For the week of August 1 to 8, the five most expensive trading card sales in the world were all Pokemon, and they combined for $697,200. It was a week without a Charizard at the top, which is rarer than it sounds.

The board

  • 2011 Call of Legends #SL10 Rayquaza Holo, PSA 10 - $180,200 (Probstein Auctions on eBay, August 5)
  • 2008 Diamond & Pearl Stormfront Reverse Holo Gengar #18, PSA 10 - $156,000 (Fanatics Weekly, August 2)
  • 1996 Japanese Promo Non-Glossy Ivy Pikachu #25, PSA 10 - $156,000 (Fanatics Weekly, August 2)
  • 2011 Call of Legends Holo Rayquaza #20, PSA 10 - $105,000 (ALT, August 4)
  • 2006 EX Legend Maker Reverse Holo Gengar #5, CGC 10 Pristine - $100,000 (PSA on eBay, August 6)

Why Call of Legends

Call of Legends was the last set of the HeartGold SoulSilver era, released in February 2011 as a stop-gap before Black & White. It was treated as filler at the time: mostly reprints, no new mechanics, and a print run that went straight into retail and stayed there. The eleven "Shiny Legend" cards (SL1 to SL11) were the one thing in it worth chasing, and because so few people opened the set with care, PSA 10 copies of the shinies are scarce out of proportion to the set's age.

Two Rayquazas from the same set clearing $285,200 between them in one week is the market saying that scarcity has been fully priced in. The SL10 at $180,200 led every TCG sale of the week by more than $24,000.

Two Gengars, both reverse

The two Gengars on this list are not the holo versions. They are reverse holos, the parallel foil variant that shows up roughly one per pack and that most collectors treated as the lesser card for twenty years. Reverse foil is the most fragile surface Pokemon has ever printed, which is why a gem-mint reverse from 2006 or 2008 is a different object from a gem-mint holo. Grade Expectations in this issue goes deeper on what that does to prices.

And one Pikachu

The 1996 Ivy Pikachu is one of the earliest Pikachu promos, distributed through Japanese magazines, and the non-glossy variant is the scarcer of the two finishes. At $156,000 in PSA 10 it tied the Stormfront Gengar for second, which says something about where early promos sit relative to modern-era set cards right now: level, not above.

Source: SI Collectibles, Top 5 TCG Card Sales This Week, published August 10, 2026.

The Lead ran in The Pack Report, August 13, 2026: Rayquaza Takes the Week, Gengar Takes Two Spots. Published by Rip Station.