Another is the use of the word ‘illustrator’ rather than ‘trainer’ which makes it the only Pokémon card with such a feature. One of them is the one-off pen icon in the bottom right corner. Pikachu Illustrator CardĪnother rare Pokémon card (only 39 were made and only 10 is still in existence), the Pikachu Illustrator has several unique features. This has elevated the card to some sort of Holy Grail and you can trust that if one were to surface one day, it would quickly surpass any bidding records set by other cards. From then till now, a genuine Pre-Release Raichu has never been seen but there have been some false alarms. These erroneous cards were destroyed with about 10 said to have been spared and given to employees of the company.

The company reportedly printed about 100 copies with the word “prerelease” stamped in the bottom right of the artwork.

A card so rare that some people even doubt the fact that it actually exists, the Pre-Release Raichu was said to have been printed in error in the year 1999 by English manufacturer, Wizards of the Coast. 1 on the list of the most expensive Pokémon cards right now is the Pre-Release Raichu. The Most Valuable and Rarest Pokémon Cards to Have Right Now 1. That Pikachu card now holds the title of the most expensive Pokémon card ever but it is by no means the only one that has attracted crazy prices. Such popularity has fueled a constant fascination with the game and has seen the cards go up in value so much so that they now run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.Īs recently as July 2020, one shiny Pikachu illustrator card went for a whopping $226K in an auction conducted by a Hong Kong-based memorabilia auction house known as Collective Memories. A collectible trading card game first released in Japan in 1996, the Pokémon games have remained ever popular thanks to the expertise with which it recreated battles from the original series. From old coins to retro videos, and movie memorabilia, insane amounts of money have been paid for seemingly innocuous items just because they are one of a kind. This craze has also extended to the realm of Pokémon cards.

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