While Pikachu and Charizard remain the most iconic and sought after Pokémon cards, they can also sometimes suck all out of oxygen out of the room. On most days, one of these two Pokémon typically sit at the top of GoCollect's Hottest Pokémon cards and Chartbusters list.
For example, the Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat card is currently ranked No. 1 on the Hottest Pokémon cards list during the past year and this Base Set Charizard card that sold for $213,500 is the No. 1 card on the Chartbusters rankings over the past year.
A PSA 10 Base Set Blastoise Card Topped Chartbusters with a $40,250 Sale in Late May.
Every once in awhile, some of the other Pokémon break through on GoCollect's Pokédex. For example, during the past month, the biggest publicly recorded Pokémon card sale wasn't a Pikachu or Charizard card, but this PSA 10 Gem Mint Base Set Blastoise card that sold for a whopping $40,250 on May 25th:
Blastoise was first introduced in 1996 in Pokémon Red and Green in Japan (and then in Red and Blue in the U.S. in 1998). Its name is a mashup of the words cannon "blast" and "tortoise" which seems appropriate since its a turtle-like Pokémon with cannons mounted on its shell.
A Blastoise begins as a Squirtle; a Squirtle then evolves into a Wartortle; and then a Wartotle evolves into the mighty Blastoise. While not quite as iconic as Charizard's box cover art, Blastoise did serve as the mascot for the box art for Pokémon Blue in Japan:
During the pandemic-fueled collectibles boom of 2020-21, a PSA 10 Base Set Blastoise card sold for an all-time high of $80,000 in November 2020. Just three years later, this card rapidly cooled off losing nearly half of its value by November 2023. Throughout 2024, a PSA 10 sold in the $16,250 to $22,000 range. While the May 25th $40,000 sale on eBay is nowhere near the all-time high for this card, it still sold for roughly twice as much as it did in 2024. The one-year average for this card is now $26,688:
A CGC 10 Base Set Blastoise card last sold for only $6,943 in March 2025.
In comparison, CGC-graded Base Set Blastoise cards haven't been fetching the same kinds of dollars. Even though there are far fewer CGC 10 Gem Mint Blastoise cards than comparable PSA 10 Blastoise cards (102 vs. 30), the one-year sales average for a CGC 10 is only $6,943. (There hasn't been a publicly recorded sale of a CGC 10 Pristine Mint card). For instance, this CGC 10 Gem Mint (but not Pristine Mint) Blastoise card sold in mid-March 2025 on eBay for only $6,500:
This is yet another example of PSA-graded trading cards generally selling for substantially more than CGC-graded cards, especially in the Pokémon trading card markets.
