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It isn't news to say that Pokemon cards are absurdly popular. However, it is more noteworthy when one of them sells for a mere... oh, let's say, $1.4 million. You know, pocket change. Poke-change, if you will.
Late last week, one of the only "Pikachu Illustrator" cards in existence from the early days of one of the best card games sold for $1,406,250 at Heritage Auctions (as spotted by our friends at Dexerto). With only 39 copies ever distributed as part of a series of contests, it's amongst the rarest Pokemon cards around. Indeed, the only version graded with a higher quality than this sold for an absurd $16,492,000 according to Heritage Auctions. That marks this as "the most valuable card ever sold at auction."
Although the most recent cards aren't anywhere near that kind of value, they're still frustratingly difficult to find. For the latest set, Perfect Order, you're better off heading to Miniature Market - that has stock at the time of writing. As for the upcoming Chaos Rising, TCGPlayer has a lot of listings at the moment... but a lot of these are absurdbly overpriced, so approach with caution.
Awarded to those who entered an illustration contest for Japanese magazine CoroCoro Comic in 1998, this card is apparently the only one "to bear the pen symbol in the bottom right corner and the only card to feature the word 'Illustrator' at the top." When you throw in the fact that it was illustrated by Atsuko Nishida (who designed a number of original Pokemon, including Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle), this card becomes even more desirable.
While the majority of us are unlikely to have one of these kicking around in the loft, there's still just as much buzz surrounding the value of Pokemon cards now as there ever was. The latest sets are incredibly hard to get hold of, for example, with most items fetching a ridiculously inflated cost. That's largely because of resellers scooping up as many units as they can at every opportunity before flogging them back to fans at a huge mark-up (yep, it's gross). Fan demand isn't lessening either, so it feels as though cards are going to continue being scarce for the time being.
- See all Pokemon card deals at Amazon
For recommendations on what to play next, why not check out the best board games or the best tabletop RPGs?
