Here are the six most expensive public sales of Pokemon cards in 2026, as of this morning.
| Card | Grade | Price | Venue | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 Pikachu Illustrator | PSA 10 | $16,500,000 | Goldin | February 16 |
| 2015 Art Academy Pikachu (Raincoat, Fujishima) | PSA 10 | $8,400,000 | Fanatics Premier | September 28 |
| 1998 Pikachu Illustrator | PSA 9 | $5,000,000 | Heritage | September 18 |
| 2015 Art Academy Mudkip (Ochiai) | PSA 10 | $3,720,000 | Fanatics Premier | September 25 |
| 1998 Pikachu Illustrator | CGC 9 | $2,806,271 | Goldin | September 19 |
| 2004 Torchic Gold Star | PSA 10 | $2,700,000 | Alt | September 10 |
What the ladder looked like a month ago
On August 28 the list was: the Illustrator at $16.5 million, then the BGS 9 Illustrator at $2.0 million (July), then the $1.3 million Incorrect Illustrator, then the Snap Bulbasaur at $809,943, then the Illustrator BGS 8.5 at $1,006,500. One card, a gap, and a cluster around a million. Four of the six entries above did not exist.
The Art Academy cards
The 2015 Pokemon Art Academy contest invited illustrations from the public; winning designs were printed as Japanese XY promos in runs of about one hundred and distributed to the winners. There are 22 designs. The Fujishima Pikachu in a raincoat and the Ochiai Mudkip are the two most-wanted, and until this month they traded in five figures. Two sales five days apart, at $3.72 million and $8.4 million, have put them on the ladder above every Gold Star, every Snap card and every trophy trainer. The remaining twenty designs are the obvious next ring.
What it means lower down
The top of the market has gone from one data point to six in a month, and five of them are from a single auction house pair (Fanatics and Goldin) in a single eighteen-day window. The comps that the next tier is priced from, the $300,000 to $1 million cards, have all been re-marked against a ladder that did not exist in August. Our pricing engine, which has been paused since September 15, will have a lot to catch up on when it resumes.
Sources: SI Collectibles, September 28; SI Collectibles, September 21; TheGamer, September 12.
Chart of the Day ran in The Pack Report, September 28, 2026: $8.4 Million for a Raincoat Pikachu, and a $3.7 Million Mudkip. Published by Rip Station.