While Charizard has a huge following, few would argue that Pikachu is the face of the Pokémon franchise and is, by far, the most popular and recognizable Pokémon, both among hardcore TCG fans and in mainstream culture. Not only has Pikachu served as the official mascot since the very beginning of the franchise, but Pikachu appears on more merchandise than any other Pokémon.
Pikachu's popularity has translated into huge sales on the secondary market f Pikachu's trading cards. For instance, the YouTuber Logan Paul famously purchased a PSA 10 copy of the Pikachu Illustrator card for $5,275,000 in July 2021. With only 41 known copies in existence, so far only his has received that coveted 10 grade from PSA. It is, however, important to note that Paul bought this card at the very height of the pandemic-fueled collectibles "boom." Considering that the entire collectibles market has been a long-running bear market since 2022, it's highly unlikely that this same card would fetch that amount today.
Pikachu's other cards also sell for vast sums including this 2006 Pikachu Star Holon Phantoms card which sits at the very top of GoCollect's Chartbusters list:
According to data from GoCollect, this card is currently experiencing a price breakout. From November 2023 through the end of 2024, a PSA 10 copy of this card was stuck in a consolidation phase; i.e., owners of this card were willing to sell in the $6,000 and $7,500 range. Importantly, this 13-month consolidation phase likely shook out owners who were seeking to sell this card.
In January 2025, however, we observed a breakout -- i.e., the card broke out beyond its long-time resistance level of $7,500 and sold for $9,865. Like in the stock market, that breakout sale proved to be a leading indicator of momentum; the card's value steadily began to climb throughout 2025 reaching a high of $19,287:
We have a lot less sales data about CGC-graded copies of this card, but this CGC Pristine 10 copy that recently sold on August 18 for a whopping $37,000 clearly extends the climbing pattern that we observed in the PSA sales:
This sale is about 5x the sale of PSA 10 copies of this card that sold in 2024. If I owned one of those PSA 10s, I would seriously think about selling that card right now.
Why is the value of this card surging right now? For those Pikachu fans who have been priced out of the most expensive Pikachu cards like the Illustrator, some may have been driven to second or third tier Pikachu cards like this Holon Phantoms card.
We're also seeing record high sales for other collectibles including the higher-than-expected sale for this CGC 9.9 copy of Ultimate Fallout #4 and this absolutely mind-blowing $12.9M sale for this Kobe Bryant / Michael Jordan double Logoman card.
With the stock market sitting at all-time highs and the Federal Reserve expected to cut interest rates soon, perhaps we're witnessing a rotation of investments back into collectibles which have been sitting at five-year lows?
