Pikachu Illustrator Card Price: Every Sale by Grade

A Pikachu Illustrator has sold for roughly $200,000 to $1,400,000 in grades 5 to 9, and the only PSA 10 sale on record is $16,492,000. PriceCharting's guide values, retrieved 2026-09-25:

• Grade 9: $1,079,700, about 2 sales a year
• Grade 9.5: $1,187,670, rare
• PSA 10: $16,492,000, 1 sale
• BGS 10: $21,439,600 and CGC 10: $1,082,512.50, shown with no sale behind them in the records we saw

Read these with care. PriceCharting's grade 9 bucket for this card contains sales labelled PSA 5 to PSA 9, so it is a blend, not a price for a 9. The individual sales below are a better guide.

Oldest first. Grades are given where the source names them.

• 2016: about $55,000 (Wikipedia's Pikachu article); PriceCharting records a sale of $54,970 on November 17, 2016
• 2020: two sales on ZenPlus for the yen equivalent of $233,000 and $208,496 (Wikipedia)
• 2021: $375,000 (Wikipedia's Pikachu article, grade not stated)
• June 2021, PSA 9: $1,275,000, private sale to Logan Paul (Wikipedia)
• July 22, 2021, PSA 10: $5,275,000, private sale to Logan Paul (Wikipedia)
• February 23, 2022, PSA 7: $900,000, Goldin (Wikipedia)
• June 11, 2022, PSA 9: $840,000 (PriceCharting)
• 2022: $772,000 on ZenPlus (Wikipedia)
• October 29, 2022, CGC 9.5: $672,000, Goldin (Wikipedia)
• June 15, 2023, PSA 8.5: $570,000 (PriceCharting)
• September 14, 2023, PSA 7.5: $289,200 (PriceCharting)
• December 21, 2023, PSA 9: $579,500 (PriceCharting)
• February 18, 2024 and June 2, 2024, PSA 8: $317,200 and $305,000 (PriceCharting)
• July 15, 2024, PSA 7: $209,841 (PriceCharting)
• August 16, 2024: $1,006,500 (PriceCharting)
• December 7, 2025, PSA 8.5: $610,000 (PriceCharting)
• February 16, 2026, PSA 10: $16,492,000, Goldin, Logan Paul to AJ Scaramucci (Wikipedia)
• March 9, 2026, PSA 8.5: $727,120 (PriceCharting)
• March 2026, PSA 9: $1,406,250, Heritage Auctions (Wikipedia)
• April 12, 2026, TAG 8: $488,000 (PriceCharting)
• May 18, 2026, PSA 5: $344,040 (PriceCharting)
• June 29, 2026, PSA Authentic with an MBA grade of 8: $1,079,700 (PriceCharting)

Grade-8 copies sold for more in 2026 than in 2024: PSA 8 copies made $305,000 and $317,200 in 2024, while a TAG 8 made $488,000 and an MBA 8 $1,079,700 in 2026.

Sources disagree, and no official count from The Pokémon Company appears in any of them:

• 41 printed: Wikipedia's Pokémon Trading Card Game article.
• About 43 distributed: PriceCharting, which says the card went to selected winners across three illustration contests publicized in CoroCoro Comic.
• About 20 to 40 printed in 1998: Wikipedia's Pikachu article.

As for PSA 10 copies, every PSA 10 sale in the sources we opened is the same card, bought by Logan Paul in 2021 and sold in 2026; we did not find a published PSA population count.

• The word Illustrator. Wikipedia says it is the only Pokémon card that says Illustrator where other Trainer cards say Trainer.
• Japanese text and Atsuko Nishida art. It is a Japanese promo illustrated by Nishida (Wikipedia).
• A grading-company slab. Almost every sale above is graded by PSA, CGC, BGS, TAG or authenticated; an ungraded copy offered for a small fraction of these prices should be treated as a reproduction until an authenticator says otherwise.

Compare any copy against our fake-card checklist and have it authenticated before paying for it.

Three facts from the sources explain it. It was never sold in packs, only handed to contest winners. Its print run is tiny, 41 by Wikipedia's count. And it has become the reference point for the whole hobby: Wikipedia's Pokémon TCG article calls it the rarest and most expensive Pokémon card ever sold, and its PSA 10 sold for more than three times its 2021 price in 2026. For context, the most valuable English set card, a 1st Edition Base Set Charizard, is $335,180.14 in PSA 10 (PriceCharting, 2026-09-25); see most valuable Pokémon cards.

Logan Paul's record Pokémon card is the PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator. From Wikipedia's list of the most expensive cards and its Pokémon articles:

• June 2021: bought a PSA 9 Pikachu Illustrator in a private sale for $1,275,000.
• July 22, 2021: bought the PSA 10 copy for $5,275,000, paid with that PSA 9 (counted at $1,275,000) plus $4,000,000 in cash.
• February 16, 2026: sold the PSA 10 through Goldin for $16,492,000 to AJ Scaramucci. That is $11,217,000 above his 2021 price, about 3.1 times, before any auction fees.

His other card deals, from Wikipedia's Base Set and Charizard articles:

• 2020: opened a Base Set booster box valued at $200,000 on stream.
• 2021: opened a 1st Edition Base Set box valued at $1 million and pulled two holo Charizards.
• 1st Edition Charizard: bought one for $150,000; the grade is not stated. He wore a Charizard card around his neck at his fight with Floyd Mayweather, which Wikipedia credits with raising demand for Charizard cards.
• 2022: paid $3.5 million for 1st Edition Base Set booster boxes that, when opened on stream, turned out to hold G.I. Joe cards.

The Japanese text on the card is a certificate. Wikipedia translates it as confirming that the holder's entry in the Pokémon Card Game Illust Contest was excellent and naming the holder an Officially Authorized Pokémon Card Illustrator. That wording, together with the word Illustrator where Trainer cards say Trainer, is worth comparing against photos of a graded copy before paying for one.

PriceCharting lists an ungraded Illustrator Pikachu at $8,334.63, based on about one sale a year (2026-09-25). Every graded sale in Wikipedia's list is $672,000 or more, so that ungraded figure is not a price for a genuine raw card. Treat any "Illustrator Pikachu" offered at a few thousand dollars as a reproduction until an authenticator says otherwise.