It has been clear that 2020 has been filled with plenty of high profile and expensive Pokemon Trading Card Game trades and purchases. With it first beginning back in 1996, there has been plenty of time for certain cards to gather immense amounts of value.
While many would consider the first edition Charizard card from the original release to be the most valuable card in the Pokemon TCG, another is actually considered to be the holy grail to collectors. This card is the Illustrator Pikachu card, which was only released in Japan.
With this special Pikachu card, a trade has recently occurred for one collector to receive it. In exchange for it, the trader gave the owner nine expensive and rare Charizard cards as well as three original pieces of artwork by Mitsuhiro Arita, making the trade estimated to be worth around $900,000 USD. Arita is well known as one of the original artists for the Pokemon TCG with him having done art for over 500 different cards.
There are multiple factors to the rarity of Illustrator Pikachu. For one, the card is an unnumbered promotional card, meaning that players and collectors would not be able to find the card in any sort of booster pack or pre-built deck. Additionally, there were only 39 copies of the Illustrator Pikachu card that have been officially distributed.
In order for players to get this card when it was officially released, they would have needed to win one of the three illustration contests held in CoroCoro Comic back in 1997 and 1998. The top three entrants of each contest would be given 20 copies of a card that featured their winning art pieces while other winners would get the Illustrator Pikachu card.
While there only were a limited amount of these cards officially released, there are a very that have been put up for sale in the past that weren’t officially awarded as they were extras. These cards however still are official, meaning that their value remains intact. There are are still few very of these cards remaining in the world, especially those in mint condition.
The newest buyer of Illustrator Pikachu is an Italian Pokemon fan that goes by the name of Marco, although he wishes to keep his last name anonymous. Meanwhile, the original owner is a private collector from Japan that remains completely anonymous. The trade itself occurred with both parties using a middleman throughout the entire process. While no money was technically exchanged with this trade, it is estimated to be the most expensive trade in the Pokemon TCG‘s history.
The Pokemon Trading Card Game are available wherever trading cards are sold.
Source: PokeBeach
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