A mint condition Pokémon card broke records at an auction sale, and the person to claim the Charizard card was none other than rapper Logic. The oldest Pokémon cards have been regularly put on sale at many auctions, and collectors have been more than willing to bid high amounts of cash just to get their hands on these elusive, rare cards.
Out of all the Pokémon cards out there, the holographic Charizard cards are among the rarest. The famous Charizard cards were in some of the first series of released cards. That coupled with the iconic status of the starter Pokémon has made this card sell for extremely high amounts of cash online and at auctions. They can go as cheap as $20,000 online, while the rarest Charizard cards have been sold for more than $100,000, and now that record has been smashed once again thanks to this sale.
On October 9th, Cardhops announced the sale of a base set 1st edition Charizard with the ending bid at $183,812, and the transaction totaling over $220,000. This is now the new world record for the highest sale for this particular Charizard card. Logic later posted a video on his Instagram of him opening a 1999 base set booster box that he purchased separately for $23,000. In the post, he talks about how he loved Pokémon cards as a kid but couldn’t afford them, saying:
“I remember even trying to trade food stamps for their [cards], and now - as an adult who has saved every penny he has made being able to enjoy something that I’ve loved since childhood - now as a grown man, it's like buying back a piece of something I could never have. It’s not about the material, it’s about the experience.”
While this Charizard purchase does break the sales record for that specific card, it does not break the record for the highest Pokémon card sale of all time. That record is still held by the Illustrator Pikachu card, with only 10 cards believed to still exist today. The most recent sale of this card came in July of this year at a whopping $250,000. Just last month, a sealed first edition box set also sold for $198,000.
These sales numbers show the length of just how far people are willing to go to get their hands on these incredibly valuable collectors’ items. They certainly do make for fine bragging pieces for the collectors’ shelves. With how often these numbers are being broken, it’s very likely that come one or two months from now, yet another huge sale will occur. The passion for these Pokémon trading cards continues to remain strong, and perhaps 10 or 20 years from now, the cards of today will have bidders competing to get their hands on these valuable items.