The most expensive Pokémon card ever sold is the Pikachu Illustrator, which shattered every record on February 16, 2026 when it sold for $16.49 million at Goldin Auctions. That single card — a PSA 10, the only Pikachu Illustrator to ever receive a perfect grade — went for more than three times the previous record and cemented the Pokémon trading card market as a legitimate space for high-end collectible investing. The seller was Logan Paul, who had purchased the card in 2021 for $5.275 million, turning a profit of over $11 million in roughly five years.
But the Pikachu Illustrator is only part of the story. Below it sits a list of cards that have each crossed into six- and seven-figure territory, from the $3 million Gold Trophy Pikachu to the $420,000 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard that most collectors know by reputation. This article breaks down the ten biggest Pokémon card sales of all time, examines what makes each card valuable, and looks at what these prices mean for the broader market.
Table of Contents
- What Are the Biggest Pokémon Card Sales of All Time?
- Why Japanese Promo Cards Dominate the Highest Sales
- The Pikachu Illustrator — Anatomy of a Record-Breaking Sale
- Grading and Condition — The Multiplier That Makes or Breaks Value
- The Risks of a Market Driven by Trophy Cards
- The Charizard Effect — Why One Pokémon Appears Twice on the List
- Where the Pokémon Card Market Goes From Here
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Are the Biggest Pokémon Card Sales of All Time?
The top ten most expensive pokémon card sales span from $75,000 to $16.49 million, and the list is dominated by Japanese promotional cards that were never available through standard retail channels. At the top, the Pikachu Illustrator sold for $16.49 million in February 2026. Only 39 copies of this card were ever made, distributed to winners of a 1998 Pokémon illustration contest in Japan. The auction at Goldin ran for 42 days, drew 97 bids, and the buyer was AJ Scaramucci — son of Anthony Scaramucci and founder of Solari Capital. Guinness World Records certified the sale as the most expensive trading card ever sold at auction, across any trading card game. The second-highest sale is the Gold Trophy Pikachu, a Japanese promo card graded PSA 9, which sold for $3 million on eBay in September 2024. After that, the numbers drop significantly but remain extraordinary: a 1997 Topsun Charizard Blue Back in PSA 10 sold for $493,230 in January 2021, a Silver Trophy Pikachu No.
2 in PSA 10 fetched $444,000 in September 2023, and a 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard in PSA 10 sold for $420,000 in March 2022. Further down, cards like the Secret Super Battle No. 1 Trainer ($156,000), Neo Genesis 1st Edition Lugia ($144,300), Kangaskhan Family Event Trophy (~$135,298), Extra Battle Day Full Art Lillie ($108,000), and Tropical Battle No. 2 Trainer ($75,000) round out the list. The gap between the first and second positions is striking. The Pikachu Illustrator sold for more than five times the Gold Trophy Pikachu’s $3 million price. No other trading card category — not baseball, not Magic: The Gathering — has a single card that so thoroughly dwarfs the rest of its market.
Why Japanese Promo Cards Dominate the Highest Sales
Look at that top ten list and a pattern emerges immediately: the majority of the most expensive pokémon cards ever sold are Japanese promotional cards, not the English-language retail sets most Western collectors grew up with. The Pikachu Illustrator, Gold Trophy Pikachu, Silver Trophy Pikachu, Secret Super Battle No. 1 Trainer, Kangaskhan Family Event Trophy, and Tropical Battle No. 2 Trainer are all Japanese promos with extremely limited print runs. These cards were distributed at events, awarded as tournament prizes, or given to contest winners, which means their populations are measured in single or double digits rather than thousands. However, scarcity alone does not explain why these cards command such premiums.
A card nobody wants is worthless regardless of how few copies exist. What makes these Japanese promos so valuable is the combination of extreme rarity and iconic status within Pokémon collecting history. The Pikachu Illustrator, for instance, is widely considered the holy grail of the hobby — a status it held long before Logan Paul entered the picture. If a card has scarcity but lacks cultural significance or collector demand, it will not reach these prices. There are obscure Japanese promos with tiny populations that sell for modest sums because they lack the narrative or visual appeal that drives auction fever. The one major exception in the top ten is the 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard, which came from a standard English retail set. Its value comes from a different formula: massive nostalgic demand from millions of collectors who grew up during the original Pokémon craze, combined with the relative scarcity of PSA 10 copies from the 1999 first print run.
The Pikachu Illustrator — Anatomy of a Record-Breaking Sale
The Pikachu Illustrator card has a backstory that reads like something out of a collector’s fantasy. In 1998, CoroCoro Comic magazine in Japan held an illustration contest where entrants submitted original Pokémon artwork. The 39 winners each received a Pikachu Illustrator card — a promo featuring art by Atsuko Nishida, the original designer of Pikachu. The card says “Illustrator” where a normal card would list its rarity, and its text translates to a congratulatory message for the contest winner. It was never sold in stores and was never part of any booster set. Of those 39 copies, far fewer have survived in collectible condition. The card that Logan Paul purchased in 2021 for $5.275 million was the only copy ever graded PSA 10, making it a true one-of-one at that grade level.
When it hit the Goldin Auctions block in early 2026, the auction ran for 42 days. Ninety-seven bids pushed the price from what was already expected to be record-breaking territory to the final hammer price of $16.49 million. The sale also included a diamond necklace, though the card itself was the clear centerpiece. AJ Scaramucci, the buyer, is the founder and managing partner of Solari Capital. His willingness to pay $16.49 million signals a level of institutional-adjacent interest in the Pokémon card market that barely existed a decade ago. For context, the most expensive baseball card ever sold — the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle — went for $12.6 million in 2022. The Pikachu Illustrator now surpasses it, which would have been an absurd prediction even five years ago.
Grading and Condition — The Multiplier That Makes or Breaks Value
Every card on this top ten list was professionally graded, and the grades tell a critical part of the story. Nine of the ten cards carry a PSA 9 or PSA 10 grade, with the Neo Genesis Lugia holding a BGS Pristine 10. The difference between a PSA 9 and PSA 10 on a card like the 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. A PSA 8 copy of the same card might sell for $30,000 to $50,000, while the PSA 10 sold for $420,000. This creates a tradeoff that collectors at every level should understand. Chasing a PSA 10 means paying an enormous premium for a marginal visual difference that most people cannot detect with the naked eye. A PSA 9 card is still in outstanding condition — the distinction between 9 and 10 often comes down to subtle centering issues or a barely visible edge imperfection under magnification.
For investors focused on maximum long-term appreciation, PSA 10 copies of iconic cards have historically outperformed lower grades. But for collectors who want to own a piece of history without paying the absolute ceiling price, a PSA 9 of many of these cards can be had for a fraction of the PSA 10 cost. The grading companies themselves matter too. PSA dominates this list, but BGS (Beckett Grading Services) appears with the Lugia and its Pristine 10 designation. CGC is another major grading service. Each has slightly different standards and market perceptions, which affects resale value. PSA-graded cards generally command the highest premiums on the secondary market, particularly for vintage Pokémon.
The Risks of a Market Driven by Trophy Cards
It is tempting to look at the Pikachu Illustrator’s $16.49 million sale and conclude that the Pokémon card market is an unstoppable rocket. That would be a mistake. The ultra-high-end trophy card market and the broader Pokémon card market are related but distinct. A rising tide at the top does not necessarily lift all boats. Between 2020 and 2021, the pandemic-era Pokémon boom sent prices soaring across the board, from base set holos to modern chase cards. Much of that froth has since dissipated.
Many modern cards that spiked during that period have returned to more modest valuations. The cards that have held or increased in value tend to be vintage, high-grade, and genuinely scarce — exactly the profile of the cards on this top ten list. Collectors should be cautious about assuming that a record-breaking trophy card sale means their own collection is appreciating at the same rate. There is also concentration risk in a market where a single card accounts for such a disproportionate share of total value. The Pikachu Illustrator’s price depends on a very small pool of potential buyers — individuals or entities willing to spend eight figures on a single trading card. If that pool shrinks due to economic conditions or shifting collector interest, the card’s theoretical value could contract significantly, even if no sale occurs to prove it.
The Charizard Effect — Why One Pokémon Appears Twice on the List
Charizard holds a unique position in Pokémon card collecting. Two of the ten most expensive sales — the Topsun Charizard Blue Back at $493,230 and the 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard at $420,000 — feature the same Pokémon, despite being completely different cards from different eras and regions. No other Pokémon appears twice on the list.
Charizard’s status as the most sought-after Pokémon in the trading card game is not a recent phenomenon; it has been the marquee card since the original Base Set launched in 1999. The Topsun Charizard is particularly notable because it predates the official Pokémon Trading Card Game. Topsun cards were produced in 1997 as part of a vending machine gum series in Japan, and the “Blue Back” variant is the rarest version. A PSA 10 of this card represents both the earliest commercially produced Charizard card and one of the highest-graded copies in existence — a combination that explains its near-half-million-dollar price.
Where the Pokémon Card Market Goes From Here
The February 2026 Pikachu Illustrator sale did more than set a record. It moved Pokémon cards into a price tier previously reserved for fine art, classic cars, and the most iconic sports memorabilia. Guinness World Records certifying it as the most expensive trading card ever sold at auction — across all trading card categories — gives the hobby a level of mainstream legitimacy that trickles down to every segment of the market.
Looking ahead, the supply of true trophy-grade vintage Pokémon cards is fixed and shrinking as cards get lost, damaged, or locked away in private collections. Demand, meanwhile, continues to grow as the generation that grew up with Pokémon enters its peak earning years and new collectors discover the hobby. The gap between the Pikachu Illustrator at $16.49 million and the second-place Gold Trophy Pikachu at $3 million suggests there may be room for other elite cards to appreciate substantially before the market finds its ceiling — if a ceiling exists at all.
Conclusion
The biggest Pokémon card sales of all time tell a story about scarcity, nostalgia, and a collecting market that has matured far beyond what anyone anticipated when these cards were first printed in the late 1990s. The Pikachu Illustrator’s $16.49 million sale in February 2026 stands alone at the top, but the entire top ten — from the $3 million Gold Trophy Pikachu down to the $75,000 Tropical Battle No. 2 Trainer — demonstrates that high-grade, historically significant Pokémon cards have established themselves as serious collectible assets.
For collectors and investors watching this space, the key takeaway is that provenance, grade, and genuine scarcity are what drive these extreme valuations. Cards from limited-distribution Japanese promos and first-edition print runs in flawless condition will likely continue to command premiums. The broader market will fluctuate with trends and economic cycles, but the cards at the very top of this list occupy a category of their own — one where 39 copies, or seven copies, or a single PSA 10 in existence creates a supply constraint that no amount of reprinting can dilute.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most expensive Pokémon card ever sold?
The Pikachu Illustrator card, graded PSA 10, sold for $16.49 million at Goldin Auctions on February 16, 2026. It was sold by Logan Paul and purchased by AJ Scaramucci.
How many Pikachu Illustrator cards exist?
Only 39 copies were originally distributed to winners of a 1998 Pokémon illustration contest in Japan. The number of surviving copies in collectible condition is believed to be significantly lower, and only one has ever been graded PSA 10.
Why are Japanese promo Pokémon cards so expensive?
Japanese promotional cards were distributed in very small quantities — often as tournament prizes or contest awards — making them far scarcer than retail set cards. Combined with their historical significance in Pokémon collecting, this extreme rarity drives prices into six and seven figures for top-graded copies.
Is the 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard still valuable?
Yes. A PSA 10 copy sold for $420,000 in March 2022 via PWCC. While prices have fluctuated since the 2020-2021 boom, high-grade copies of this card remain among the most valuable English-language Pokémon cards in existence.
What grading company is best for Pokémon cards?
PSA-graded cards generally command the highest premiums on the secondary market for Pokémon, and nine of the ten most expensive sales involved PSA-graded cards. BGS and CGC are also reputable services, though their market perception and pricing can differ slightly from PSA.
Does Logan Paul still own the Pikachu Illustrator?
No. Logan Paul sold the card at Goldin Auctions on February 16, 2026 for $16.49 million. He had originally purchased it in 2021 for $5.275 million, realizing a profit of over $11 million.
