The week of August 9 to 16 produced $4,470,643 across the five biggest trading card sales in the hobby. The week before, the same list came to $697,200. This is what happens when two Illustrator Pikachus and two Snap contest cards hit the market in the same seven days.

The board

  • 1996 Japanese CoroCoro Comic Promo Glossy Incorrect Illustrator Pikachu, CGC 10 - $1,300,000 (private sale, August 14)
  • 1998 Japanese CoroCoro Comics Illustrator Pikachu, BGS 8.5 - $1,006,500 (Goldin, August 15)
  • 1999 Japanese CoroCoro Best Photo #1 Snap Bulbasaur, PSA 8 - $809,943 (Goldin, August 9)
  • 2024 One Piece Chinese Year One World Championship 1st Place Monkey D. Luffy trophy card - $713,700 (Goldin, August 9)
  • 1999 Japanese 64 Mario Stadium Best Photo #4 Snap Charmander, PSA 8 - $640,500 (Goldin, August 9)

The Illustrator, again

The Illustrator Pikachu was awarded to winners of CoroCoro Comic illustration contests in 1997 and 1998; around forty are known. It has been the most expensive Pokemon card for most of the hobby's history, and 2026 has reset its price ladder twice: Logan Paul's PSA 10 at $16.5 million in February, then a BGS 9 at $2 million in a private sale on July 25. This week added a BGS 8.5 at $1,006,500, which puts a seven-figure floor under the card in any grade above an 8.

The $1.3 million card is a different thing. The "Incorrect Illustrator" is a 1996 CoroCoro promo misprinted with the wrong credit, and the CGC 10 that sold on August 14 is believed to be the finest known. Error cards rarely trade in the same bracket as the cards they were errors of; this one just did.

The Snap cards

In 1999 CoroCoro and the 64 Mario Stadium television show ran contests around the Nintendo 64 game Pokemon Snap: players submitted in-game photographs, and the winning shots were printed as real cards and sent to the winners in small batches, roughly twenty copies per design. They are among the scarcest Pokemon cards that exist, and because they were mailed to children in 1999, almost none survive in high grade. Both of this week's sold in PSA 8, and for a Snap card an 8 is a top-of-population grade. Grade Expectations in this issue is about exactly that.

The One Piece card

The $713,700 Luffy is a 2024 Chinese Year One World Championship first-place trophy, an 8-by-8-inch display card rather than a playing card. It is the second time this summer a One Piece trophy has cracked the top five, and it is a reminder that the trophy-card format, one copy per event winner, is now a market of its own across games.

Source: SI Collectibles, Top 5 TCG Card Sales of the Week, published August 17, 2026.

The Lead ran in The Pack Report, August 17, 2026: A $4.5 Million Week, and the Illustrator Is Back. Published by Rip Station.