Pokemon Collectors everywhere let out a collective gripe earlier this week as eBay has seemingly pulled all Not For Resale Distribution cartridges from their online auction site. Some background on these distribution cartridges is that these are special DS carts that are given to stores such as GameStop, Toys'R'Us, Walmart, etc. for event distributions of items and Pokemon. These carts are not sold commercially nor are they made available to the general public. They only contain information for the things being given away and have no actual game data, distributing via the DS Wireless Communications. After they are used for a certain amount of time, they are returned to Nintendo where they are destroyed or stored but occasionally they fall into the hands of collectors.
Collectors prize these items because of their rarity, association with Pokemon, and their practical use, as they can endlessly generate rare Pokemon and items for competitive use. They often fetch prices in the $100's of dollars but expect prices to skyrocket as they can no longer be publicly sold on eBay. I expect them to still turn up on sites like NintendoAge.com but you can also still get them through eBay, only if you buy them from International Sellers for INSANE prices ($400+).
Begin hoarding now.
