I’ll never quite understand the fascination with Pokémon cards, but one of the most infamous of the entire trading card game has just sold for $4 million on eBay.
Making headlines a few years back when all-around imbecile Logan Paul purchased one for $5.3 million, the notorious “Pokémon Illustrator” card was sold last Friday for $4 million on eBay. Held by Scott “smpratte” Pratte, a collector located in Edwardsville, Illinois, the card had a PSA grade of 9, which indicates it was nearly flawless. The card gained notoriety over the years as, reportedly, around only 41 were ever printed. The card was a prize in the CoroCoro Comic Illustration Contest in Japanese competition from 1998. As Kotaku notes, it was likely never meant to be some holy grail of Pokémon TCG, but it has become iconic due to its rarity and absurd resale value.
For reference, the version Logan Paul bought had a PSA grade of 10, which indicates it is otherwise perfect. Kotaku reported on another one of the cards in 2023 that was given a PSA grade of 7, and that was listed at $480,000. As you can clearly tell, condition means a lot, so if you want to get one of these rare cards for cheap, you better hope it’s dinged up something fierce. That probably isn’t likely to happen, though, as recipients of the card probably treated them well.
There’s a fascinating history to the pricing of this specific card, but it goes a little beyond my comprehension. I’ve always found it bizarre that people would willingly part with multiple tens of thousands of dollars for a piece of paper, but then collecting things becomes serious business after a while.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
