As Pokémon cards surge in popularity, with rare first-editions poised to crack $500,000 shortly and unopened first-edition sets selling for hundreds of thousands, one long-lost card may well be on its way back. Twenty years ago, Nintendo pulled its Kadabra card out of production, due to a lawsuit from magician and illusionist Uri Geller, who said Nintendo “stole my identity by using my name and my signature image."
It sounds a little far-fetched, sure -- but both the magician and the (psychic-type) Pokémon are known for their spoon-bending, and Kadabra’s name in Japanese is Yungerer. (Abra and Alkazam, despite being in an evolution chain with Kadabra, have been given workarounds in the cards to bypass the controversial monster). The card has not been printed since 2003.
This week, Geller dropped his lawsuit and apologized, saying “It’s now all up to Nintendo to bring my #kadabra #pokemon card back. It will probably be one of the rarest cards now!” Nintendo has not yet stated whether they plan to re-release the card, but should they do so, Geller may well prove right.
Even for a sensation like Michael Jordan, a shattered backboard at an exhibition game in Italy wasn’t a major story at the time. But now it’s firmly entrenched in the pantheon of incredible moments of MJ’s career.
As Howard White, now of Jordan Brand, put it, “I don’t know of any moment where one can detect something otherworldly has happened, but that one has become something grand. For MJ, though, it was just a moment in the game.”
In honor of our upcoming “Shattered Backboard” AJ1 drop, Dan McQuade digs into how the moment became a legend.
Read: The Making of a Moment: How Michael Jordan's Shattered Backboard Became Iconic
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