This Pokemon Card Is Now the Second Most Valuable of All Time (but Logan Paul Still Holds His $16M Sale Record)

Pokemon card trading has transformed massively in the last 30 years, from a relatively cheap hobby for kids to a multi-million dollar business for adult collectors happy to break the bank to get their hands on the rarest cards out there. In Heritage Auctions‘ recent sale of non-sports trading cards, Pokemon cards once again led the way. While none were able to match the truly ridiculous $16 million sale price of a 1998 Pikachu Illustrator promo card sold by Logan Paul earlier this year, another example of the same card did become the second most valuable Pokemon card in existence after a hard fought bidding battle. For a hobby that started in the 1990s and could see cards being picked up for just a few dollars then being openly traded among friends in the school yard, the idea of paying millions for a small piece of cardboard is clearly something that is catching on with more people than every.

In this auction, the Pikachu Illustrator card up for sale became the biggest attraction of the various lots of rare cards and sealed collections. Early bidding had already pushed the ultimate rarity to over $1 million well before the hammer fell, but on the day, live bidders fought to get their hands on what is the ultimate grail of the hobby, and that resulted in a final sale price of $5 million. For any graded PSA 9 card, this is far and away the highest price paid at auction and only Logan Paul’s infamous sale of the same card with a PSA 10 grading stands above it in the pantheon of card collecting. Of course, Pikachu is the definitive icon of the Pokemon franchise, and any card featuring the little yellow monster is going to be the most attractive grail for a collector. In this particular card, the story behind its existence is what helps elevate it above the cards you may pick up in booster packs.

Why This Pikachu Card Is the Ultimate Pokemon Grail

There are many rare Pokemon cards out there but when it comes to the true grails of the hobby, it is the cards that were never made available in stores that hold the highest values. The Pikachu Illustrator card was available only to winners of an illustration contest featured in CoroCoro Comics, with 39 being handed out in total. Of those, only 15 copies have been graded as PSA Mint 9, and only the one card graded at PSA 10. That means that the Pikachu Illustrator card sold this past week is one of a very small number out there and that is often all it takes to see buyers go into a frenzy when one comes up for sale. It does seem, though, that the price will be likely to increase again the next time this particular card – or another similar one – come up for auction next time.

If there is any proof needed as to how much the value of a single card can increase in a very short space of time, Logan Paul’s PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator card is the best example out there. the YouTube star famously paid what seemed like a ludicrous amount of $5.275 million for his card in 2022. After wearing it around his neck at WrestleMania on several occasions and discussing it at length for years on his YouTube channel, Paul then sold the same card this year for the jaw-dropping amount of $16.5 million, setting a Guinness World Record as the most expensive trading card of any kind in the world. With that one sale, the limits of what Pokemon cards could be worth were raised to a whole new benchmark. This huge price inflation mirrors the card sold this week, as a PSA 9 card also sold in 2022 for $840,000, showing just how much the price of these cards have rocketed. Who knows how much they will be worth in the coming years.