The 10 Most Rare Pokemon Cards Ever:
The Pokémon Trading Card Game has consistently been a good way to make money off of the brand, with some very rare cards selling for crazy amounts of money.
Throughout the history of the TCG, a lot of cards have become worth a lot of money, but the best ones are on a whole other level. All of the sales of the most valuable Pokémon cards ever have set new records for how much fans are willing to spend.
Do you possess any rare Pokémon cards that you can’t find? Do you want to know if that Charizard or special card you discovered in the attic or basement is worth anything?
You’ve come to the right place, because we’ve made a list of some of the most valuable Pokémon cards of all time, including how much they’re worth, the factors that render them so valuable, as well as when they were last sold for an unprecedented amount.
Pokémon games are frequently worth a lot of money, and fans will go out of their way in order to get hard-to-find titles. Most of the time, mistakes are what make cards useful in the Pokémon Card Game.
There are only a few cards with these mistakes, so they are very rare as well as of course, extremely costly. If you want to collect each Pokémon card you are able to and have a lot of money to spend, here are the top ten most expensive ones.
What Are The 10 Best Pokemon Cards?
The majority of the cards upon this list are hard to find because they have been given away as prizes at tournaments or because there was a mistake when they were printed.
Some are getting harder to find, just like the computer games they came from, so there are fewer places to buy them. You will have to pay a lot of money to get your hands upon any of them, though.
1998 Pikachu Illustrator Card:
There’s no better spot to begin than with the Pikachu Illustrator card, which many people think is the rarest Pokémon card there is. This is the best instance of a card that is hard to get and has very few graded pieces.
One of Japan’s longest-running comics, CoroCoro, held contests in 1997 and 1998 to get people to make their own Pokémon cards. The winners not only got 20 copies of their artwork printed on cards, but they also got this famous Pikachu Illustrator card as an additional prize.
There are only 39 known copies of the Pikachu artist card. PSA has only rated 24 of these, and there is just a single PSA 10 within existence. It’s the only card that says “illustrator” instead of “trainer” across the top.
It’s the only card alongside a pen symbol within the bottom right corner. The bottom right area of the Pikachu artist card serves as one of the very few places where it says “double-star rare.”
Venusaur From The 1996 Japanese Base Set With No Rarity Symbol:
Most Japanese Pokémon cards have a mark that shows how rare they are in the bottom right corner. But the rarest ones don’t have this mark, so they are called “No Rarity.”
When you add that to the fact that the game was made in 1996 for the first time, you’re given this Venusaur card.
Only five No-Rarity first-edition Venusaur cards are thought to have ever been sold, which makes it hard to find one in perfect shape.
In November 2021, this card sold for $55,000. The price went up because the card’s artist signed the case, which made it more valuable.
Signed GX Promo Card For Black Star Ishihara:
In 2017, this handmade card with a picture of Tsunekazu Ishihara, president of the Pokémon Company, was presented to Pokémon workers to honor the executive’s 60th birthday. In April 2021, a copy of the card that Ishihara himself had signed sold for $247,230.
Ex Deoxys GOLD STAR HOLO Rayquaza:
Rayquaza, the legendary monster debuted in Pokémon Emerald for the Game Boy Advance, is a strong creature that has been a fan choice for a long time.
This Rayquaza card is from the Ex Deoxys update of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, which came out in 2005 along with the video game. The fact that this card is in good shape and has a high quality grade makes it even more valuable.
The PSA, a well-known card rating company, said that the card was in perfect shape, which is called a Gem Mint 10 in the business.
In this case, “flawless” means that the card has little to no harm. The card costs this way because unused Ex Deoxys starter packs are very hard to find in the year 2021, so they don’t show up on the marketplace very often.
The Dark Raichu Prerelease Card:
One of the most expensive cards in the world is the Prerelease Dark Raichu Card. In 1999, this card was given to people who took part in special prerelease events for the Team Rocket expansion.
It has an error instead of the normal “Lightning Bolt” attack, it features the much stronger “Rainbow Wave” attack. Because of this, only 34 pieces of this card are known to exist, and it is thought to be worth about $15,000.
Even though the card has a high worth, it can’t be bought or played in official events because it has never been sold. Still, the Prerelease Dark Raichu Card represents a very valuable piece of history for serious Pokémon collectors and fans.
2002, Mysterious Mountains, First Edition, Crystal Charizard:
Remember the e-Reader for the Game Boy Advance? This big piece of tech would link to the mobile system. Scanning special cards would let you access exclusive minigames and content.
Pokémon used this to its advantage by making a line of cards that were able to read. Only a little more than 100 PSA 10-graded copies of this card are known to exist.
Team Rocket Is Back With A Vengeance:
In 2004, TPC made Pokemon cards called “Gold Star” to get people interested in the game again. The new line of souvenirs came out with the terribly underappreciated Team Rocket Returns update, which had a small print run.
The Hoenn Fire-type starting Torchic became a single of the rarest cards for Pokemon that year because it was so famous. And why wouldn’t you like it? It’s one of the cutest pieces of art that has ever been on a TCG release.
1999 Shadowless, Holographic First Edition Charizard:
Even though they are more common than a lot of the other cards on this list, Initial Edition Holographic Charizard cards remain very rare, especially because they are so famous.
The honor upon this list, though, goes to the hologram Charizard without a shadow from the early days of the TCG. Earlier this year, a Gem Mint 10 version of this card sold at auction for $420,000, as well as many other copies have also sold for a lot of money.
There are nearly 130 PSA Gem Mint tens of this card, so it’s unsurprising that many serious collectors think it’s one of the best cards out there.
The No. 1 Trainer At The 2002 Pokémon World Championships:
This is the first of two expensive and rare Pokémon cards on this list called “No. 1 Trainer.” It was given to the champions of the regional Battle Road Spring events in Japan in early 2002.
Regional events were held to determine who would go to the Pokémon World Championships. Only a few winners got No. 1 Trainer cards, making them some of the best Pokémon cards out there.
The fact that every No. 1 Trainer card has the name of the competition winner written on it makes each card unique and adds to the card’s rarity.
Heritage Auctions says that because the cards are personalized, they don’t show up at auctions very often. This makes them even rarer within the global marketplace of Pokémon cards.
Ken Sugimori, who is best known for being one of the artists and makers of the first 151 Pokémon, drew the art for the No. 1 Trainer card from 2002.
On it, it says, “The Pokémon Card Game Official Tournament Battle Road Spring 2002 champion is acknowledged here, and his honor is praised.”
The No. 1 Trainer card is the only place where Sugimori’s artwork of fan-favorite Pokémon like Pikachu, Chansey, as well as Marrill can be found. This makes the card very special and unique.
In April 2021, a copy of the No. 1 Trainer card from the 2002 Pokémon World Championships sold at auction for just over $31,000. It came with its original display box and even the envelope it was sent in.
Even though it is not the rarest No. 1 Trainer card, it is still one of the most expensive Pokémon cards.
Umbreon Holo Gold Star:
As a single of the numerous Eeveelution cards found in the Pokémon Trading Card Game, this Umbreon card is worth more than any other Eeveelution card.
The most expensive card at sale was an Umbreon Gold Star Holo. It is one of just two cards within the world with a BGS grade of 9.5, which makes it even more valuable than usual.
In the TCG, players needed more than 70,000 XP points to obtain the card they wanted. It sold at auction for $70,000, which was only right, since there aren’t many 2005 cards left in the world.
Why Are Pokémon Cards Worth Something?
Over the last few years, online stars like Logan Paul have helped bring Pokémon card collecting back into the public. If you can believe it, Pokémon cards can even be sold for millions of dollars. That’s right, millions.
But what’s it about Pokemon cards that makes them so valuable? In the end, it all comes lower to how rare the card is and how well it is kept.
These two things have a huge effect on how much fans are ready to pay as well as why some cards sell for crazy amounts of money. Below is a list of the 24 Pokémon TCG cards that have sold at auction for the most money as of 2023.
