A $16.5M Pikachu Illustrator Leads 525 Six-Figure Pokémon Card Sales
Japanese prize cards that were never sold in packs took seven of the year’s ten biggest sales, as Pokémon card sales of $100,000 or more reached $162.3 million in 2026.
Logan Paul’s PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator sold for $16.49 million at Goldin on 16 February, the most paid for any Pokémon card so far in 2026, according to a new report from UltraBall, a Pokémon card price tracker built on real sold sales. It was twice the price of the next-biggest sale of the year.
The report counts 525 Pokémon card sales of $100,000 or more between 1 January and 16 October 2026, worth $162.3 million in total. Nineteen of them passed $1 million and 53 passed $500,000. All prices are what the buyer paid, including the auction house’s buyer’s premium.
The year’s top five sales:
- Pikachu Illustrator (1998, Japanese), PSA 10: $16.49 million, Goldin, 16 February.
- Raincoat Pikachu, Art Academy contest promo (2015, Japanese), PSA 10: $8.4 million, Fanatics Collect, 28 September.
- Pikachu Illustrator, PSA 9: $5 million, Heritage Auctions, 19 September.
- Art Academy Mudkip (2015, Japanese), PSA 10: $3.72 million, Fanatics Collect, 25 September.
- Pikachu Illustrator, CGC 9: $2.81 million, Goldin, 20 September.
The standout trend is Japanese prize cards. Seven of the ten biggest sales were cards that were never sold in packs: the Pikachu Illustrator, given to winners of CoroCoro Comic’s illustration contests in 1997 and 1998; the Art Academy cards, printed from the winning entries of a 2015 drawing competition; and trophy Pikachus awarded at Japanese tournaments in the 1990s. The Illustrator alone sold nine times for $100,000 or more this year, in six different grades, for $29.9 million.
“The most valuable Pokémon cards were never in a booster pack. They were prizes, and only a few dozen copies of each exist,” said Josh Lingenfelter, founder of UltraBall. “When one of them comes up, every serious collector in the world is bidding on the same card, and that’s how you get a $16 million Pikachu.”
The English market has its own story. The highest English card on the list is a PSA 10 Torchic Gold Star from 2004, which sold for $2.7 million at Alt in September; its last recorded sale in the same grade was $38,400 in 2024. A 1st Edition Base Set Charizard in PSA 10 sold for $1.39 million at Alt in October, where most spring sales of the same card landed between $456,000 and $528,000.
Condition drives almost all of it: 406 of the 525 six-figure sales were PSA 10s, the top grade. Fanatics Collect handled the most, 261 sales worth $67.1 million, and Goldin sold 75 worth $44.0 million.
About the data: UltraBall combines its own sales ledger (eBay, Fanatics Collect, Alt, Goldin, and Heritage and Robert Edward Auctions through PSA’s auction records) with the auction houses’ own published results. Prices include buyer’s premium (20% at Fanatics Collect and Alt, 22-24% at Goldin), so they can sit above the hammer prices auction houses announce. Alt sales are covered from 19 July 2026, and private sales are not included, so the totals are a floor, not the whole market. 37 of the sales, from Alt auctions on 8 and 15 October, had closed but were awaiting payment when the data was read.
The full ranked list is at https://ultraball.com/news/data/biggest-pokemon-card-sales-2026. UltraBall can supply custom cuts of the data for any card, grade or auction house on request.
UltraBall (ultraball.com) tracks Pokémon card prices from real sold sales across eBay and the major auction houses, covering raw and graded cards from 1999 to today. It publishes free price histories for every card and grade, plus regular data reports on the Pokémon card market.
