it goes in the case. Ask us to show you what we check for — light test, texture, print rosette. If a shop won't walk you through that, buy your vintage somewhere else. That applies to us too.
Selling or trading your Pokémon cards in Ankeny
The Ankeny store buys. You don't need an appointment and you don't need to sort anything first — bring the box as it is.
What that actually looks like: you walk in, we go through it at the counter while you wait, and you leave with cash or store credit the same visit. For a shoebox of loose cards this is usually a ten-minute conversation. For a full collection it takes longer and it's worth calling ahead so we can have the right person at the counter.
What we actually pay
Most shops won't put this in writing. Here's ours, as a share of what the card is genuinely worth:
Store credit pays more than cash at every tier. Where you land inside a band depends on real things — how fast that card actually moves, what we already have three of, condition, and whether it's a set people are currently building.
Bulk is its own conversation and doesn't follow those bands. Whether we're taking it at all depends on what we're already sitting on, and pricing works differently — call the store at 515-513-0739 before you load up the car, and we'll tell you straight whether it's worth the trip.
How we look up value, since it isn't a secret
We do it in front of you, on the same tools you have access to:
- TCGplayer market price for the overwhelming majority of cards. Market price — not the cheapest listing, not the most expensive one, the number in the middle that reflects what the card is actually transacting at.
- eBay sold listings for high-end cards and anything slabbed. Graded cards live and die on grade-specific comps, and sold listings are where that reality is, not asking prices.
That's the whole method. Every shop in the country runs some version of it, so there's nothing to protect by being cagey about it, and a customer who understands what "market price" means is easier to do business with, not harder. Pull it up on your phone while we're pulling it up on ours. We're fine being checked.
Please don't price it yourself first
This is the one request we'll make, and it's genuinely in your interest.
The transactions that go badly are almost always the ones where a number got attached to the collection before it got to the counter. Usually it came from the highest active listing someone saw rather than a sold price, or from a card that looks identical but is a different set, print run or rarity — reprints in this hobby are relentless and the visual differences are small. Once that number is in someone's head, everything we say sounds like a lowball, even when we're paying at the top of the band.
So bring the box in as it is. Don't sort it, don't price it, don't pull out the ones you think are the good ones — sometimes they're not, and occasionally the card you were about to leave in the bulk is the one worth the trip. We'll look everything up with you standing there, and you'll know exactly how we got to the number before you decide anything.
Straight talk: you are always free to say no. Nobody has ever been talked into a sale at our counter and we're not going to start with you.
We buy sealed, singles, bulk, graded, and vintage. We are more interested in your collection than in your bulk commons, and we'll be honest about which is which — a lot of what people believe is valuable isn't, and finding that out from a person who explains why is better than finding it out from a lowball offer with no explanation.
More detail on how the buy counter works across all three stores is on our buy, sell and trade page.
Finding us on S Ankeny Blvd
613 S Ankeny Blvd, on the south end of town — the same side as the high school, not the Delaware Ave retail strip where the big boxes are. If you're coming down from the north end you'll pass three other shops on this list before you get to us, which we're fine with. Go look at all of them.
Jay's CD & Hobby has been the Des Moines metro's shop since 2005 — online we're Jay's Toys and Games, same people, same counters. Pokémon is one department in a store that also runs sports cards, Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, One Piece, Lorcana, Digimon, vinyl, video games, action figures, anime and Gundam kits. If you're bringing someone who doesn't care about cards, they will find something to do, which is not true of every shop on this page.
Full hours, phone and directions are in the panel at the top of this page, and there's more about the location on the Ankeny store page.
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