A fan of the Pokemon TCG made a shocking discovery in their attic, stumbling upon folders filled with first-gen cards that had been left abandoned for years. The Pokemon Trading Card Game began in 1996 in Japan as Pocket Monsters and made its way to North America a few years later. The earliest edition cards were released by Wizards of the Coast, known as the creators of the popular tabletop card game Magic: The Gathering. Wizards of the Coast was responsible for releasing one set of demo cards and eight expansion sets for the first generation of Pokemon and nine expansion sets for the second generation.