First Edition Shadowless Holographic Charizard
Price: $220,574
A PSA 10 Base Set 1st Edition Charizard just sold at auction with an ending bid of $183,812.00 via .
Including the 20% buyer’s premium, the total transaction value exceeds $220k.
As of now, this is the highest known sale of the card.
Cardhops
This card is often referred to as one of the most sought after cards, having been printed in the Pokémon Trading Card Games early days. They have been in existence for over twenty years and are limited in number. Its distinguished by a printing error as it doesnt have a shadow underneath the fire breathing dragon Pokémon.
As such, it stands out as one of the most valuable cards of all time, with the error being corrected in most of the subsequent print runs. This shadowless iconic card was purchased by former rapper, Logic, for a staggering $220,574 at an auction held in October 2020, thus, setting a new record as the most valuable Pokémon card.
Pokemon Rocket 1st Edition Dark Charizard #21
Despite being a non-shiny, Dark Charizard is a Team Rocket-affiliated release that still commands a notable price tag.
Released in 2000, the Team Rocket 1st Edition set contains an evil version of Charizard, used by the antagonists.
It has the same card format as the release above, although this time the Pokemon has his back turned, staring at you out of the corner of his eye.
As always, mint versions and above are the best investment pieces.
The Shining Charizard is another variation, this time from the 2002 Neo Destiny release.
As with the original, its a first edition card, which is denoted by a star found on the right of the card name. It also has a Base 1st Edition stamp towards the middle.
Theyve stuck with the same card design, so theres an orange background and a yellow border, with an image of a Chrome Shining Charizard as it flies through the air.
Pokemon Portuguese First Edition Charizard
Sold in April, 2021 for $44,850
Only two Portuguese first edition Charizards have ever been graded PSA 10 out of the 34 submitted to PSA as of this writing.
Just two…
Given how the market for Pokemon cards has soared recently and the scarcity of this card in PSA 10 condition, I’m surprised this didn’t sell for an even higher price.
Still, $44,850 is impressive and speaks to the strength of the Pokemon brand and the Charizard character, in particular.
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Gold Star Espeon And Umbreon
There are very Gold Star cards out there. You can tell it directly by looking to the right of the card name. These cards are so rare because originally only members of the Pokemon Players Club can claim the Espeon card for 50,000 points! You’re looking at $5,000 for the Umbreon card and $6,000 for the Espeon one.
What Are Pokemon Cards
For the uninitiated, Pokemon Cards are part of the Pokemon Card Trading Card Game that originally launched in 1996. Back then, the original set contained just 151 cards one for each OG Pokemon.
In simplest terms, Pokemon cards are baseball cards but for adorable Japanese Pocket Monsters.
Since then, Pokemon has exploded into the worlds most valuable media franchise, valued at over $100 billion worldwide. For comparison, thats more than Star Wars, Spongebob, and James Bond combined.
Fueling two decades of meteoric growth was a steady stream of new Pokemon creatures and thus new cards to collect. There are around 898 total Pokemon and over 9,100 Pokemon cards to collect in the English market.
Not all 9,100 cards are available on store shelves at once, of course. The Pokemon Company International, the folks who make Pokemon cards, publish and release cards one generation at a time, with each generation lasting about two years.
In total, there have been eight generations of Pokemon cards since 1996. And as the next generation of cards begins appearing on store shelves, the previous generation tends to sell out. At that point, its no surprise that certain cards begin shooting up in value!
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Pokemon Players Club Shiny Espeon: $2000
If you ever wanted proof about how much a Pokemon cards price can change just because of the Pokemon on it, you need to look further than the Pokemon Players Club Shiny Espeon. This card is almost identical in story to the Umbreon card you saw just a moment ago, but required only 40,000 experience points instead of 70,000.
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Despite being more available, Troll and Toad has this card for a slightly higher price of just under $2000. This is likely because Espeons shiny form is more noticeable than Umbreons, since the bright neon-green fur is a lot more distinctive and Espeon has its own unique degree of popularity.
Tamamushi University Magikarp: $50000
The Tamamushi University Magikarp card is so rare that despite the fact that it depicts a frankly awful Pokemon, it’s worth ridiculous sums of money. Why the high price? Well, the University Magikarp was a promotional card that saw very limited distribution at a Japanese tournament in the late 1990s.
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In total, 1000 of the cards were produced but far fewer were actually awarded and many were just stowed away forever. Barely any of these rare Magikarp cards are still in circulation today, and its incredibly rare to see new ones show up. At the moment, PSA Cards Price Guide chart lists perfectly-preserved cards to have sold for around $50,000, while copies with NM-MT 8 ratings still sell for amazing heights of $12,000.
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When Pokemon Cards Are Created
The very first Pokemon cards were released in October 1996 in Japan by a company called Media Factory. In the US, however, the card game was initially released by a third-party company – Wizards of the Coast, before Nintendo took over the publishing.
The rule of the game was simple. Each player, as a Pokemon trader, had to pick a set of cards from the deck and attack the other players. Once a Pokémon took enough damage, it would be knocked out of the game.
Each set of cards had to contain at least one basic Pokémon . Players can only start with these Pokémons.
Since the first introduction of Pokemon cards in the late 90s, companies around the world have printed millions of these cards. However, only a few rarest ones could net thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of dollars from collectors.
Pokemon World Championship Masters Key
- Release Date: 2010
- Grading: BGS 9
- Pokemon card value at auction: $26,900
In 2010, the best pokemon cards players around the world were flown into Waikoloa Village, Hawaii for the World Championships. Upon arrival, contestants were given a Master Keys Pokemon card.
Because the item was only printed for participants at the tournament, only 36 of these in total were ever created, making it technically one of the most rare Pokemon cards to ever exist in the hobbys nearly 25-year history.
Despite only being intended for those at the event, one of these made there way out to the public and was sold for an astonishing $26,900 in August 2020. A pretty sweet reward to receive 11 years later.
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Pokemon Pop Series 5 Gold Star Umbreon
Sold in December, 2020 for $20,000
To help boost participation in Pokemon leagues and Pokemon Organized Play events, players were treated to exclusive POP series cards released on a regular basis over roughly a five-year span.
POP Series 1 kicked things off around September 2004 with POP Series 9 bringing things to a close around September 2009.
Released between March 2007 and September 2007, POP Series 5 was the last EX Series promotional set and featured Espeon and Umbreon, two of the eight Pokemon that evolve from Eevee.
The POP Series 5 checklist contained seventeen cards in total with Epseon and Umbreon being the most elusive of them all, noted by the gold star distinction next to their name on the card fronts.
As of this writing, just fifty examples of this Umbreon card have achieved PSA 10 status.
Common Uncommon And Rare
First, we need to show you how to find out a cards rarity just by looking at it. This is represented by a symbol located in the bottom right corner of every card. There should be a shape that indicates what rarity the card is.
Common cards are marked with a black circle, uncommon cards have a black diamond, and rare cards always have a black star. This is the basic way to tell the rarity of a card.
Rare cards, for instance, are split into multiple different kinds of rarities. There are the standard rare plain-looking cards, but theres so much more after that.
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Pokmon Vs Card Series
The Japanese Pokémon VS Series Cards stand out first because these cards were double the price of normal cards. Add to that its lack of common circulation in the US and you have a subset of Pokemon that has proven hard to find.
What’s it worth? If you can nail down the Japan-only cards like Bruno’s Steelix you can command prices of around $100 based on rarity and condition, and well over $200 for a full set.
Pokemon Japanese Bandai Carddass Vending Prism Red Charizard
Sold in January, 2021 for $30,100
Founded in 1950, Bandai is a Japanese toy maker that produced a series of Pokemon cards in September 1996 that pre-dated the official launch of the Pokemon Trading Card Game that followed in October 1996.
To distribute the cards, Bandai utilized a network of vending machines, or carddass, as they called them.
There are hundreds of Bandai carddass Pokemon cards to collect, but the most desirable of them all is the prism Charizard.
In one of the earliest appearances of the iconic character, Charizard roars and breathes fire, creating an image that really pops.
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Pokemon Japanese Promo Wonder Platinum Trophy Card
Sold in November, 2020 for $25,100
Held at the Prince Park Tower Tokyo on May 4, 2009, the final round of the 2009 Japan World Championship pitted finalists against each other in fierce competition.
Each of the twenty finalists across three different age divisions received one of these Wonder Platinum cards, so one can assume that only twenty of these cards made their way into collectors’ hands.
How many still exist today is unknown, but finding one graded in a BGS 9.5 holder is incredibly rare.
What is known is that this trainer card is one of the most highly coveted DPt-P promotional cards, and its imagery makes for an incredibly well-designed card.
The Most Valuable And Expensive Pokmon Cards In The World
Gotta catch ’em all .
The Pokémon Trading Card Game has released thousands of different cards over the past two decades. While most of the cards are readily available to those looking to add them to their collection, only the wealthiest of collectors can acquire some of the rarest cards out there.
For those avid collectors looking to find these rare Pokémon cards, you can expect to pay thousands of dollars to get your hands on just one of them if youre lucky enough to find oneand some are selling for thousands of dollars at a time.
But which cards are the rarest and most valuable ones out there? Well, weve scoured the internet to find some of those cards to let you know exactly how expensive they are.
Theres a bunch of rare cards out there that could sell for a lot more money than the ones on our list, but weve picked five of our favorites either for what they represent or how prized they are in the TCG community.
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World Championship Master’s Key
A copy of the Master’s Key card sold for more than $25,000 in August of 2020. Unlike most cards sold at auction, this one wasn’t graded by the PSA and was instead appraised by Beckett. Whether or not a copy still sealed in the original trophy case would have fetched more remains to be seen, though, given the card’s value, it’s perhaps a little surprising that the seller opted to open it up.
The Master’s Key was originally handed out to contestants at the 2010 Pokemon World Championships. The event took place in Hawaii and was contested by just 36 players. As a result, the card is incredibly rare, with only nine GEM-MT 10 copies – the highest grade that can be handed out by the PSA – in existence.
Master Key Prize Card
A prize card given out in the Japan world championships, given to the top three competitors in each age division, as well as the top four from each category. Only 34 cards were awarded to the winners, making it a very rare prize card.
This card has values up to $8,900, so if your glory days of being the very best like no one ever was, it might be worth your while to sell your prize. Or mount it in your trophy room as a prize trophy.
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Holo Kanghaskan Parent/child Promo
As you’ll see with some of the more prestigious cards on this list, the Kanghaskan Parent/Child promo card was released in Japan only. As if that didn’t make it difficult enough for those of us that live in the states, this card was only released in 1998. To make matters even worse, it was only given at the Parent/Child Mega Battle Tournament to parent and child teams who a won a specified number of matches. As such, you will probably never see a card like this in real life, and if you have, odds are that it isn’t yours. In the bottom right corner where the set symbol usually goes, this card bears the original Pocket Monsters logo, signifying just how rare this card actually is. Because of its rather beautiful design, this card has been considered by many collectors to be the “Holy Grail” of Pokemon cards. This card is so rare that you’ll have to do quite a bit of digging before you actually find one for sale. If you do, you’re most likely looking at the $4,000 price range. If you’ve got the extra cash lying around, I guess it’s not a bad purchase?
Pokmon Fan Club Umbreon
A Daisuki Pokémon fan club exclusive card, given to those dedicated fans who have earned 70,000 points within the club. Making it an extremely rare card to obtain, which is a must-have for any collection. Eveelutions are worth a lot these days.
Seen anywhere from around $1,200 to $3000, its hard to nail down the price of these cards. That being said, a single card being worth more than $1,000 is an incredibly valuable card. Be sure to look at your old cards for this one.
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What Is The Value Of Old Pokmon Cards
Pokémon cards have different values. Some are regarded as rare while others are classified as common or uncommon depending on the identification of a tiny symbol at the bottom right corner of the cards. Those with a star, such as the hologram cards that always have stars at the bottom right corner, are valued as rare cards. The rare cards are found once in a while in a booster pack and considered valuable.
On the other hand, cards that have a circle at the bottom right corner are classified as common while those with diamonds are valued as uncommon. There are greater chances of getting common or uncommon cards in a pack than finding a rare card. These highly treasured rare cards worth tens of thousands and sometimes, hundreds of thousands at auctions, if they are graded as mint by the PSA.
Its worth noting that the value of an old Pokémon card can be greatly reduced by the condition of the card even if its a rare one, as collectors are not interested in buying ripped or stained cards. Other factors that can add to the value of old Pokémon cards include full card artwork, reverse holographic artwork or holographic artwork, shining features, shadow underneath the card artwork, and possession of higher printed number than the number of cards contained by a set examples include Shining Mewtwo 109/105 and Charizard 146/144.
Pokemon Japanese Promo Daisuki Club 7200 Points Holo Umbreon
Sold in June, 2021 for $18,100
The Pokemon Daisuki Club started in 2004 and provided many benefits to its members, such as mini-games, contests, and special offers.
One of those cards was this holographic Umbreon card, and to earn it, the player needed to acquire 7,200 action points, which was no easy task.
Umbreon is one of eight different characters into which Eevee, a normal-type Pokemon, can evolve when leveled up with high friendship during the night in certain areas.
Its red eyes and the yellow markings on its slender black body give the dark-type Umbreon an unmistakable appearance giving this card tremendous eye appeal.
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Blastoise 1st Edition Shadowless Base Set
- Release Date: 1999
- Grading: PSA Gem Mint 10
- Pokemon card value at auction: $45,100
Not only is Blastoise one of the most beloved characters in the Game Freak RPG, but the Water-type starter has also become one of the most valuable Pokemon cards currently on the market.
Those who grew up with the 1999 Base Set easily equated the turtle on the same level as the highly sought-after Charizard, so it makes sense that decades later, many are willing to bust out their wallets for the iconic mon.
While its 1st Edition Shadowless Pokemon card from 1999 has always brought in good money, the popular item has seen a massive jump in value recently. In a PWCC auction held in November 2020, the rare Base Set Blastoise sold for $45,100.