Pokémon TCG’s Rarest Pikachu Card Is Up On eBay, But It’s Not Cheap

One of Pokémon TCG‘s rarest Pikachu cards is up for sale on eBay, but its price may be out of reach for most fans. The popular trading card game has some of the most expensive cards in the collectors’ market, and most of these are classic items with only a few available prints worldwide. The best example is the famous 1st Edition Shadowless Base Set Charizard card, which is one of the most coveted cards in the franchise.

However, the rare Charizard card is not in the spotlight. A PSA 8-certified 1998 Pikachu Illustrator card, one of the rarest in all of Pokémon TCG’s history so far, is being sold through an auction exclusively on eBay by Pokemon Club Shangri-La. The bidding period happens from February 24 at 5 PM PST to March 6. The starting bid on this, which is one of the most expensive Pokémon TCG cards, is $480,000.

Pokémon TCG’s Pikachu Illustrator Cards Set Sales Records

The rare 1998 Pikachu Illustrator Pokémon TCG card is being sold by Tomoya Ohno, owner of the Pokemon Club Shangri‐La online store. While the initial bid is $480,000, the final purchase price may be even higher, depending on the winning bidder’s ambition to obtain the card. In 2021, a PSA 7-certified 1998 Pikachu Illustrator card was sold on eBay for $375,000, establishing the record for the most expensive Pokémon TCG card ever sold on the site. If Ohno’s PSA 8-certified card actually sells, it will take that record for itself.

However, a copy of the same Pokémon TCG card was sold to Logan Paul in a private purchase for an estimated $5,275,000 in 2022, setting the record across the whole franchise. The Pikachu Illustrator cards are some of the rarest in the game due to only 41 copies ever being issued. Not only that but these were distributed to the winners of the 1997 and 1998 Pokémon Illustrator contests. Therefore, obtaining them through boosters or even promotional events was never possible. Out of these 41 Pikachu Illustrator cards, only 24 of them were PSA-certified, making them an extreme rarity among collectors.

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Pokémon TCG’s 1998 Illustrator Pikachu Card Is An Outlier Among Many Rares

A PSA certified 1998 Pikachu Illustrator card in front of a blurred background of the card's artwork.

Pokémon TCG cards have always been popular, but have reached unprecedented success in recent years. Just on eBay, Pokémon cards were searched for an average of over 3,000 times per hour during 2022. In regular retail stores in the US, booster boxes would become unavailable minutes after they were placed on shelves because of Pokémon TCG card scalpers who want to obtain rare cards and sell them for high prices afterward. While the 1998 Pikachu Illustrator card is unobtainable to the masses, other rare cards can be acquired with every new collection and then sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Ohno’s rare 1998 Pikachu Illustrator is bound to set a new record for card sales on eBay, but it does not have the potential of breaking the worldwide Pokémon TCG sales record. Its PSA certification is worse than the PSA 10 card bought by Logan Paul, meaning it will likely not be bought for over five million dollars. Nonetheless, the certified Pokémon TCG card is still worth a considerable amount of money and will be a groundbreaking sale if it goes through.

Source: Pokemon Club Shangri-La/eBay, The Official Pokémon YouTube channel

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