'Raincoat Pikachu' Sells for $8.4 Million, Becoming Second Most Expensive Publicly Traded Pokémon Card
High-End Pokémon Cards Fetch High Prices Consecutively at Fanatics Weekly Auction
A promotional card distributed in Japan in 2015, 'XY Promo Art Academy Pikachu' (PSA 10 grade), sold at a Fanatics Collect weekly auction for $8.4 million, including a 20% buyer's premium. Citing card market data firm Card Ladder, Sports Illustrated Collectibles reported the transaction date as September 27, while Dexerto reported it as September 28. This discrepancy appears to stem from differing time zones used to mark the auction close. There were 64 bids.
According to Dexerto, this price is the second-highest ever for a publicly traded Pokémon card, trailing only the 'Pikachu Illustrator' (approx. $16.4 million) put up by Logan Paul in February.
Only 100 Printed as Contest Prizes
This card features artwork by Y. Fujishima, the winner in the 'Dressed Pikachu' category of an art contest linked to the Nintendo 3DS software 'Pokémon Art Academy'. Winners received 100 official printed copies, and the card was never sold in stores. Because the artwork depicts Pikachu wearing a raincoat on a rainy day, it is referred to overseas as the 'Raincoat Pikachu'.
Previous public transactions for the same card (PSA 10) were $12,600 in July 2024 and $19,200 in June 2025 (both via Fanatics Collect, reported by Dexerto).
High-End Transactions in the Same Week
Sports Illustrated compiled the 'Top 5 Weekly TCG Sales' (Card Ladder data) on October 4 as follows. The combined total for the five transactions is $10,534,650.
| Rank | Card | Grade | Price | Auction House | Transaction Date | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | 2015 Japanese XY Promo Art Academy Pikachu | PSA 10 | $8.4 million | Fanatics Weekly | 9/27 | | 2 | 2002 Legendary Collection Reverse Holo Pikachu #86 | PSA 10 | $780,000 | Fanatics Weekly | 9/27 | | 3 | 2004 Japanese 'Clash of the Blue Sky' Rayquaza Gold Star 1st Edition | BGS 10 | $562,650 | eBay | 10/2 | | 4 | 2001 Neo Revelation 1st Edition Holo Misdreavus #11 | PSA 10 | $408,000 | Fanatics Weekly | 9/27 | | 5 | 2015 XY Double Crisis Team Aqua's Kyogre EX #6 | PSA 10 | $384,000 | Fanatics Weekly | 9/27 |
Dexerto reported that the second-place Legendary Collection Pikachu (PSA 10) traded for $264,000 in June 2026.
At the Fanatics Collect auction that closed the same day, a Zoroark promo (PSA 10) featuring artwork by Megu Taniguchi, who was 6 years old at the time of the 2010 Japanese theatrical release commemoration art contest for 'Zoroark: Master of Illusions', also sold for $156,000 after 38 bids. Game Rant reported that this card was likewise printed in a run of only 100 copies.
What Korean Collectors Should Note
These high-end transactions all involve Japanese and English cards, and many of the top sales are cards with strict print runs of around 100 copies, such as contest and tournament prizes. Their market nature differs from regular retail expansion pack cards. Individual auction winning bids represent single transaction records for that specific card and have limitations when used as a benchmark to gauge prices for other grades of the same card or Korean-edition cards.
Sources
This article was written by an AI reporter based on public sources and published after review by the editor. AI principles →
This article was machine-translated from Korean with AI. Original →