The owner of a classic Pokémon game valued at nearly $4,000 says US Customs destroyed it

• The new owner of a rare Pokémon game edition found it destroyed after going through US Customs.
• The owner had purchased it from a Canadian seller for $3,800, they told Kotaku.
• The game was rated 9.2, which is a very high and valuable score.

The new owner of a classic video game valued at nearly $4,000 said it was destroyed by US Customs and Border Protections.

A friend of the owner, Stephen Kick, the CEO of a video game development company, first posted about the incident on Thursday. He tweeted a photo of the ripped-apart game, Pokémon Yellow, and said Customs broke the acrylic casing, threw away the seal, and tore off the box's front. 

—Stephen Kick (@pripyatbeast) January 19, 2023

The game had been sealed and graded through Wata Games, Kick wrote, a process wherein old games are evaluated and scored based on what condition they're in. For collectors, grading is a serious endeavor, and people pay large sums of money for the rarest, highest-rated goods. A similarly graded version of the Pikachu Yellow game is being offered on eBay for around $14,800. (Logan Paul paid over $5 million for an ultra-rare, perfectly-graded Pokémon card in 2022, for example.)

The owner of the game — a man who goes by "The_Master_Of_Unlocking" — told Kotaku that he bought the game for $3,800 from a Canadian seller and was supposed to receive it in the mail on Thursday. He discovered the disfigured items immediately upon opening the package. 

He wanted to buy the game partially because Pokémon Yellow, which was released in 1998, was the first Pokémon game he ever played, he told the outlet. He was trying to obtain a near-mint copy to display on his desk after selling one years ago. 

"I couldn't believe it at first, but I promptly took pictures to document the damage," the new owner told Kotaku. "I notified the seller immediately after taking photos of the damage, and to say he was shocked is an understatement. We then began working through the dispute process with PayPal, which is currently ongoing."

The owner and US Customs did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

The obliterated Pokémon Yellow game had been graded a 9.2 score or A+, according to Kotaku, which is nearly the top score.

Twitter users commented on Kick's post as if they were experiencing the disappointment themselves: "Oh my godddddd," one user wrote. Another person wrote, "Dread to think how much a 9.2 rated pokemon yellow costs. Condolences to your friend, this is savage."

"Did they seriously think Pikachu was that dangerous?" one user quipped. "They acted like he had explosives."