A few weeks ago, this PSA GEM MT 10 1999 Pokémon Base Set 1st Edition #4 Charizard card sold on Goldin Auctions for $213,500, which is a heck of a lot more than a Charizard-shaped Cheeto sold for a few months ago.
When even Charizard-shaped Cheetos are selling for five figures, you know Charizard must be a very special Pokémon.
For a variety of reasons, this particular Charizard card is easily one of the most sought after Pokémon trading cards of all-time. It's arguably the most famous and well-known Pokémon card in the original 151 even though the Pikachu Illustrator is more rare and more expensive. Charizard introduced millions of children -- and future collectors -- around the world to the world of Pokémon in the 1990s by being the first Pokémon to appear on the box art for Nintendo's Pokémon Red in 1996, and in 1998 Illustrated by Mitsuhiro Arita, this 1st Edition (limited print run), English-language, shadowless (i.e., lacking a shadow on the right side of the card image), holofoil Charizard card has become a grail for many collectors.
As for this particular grade, fewer than three percent of all PSA graded copies of this Charizard card have received a perfect grade -- and PSA has graded nearly 5,000 total copies. There are only 125 cards that have received an equivalent grade; you literally can't get a PSA-graded copy of this card that has a superior grade.
The highest recorded sale for a PSA 10 graded 1999 Pokémon Base Set 1st Edition Holo Charizard card occurred in February 2022, selling for a whopping $420,000 at a PWCC Premier Auction. As with most of the collectibles market, the value of this card dropped precipitously in 2023 and 2024 for several reasons. With more people at home due to the COVID lockdowns and flush with cash from government stimulus payments, the COVID-era collectibles boom -- which began in 2020 and ended in 2022 -- set record-breaking prices across many collectible types, from Pokémon cards to sports cards to comic books. But the Pokémon TCG market popped after stimulus payments ran out, speculators -- who were looking to make a quick buck -- left the market, and left an increased supply due to a surge in graded copies of Pokémon cards and speculators trying to sell off their remaining inventory. Even though only 125 PSA 10 copies exist, more of them have come up for auction during the past three years.
Still, even at $213,500, this card remains one of the most expensive and coveted trading cards in existence. Moreover, we're starting to observe an upward trend for this card at Goldin Auctions. Goldin sold this same card four times in 2024, with the last three sales being nearly identical -- each card sold for around $171,000. Its first sale of this card in 2025 sold for about 20% more than those previous three sales. It's possible this sale could turn out to be an outlier, and we'll need to see a few more sales before we can confidently say there's been a price breakthrough.
