K-pop Photocards: Why One Card Can Cost $2,000
A BTS Jimin card traded at 3 million won. Secondhand trades rose 93% in a year, 830,000 to 1.6 million, with about 610,000 listed on one Korean app alone.
It is about the size of a credit card and it is made of paper. It arrives at random inside an album. And one of them traded for 3 million won β roughly US$2,200.
That is not an anecdote, it is a market price. And the market is growing fast: secondhand photocard trades went from 830,000 in 2024 to 1.6 million in 2025, a 93% rise in a single year.
At a glance
| Item | Number | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Highest reported trade | BTS Jimin, 3 million won | 2024 |
| Secondhand trades | 830,000 β 1.6 million | 2024 β 2025 (+93%) |
| Listings on Bunjang | about 610,000 | As of April 6, 2026 |
| Pocamarket cumulative intake | 5 million cards | Two years after launch |
| Pocamarket members | 1.5 million | 2025 |
| Korea's total resale market | about 2.8 trillion won | 2025 |
| Albums containing a random photocard | 96.9% | Korea Consumer Agency sample |
| Most photocard variants in one album | 78 β 13 copies to complete | Same study |
The quietest row in that table is 96.9%. A single 3 million won trade is an event; a random photocard inside 96.9% of albums is a default. The price does not exist because the card is scarce β it exists because every album is sold the same way.
What a photocard actually is
A photocard is a card printed with one member of a group, roughly credit-card sized, inserted at random into an album so that any copy contains only some of the possible versions. Fandom shortens it to poca in Korean and PC in English.
There are several kinds worth telling apart.
| Type | How you get it |
|---|---|
| Album photocard | Comes at random inside any copy. The common kind |
| Unreleased / POB | Given only to buyers at a specific retailer or within a specific pre-order window |
| Lucky draw | Awarded by lottery among buyers. Print runs are tiny, so prices run highest |
| Event card | Given only to people physically at a fan sign, pop-up store or similar |
The first axis of price sits right there. An album card will eventually appear if you keep buying albums. The other three are unobtainable if you were not in that place at that time.
What they sell for
Prices reported as actual completed trades in the Korean resale market.
| Card | Price | When |
|---|---|---|
| BTS Jimin | 3,000,000 won | 2024 |
| Le Sserafim Kim Chaewon | 1,700,000 won | Joonggonara |
| BTS Jungkook | 1,500,000 won | 2025 |
| aespa Winter | 1,300,000 won | 2025 |
A staffer at a photocard shop in Myeongdong, Seoul said some customers buy in units of millions of won. These are not rumoured ceiling prices; they are amounts moving across a counter.
A market that doubled in a year
The volume matters more than the headline prices.
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Photocard secondhand trades, 2024 | 830,000 |
| 2025 | 1,600,000 (+93%) |
| Bunjang listings, April 2026 | about 610,000 |
| Pocamarket cumulative intake | 5 million cards |
| Pocamarket members | 1.5 million |
The telling fact is that a dedicated photocard trading app exists at all. Pocamarket handles nothing else, and it raised a 1.2 billion won pre-Series A round in 2022. That makes it a funded distribution business, not a hobby forum.
Offline sits on top of that. There are photocard specialty shops on tourist routes such as Myeongdong, and random photocard vending machines have appeared as well.
Why a piece of paper carries a price
The mechanism is simple. It is random.
The Korea Consumer Agency examined 50 major K-pop albums released within a two-year window and found that 96.9% contained a random photocard. In one case an album had 78 photocard variants, which arithmetically requires buying at least 13 copies to assemble one set β and that assumes no duplicates, which never happens. That more than half the reason for buying an album is not the music has been measured separately.
You cannot know in advance how many copies it will take to get the member and version you want. So buyers keep buying, and those who missed buy from those who did not. That is where the price comes from.
One collector described the change like this: "It used to be not that hard to collect every photocard of your favourite member; lately there are far too many kinds to collect." More variants means completion recedes, and receding completion means more trades.
Three things that set the price
But cards of the same member can still differ severalfold in value. Three factors do most of the work.
- Scarcity β the lucky-draw and event cards above. The print run was small to begin with
- The pretty card effect β the same member in a different outfit, pose or expression carries a different price. This one is pure taste, unrelated to print run, and it is the part outsiders find hardest to believe
- Condition β corner dings, hairline scratches, even slightly off-centre printing move the price. That is why listings carry several close-up photographs
What a fan thinks while opening one
The line that best describes this market is not a price. It is something a fan said.
"When I got my first photocard, the thought that came before being glad I got it was that I could sell it for a lot."
That is the moment an object of affection starts being read as an asset, written down exactly. Most fans still collect, still post what they have, still enjoy it. What is different from before is that a price sheet now sits next to all of it.
Where trading happens
| Channel | Character |
|---|---|
| Bunjang | General secondhand app. The largest inventory |
| Pocamarket | Photocard-only platform. Easiest place to read the market price |
| Joonggonara | Long-running general secondhand community |
| Physical shops | Myeongdong and other tourist areas. You see the card before paying |
| Fandom trading on social media | Card for card rather than card for money. The main route for overseas fans |
What this means where you are
| Situation | What to actually do |
|---|---|
| Using Korean apps | They assume a Korean payment method and Korean phone verification. Overseas fans mostly go through a proxy service, and proxy fees plus international shipping attach. A 30,000-won card does not arrive at 30,000 won |
| Buying sight unseen | Photocards swing in value over a single corner ding, and photographs hide that. For anything expensive, asking for multiple close-ups and a written condition description is the baseline, not a favour |
| If you are travelling to Korea | Physical shops exist, including on tourist routes. Seeing the item before paying matters unusually much for this object. Buying in person beats buying online in advance |
| If you do not want to spend | Trading is still the largest route inside fandom. Swapping duplicates carries one shipping risk and no fee, instead of a fee on every purchase |
| When prices move | Values swing hard around comebacks, tours and disbandments or hiatuses. The figures in the table above are trades at a moment in time, not current quotes |
| Customs | A paper card is usually a non-issue, but high-value trades can cross declaration thresholds. Check your own country's rules before bringing in something worth thousands of dollars via a private sale |
What carries the price in this market is not the paper. It is probability β the chance of pulling one of 78, the chance of having been in that room, and the chance that the particular shot happens to be the one fandom likes. Separating what you are buying, the photograph or the odds, makes the number 3 million won read differently.
Read next
- The person taking that airport photo is not a journalist β where the images come from before they are printed
- Sold at 40,000 won, made for 10,000 β another line item in the same fandom budget
- Vietnam buys the most lightsticks, Thailand the most video-call albums β what each country actually buys
Sources
- BizHankook β photocards at millions of won: from fan merch to a priced commodity (Korean)
- Money Today β photocard collecting platform Pocamarket raises a 1.2 billion won pre-Series A (Korean)
- Hwangyeong Ilbo β Korea Consumer Agency album study: 96.9% random photocards, up to 78 variants (Korean)
- Nate β millions of won for one photocard: dedicated trading apps and random vending machines (Korean)