The 25 Rarest Pokemon Cards (And What They’re Worth)
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Pokemon cards are still popular as ever, but there are quite a few of them that are not worth an actual fortune.
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If you were a Pokemon fan back in the 1990s, you probably have a fair few old Pokemon Trading Card Game cards stashed somewhere in the back of your closet. We all had a few Caterpies and Rattattas lying around from this trend, and if you managed to collect a coveted card like a holographic Charizard, you were the talk of the school playground and truly got lucky.
New Pokemon cards are still being produced to this day, making many of the oldest Pokemon cards even harder to find. As long as Pokemon remains a popular video game franchise, the Pokemon Trading Card Game will keep on producing new types of cards, but none of them can reach the heights of the rarest and most valuable Pokemon cards in the history of the franchise.
Updated January 11, 2022 by Joe Parlock: Pokemon moves fast! Thanks to the 25th anniversary celebrations, we have a lot new cards on this list. Plus as new copies of rare cards are found all the time, some have shot up in the list while others have become less desirable.
25 Gold Star POP Series 5 Umbreon: $20,000
The Japanese version of the Shining Umbreon Pokemon card is pretty highly desired, with its unique coloring and gorgeous frame-piercing artwork making it fittingly beautiful as one of the first shiny Pokemon to appear on a card.
However, its price is so high because of much more than just its looks and popularity. The Shining Umbreon card only saw a very limited release through the Japanese Pokemon Players’ Club for hitting the maximum number of experience points through attending organised play events between 2005 and 2006, making it one of the rarest cards out there. In 2020, PWCC Auctions sold a PSA-10 copy of it for $20,000, showing just how in-demand it is. Notably, this card was reprinted for the first time ever in 2021, as part of the 25th Anniversary Celebrations set. Though that version is worth way, way less, it’s still the third most valuable card in the expansion.
24 Tamamushi University Magikarp: $66,100
Produced as a promotion for magazine publisher Shogakukan’s Celadon University campaign, this Magikarp card was awarded to those who successfully became “Pokemon Professors”. By mailing in the Entrance Test, Professor Test, Super Professor Test, and Hyper Professor Test (all found in different magazines aimed at schoolchildren published by Shogakukan), 1000 Magikarps were up for grabs.
Though so many were printed, only 80 have been identified by the PSA so far. PSA 10-graded cards fetch a much higher price than any other condition, getting $66,100 at auction.
23 Trade Please!: $1551.67
It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think this was a prank, or a fake card, but nope. This is a real card that was part of 1998 promotion for the Pokemon-themed album Trade Please by Suzukisan. By sending in the flier that came with each album, entrants could receive an evolved Kanto starter of their choice (Venusaur, Blastoise, or Charizard) as well as this… unique… trainer card.
The starter Pokemon that came with are also quite rare and valuable cards, but sites like PSA Card show that the original Trade Please card can reach prices as high as $1551.67 if it’s been preserved at a high enough quality. This card actually did get a reprint just a few years ago for a similar event in Japan during Pokemon’s 20th Anniversary, but these ones were printed in much higher amounts and aren’t nearly as high-value.
22 Tsunekazu Ishihara Signed GX Promo Card: $247,230
These cards were given to employees at The Pokemon Company to celebrate its founder and president Tsunekazu Ishihara’s 60th Birthday.
We don’t know exactly how many of these cards were produced, but one specific copy of it fetches a much higher price than the others. In April 2021, Goldin Auctions sold a copy of it that had been signed by Tsunekazu Ishihara himself for an eye-watering $247,230. The wildest thing? It wasn’t even PSA 10-graded, and managed to sell for that much with just a nine rating.
21 Misprinted Fossil Krabby: $2,200
While misprints might be irritating for the normal player or casual collector, for the hardcore they can be very big money. If a card runs through the printer wrong, is miscut, has a typo on it, or anything else, it can increase the value significantly. One great example of that is this Fossil Krabby,
The difference between these multiple miscuts and a normal card is that part of a fossil symbol to the bottom-left of its art is missing. This seemingly minor difference has driven up the price of these cards immensely, and despite going for under two dollars in its normal state, Pokemon Prices has the card record of a misprint selling for over $2200 dollars.
20 The Masked Royal Prize Promo: $18,000
This is undoubtedly one of the most recent rare cards, featuring the Masked Royal character from Pokemon Sun & Moon and released as recently as 2017. This is essentially a promotional card that was given out to players in an invitation-only prerelease in Tokyo for the new Shining Legends set, where only 100 copies were made.
Even though this is a relatively normal card by most standards, this short print run means it’s incredibly hard to get, especially since it was handed out in such a restrictive event. As a result, there are actually preserved tweets of players first opening it in places like Pokeboon, while Japanese trading sites like Miyabi Hobby have past listings of the card at ¥2,000,000, which currently is equal to around $18,000 USD.
19 PSA 10 Charizard Gold Star Delta Species Holo Dragon Frontiers: $25,400
The first of three Gold Star cards on this list, and surprisingly only one of two Charizards. Dragon Frontiers’ Charizard Gold Star was one of the first times it was seen in its iconic black shiny colouring, which alone is usually enough to make a card shoot up in value.
In February of 2021, PWCC Auctions sold a PSA 10-graded Charizard Gold Star for a massive $25,400. Other sales tend to come a bit lower, although copies have sold for as much as $60,000 in unverified Ebay auctions.
18 PSA 10 Base Set Holo Shadowless Charizard: $329,816
There are a lot of factors that make this card worth so much compared to any other Charizard card. Specifically, the lack of a shadow means it isn’t just a first edition, it’s the first print run of the first edition. While most base set cards have a shadow on the right side of the art frame, the very first cards Wizards of the Coast printed lacked it, giving them an extra level of value.
Second, though shadowless Base Set Charizards are fairly common and number in the thousands, a PSA 10-graded one (meaning it is in mint condition) are incredibly rare. Only 56 have ever been identified by PSA.
These Charizard cards have become one of the prime reasons for the Pokemon Card trend of the past two years, with YouTuber Logan Paul opening one as recently as February 2021 that was estimated by auction site owner Ken Goldin to sell for upwards of $500,000. In auction it tends to sell for significantly less, though: last year one sold for $264,000 through Heritage Auctions. At the time of writing, the value of a PSA 10 Base Set Holo Shadowless Charizard is estimated to be $329,816.58.
17 PSA 10 Holo Rayquaza Gold Star EX Deoxys: $40,400
If Charizard is the king of Pokemon, Rayquaza is definitely up there in the royal family. It tends to value highly in any set it appears in, but none are as rare as EX Deoxys’ Rayquaza Gold Star, which only has 46 verified PSA 10 quality cards in circulation.
The PSA values PSA 10-grade Gold Star Rayquazas at an incredibly high $40,400. Auctions can swing wildly either side of that price, too. In 2021 alone there are three up for sale by Goldin Auctions, with the highest selling for $44,280 and the lowest for $34,440.
16 PSA 10 Neo Genesis First Edition Holo Lugia: $129,000
Neo Genesis is effectively the Base Set of the second generation of Pokemon. It was the first time Pokemon from Silver, Gold, or Crystal appeared in the TCG, and it was also marred by a large number of misprints and mistakes in its very first run. Alongside it being the mascot of Pokemon Silver, that’s mainly why a mint condition, holo, first edition Lugia from Neo Genesis is so highly desirable.
Prices for this card are incredibly unstable, even between cards with the same condition. In November 2020 PWCC sold a copy for $129,000, while less than a year later in September 2021, Goldin sold one for “just” $47,970.
15 PSA 10 Southern Islands Reverse Holo Mew: $5950
When the second Pokemon movie was released in Japan, the makers of the Trading Card Game decided to release a special edition set of cards to mark this occasion. The Southern Islands card series was born, featuring just two sets of nine cards apiece that were unique to any other set in the game.
Full sets of these cards can sell for a lot (which is annoying considering my dad bought two of them for £20 a piece at the time and then I lost them because I was seven…), but the absolute highest value is undoubtedly the Southern Islands Mew, which has a rare reverse foil treatment where the frame around the art is the only part that’s shiny. In 2020, PWCC Auctions sold a copy of it for $4,155, and more recent auctions push it up as high as almost $6000. There have only ever been 19 copies given the PSA 10 grade, though other conditions are slightly more common.
14 PSA 10 Torchic Gold Star Holo EX Team Rocket Returns: $50,000
In the early-to-mid 2000s, popularity in Pokemon was waning. “Pokemania” was on the way out, and that meant a lot of the Pokemon TCG expansions at the time suffered from lower sales and smaller print runs. With Pokemon back on top again now, cards from that era often see higher values than cards older than them. A great example of this is the Gold Star Torchic from EX Team Rocket Returns.
Gold Star Pokemon showcase Pokemon in their shiny forms and have the Pokemon breaking out of the frame as an early example of the many alternate styles the TCG would later experiment with. Why Torchic specifically is worth so much is anyone’s guess, but with only 17 verified PSA 10 grade copies out there, the PSA values them at $50,000 each. Actual auction prices are a bit lower though, as in 2020 PWCC Auctions sold a copy for $25,400.
13 PSA 10 Kangaskhan Holo Family Event Trophy Card: $100,000+
A common trend you’ll find with most of the rarest Pokemon cards is that they often come as part of unique events that happened only once, only being circulated in a single country or event. While these weren’t seen as major deals at the time, mostly being prizes and free giveaways, they’ve held an alarming value since they’ve never had a later reprint. The PSA has only ever identified 45 copies of the card, and just 11 given the illusive PSA 10 grade.
This has never been true of this Kangaskhan, a holo foil card with unique art that only appeared as prizes for a fittingly adorable team tournament in 1998 where young children would play with a parent against other child-parent teams. Its fabulous first-edition frame and amazing original art has resulted in sales listed on PSA Card ranging from $50,000 to an incredible $150,000 depending on the condition of the card.
12 Pikachu Illustrator: $407,100
While Pikachu Illustrator (technically it’s “Pokemon Illustrator”, but most auctions list it as Pikachu) is often seen as one of the rarest Pokemon cards in existence, there are actually 41 verified copies of it in existence, and only 39 officially distributed.
Identified by the unique fountain pen expansion symbol, and the two stars in the bottom right corner, this card was awarded to winners of a 1998 CoroCoro illustration contest. It’s the only card ever printed to replace the “TRAINER” text at the top of the card with “ILLUSTRATOR”
While many of the cards listed are related to game events and easier to track, perhaps the rarest Pokemon card to ever be sold is the Pokemon Illustrator trainer card. This is hardly a legal card in the game, instead resembling a Trainer support card and being given out as a trophy to winners of an illustration contest at Japan’s CoroCoro convention in 1998.
It’s generally considered the Holy Grail of Pokemon cards, and fetches ridiculous prices at auction. In February 2021, Steve Aoki purchased one for $420,000, making it one of the highest-valued cards ever. At the time of writing, the PSA values it at an even higher $407,100.
11 Master’s Key: $21,201
The Master Key is another prize card that’s seriously sought after in Pokemon card collector circles. This card was only produced in Japan, and had a very limited release: only 36 actually exist. The Master Key card was handed to those competitive Pokemon players who managed to reach high ranks in the 2010 Japan World Championship held in Honolulu, Hawaii, meaning no new copies can ever come into the market.
However, one copy did sell through PWCC for $21,201. It came in pristine condition, complete in the case and frame it came with.
10 1999 Japanese Tropical Mega Battle Promo, Tropical Wind: $147,633
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, an annual Pokemon Trading Card Game tournament was held in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the 1999 event, just 12 of these Tropical Mega Battle cards were produced to be distributed to some of the lucky 50 players who attended the event (who all already had to be regional champions), meaning the remaining number of mint copies is especially low all these years later.
Showing a Psyduck having a nap in a hammock on a tropical island, this legendary Trainer Card sells for a whole lot of cash thanks to its rarity. Though it has sold for up to $65,100 at auction, PSA estimates the card is worth vary more than that, at a whopping $147,633.
9 PSA 10 Holographic Shadowless First Edition Chansey: $1,100
Despite not being one of the iconic starters or legendaries, Chansey is still one of the most valuable cards from Pokemon’s Base Set. Like every other base set card, the Shadowless version gets a much higher price at auction.
PSA 10-graded holo, shadowless Chanseys are incredibly rare, with only 15 verified by the PSA. Despite that, they don’t tend to fetch as high a price as their slightly more common expansion mates, like Charizard, probably because it is a less popular Pokemon. The last verified auction sale of a PSA 10 Chansey was in 2018, when PWCC Auctions sold one for $2175. Despite that, an Ebay seller did sell one for $1025 in 2019.
8 World Championships Sprint Battle Road 2002 No 1. Trainer Promo: $31,000
No. 1 Trainer promo cards are almost always valuable, thanks to them only being printed in limited quantities and being awarded to finalists in World Championships. What makes the Battle Road Spring 2002 promo special, though, is that every card is unique.
Each one has the name of its owner, and the region they were the champion of, printed in the card’s text. As there were seven regions for the tournament, it can be assumed that there were at least seven produced.
It’s so rare that PSA doesn’t have an appraised value for it, however it has sold at auction in the past for $31,000.
7 1999 Super Secret Battle No. 1 Trainer: $90,000
These cards were so cool. Awarded to regional champions in 1999, they served as both the prize for winning a regional heat and as the ticket to enter the Super Secret Battle finals held in an undisclosed location in Tokyo on August 22, 1999.
There are estimated to only be seven of these cards in existence, all of which have been graded by the PSA. A PSA 10 copy of the card sold at auction in 2020 for a massive $90,000, but the seller is hoping to get even more for it, as it is now up for offers from a starting price of $198,000.
6 2006 Pokemon Promo No. 2 Trainer World Championships: $110,100
Even runners-up get big prizes at World Championships, with all three finalists at Anaheim, California’s 2006 championships each receiving a copy of this massively valuable card. Winning the card in 2006 automatically granted entry to the finalist in 2007 as well, bypassing the whole organised points play system they would otherwise need to work through.
In February 2021, PWCC sold a PSA 9-graded copy of the card for $110,100. The fact it wasn’t even in pristine, PSA 10 condition and still sold for six figures should go some way to show the value of this card.
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