Most Valuable!

The first edition Charizard is the card this site has mentioned the most. As it should! The first edition Charizard is the most popular card in all of Pokémon TCG and the one to make headlines the most. Most beginning Pokémon card investors dream of one day claiming one for themselves. The value of this card comes from consumer demand and scarcity. Charizard is one of the most popular Pokémon and has been around the longest. It was a popular card before it was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars! There have only been 121 PSA 10 graded Charizards, and the Covid-19 pandemic increased the demand for this card almost ten-fold. Prices have never been higher and it's expected to only go up!

The Pokémon Illustrator is considered the "Holy Grail" in Pokémon card investing. Pokémon Illustrator was given to winners of promo contests in 1997 and 1998. Only 39 copies were given out and a total of 41 copies were made. The number of copies to have been certified (and therefore, known to still exist) is 23, shrinking the supply even more. Shrinking the supply even more, only one has been graded a PSA 10. No one was sure this card existed until July 2021, when YouTuber, Logan Paul, made the Guinness World Record for the most expensive Pokémon card through a private sale. Both the most and second most expensive Pokémon card sales have been Pokémon Illustrator!

No.1 Trainer and No. 2 Trainer are special cards given out to the winners of the Pokémon TCG World Championships--either at qualifiers or actual tournaments. These cards' value lies in the fact they are extremely unique. They are only given out to the first and second place winners and are customized for the winners. The 2002 card shown above was for the winner of the 2002 regional qualifier for the Championship. It was drawn by the original artist of the first 150 Pokémon and there truly are no other copies like it.

The 1998 Wizards of the Coast Blastoise presentation piece sold in 2021 was truly one of a kind. Only two of these cards were ever made. It was made by Wizards of the Coast to convince Nintendo to let Wizards of the Coast handle the North American Pokémon card publishing. It worked since they started publishing the cards starting 1999. Only one Blastoise has ever been graded (the other has not been revealed to still exist), and its rating of 8.5 earned itself a really high price!

Another set of cards given out to tournament top players is the Tropical Wind set. In 1999, only 12 were made for the top players. They are special because there is a new design for every Pokémon TCG tournament with this card. This card holds a special memory for me. I remember meeting this person who made it their goal to obtain a copy of every design there was. He showed me his collection at the 2015 World Championship. It was a very fond memory from my childhood, so this card holds even more value to me.

Tsunekazu Ishihara is the current president of The Pokémon Company. In honor of Ishihara's 60th birthday, the Ishihara GX card was given out to company employees in 2017. The card's value is not only because it was given out in a low quantity, it also holds a lot of sentimental value to Pokémon card collectors. Ishihara is a loved man who has done so much for the Pokémon community. He, himself, is an avid Pokémon card collector! The card signed by Ishihara himself fetched almost a quarter of a million dollars in 2021!