Rayquaza Gold Star Sells for Record $1.02 Million, Highest Price Ever for an English Pokémon Card
A 2005 Pokémon EX Deoxys Rayquaza Gold Star has sold for $1.02 million at Fanatics Collect, setting two major records for the Pokémon Trading Card Game. The CGC Pristine 10 copy of Rayquaza Gold Star #107 sold in Fanatics Collect’s August Premier Auction. Fanatics Collect announced the $1,020,000 result following the sale, calling it a new all-time record for any Rayquaza card and the highest price ever paid for an English Pokémon card.
The seven-figure result comes only days after another major Rayquaza sale. On August 24, CollectiblesNews.com reported that a Japanese Rayquaza Gold Star PSA 10 sold for $122,000 at Goldin. That card came from the Japanese Clash of the Blue Sky release, while the newly sold Fanatics Collect example is the English-language Rayquaza Gold Star from 2005 Pokémon EX Deoxys.
The difference in grade is also significant. According to the Fanatics Collect auction listing, the $1.02 million card is the only example graded CGC 10 Pristine, giving it a population of one at that level. Fanatics Collect also noted that neither BGS nor TAG has a Pristine 10 example in its registry. Fanatics went as far as describing the card as potentially “the single greatest copy” of Holo Gold Star Rayquaza.
Rayquaza Gold Star #107 was illustrated by Masakazu Fukuda and comes from EX Deoxys, one of the most closely followed Pokémon TCG expansions from the EX era. The Gold Star cards became some of the defining chase cards of that period, with their scarcity and distinctive presentation making high-grade examples particularly desirable.
The $1.02 million price also puts the Rayquaza alongside some of the largest Pokémon auction results covered by CollectiblesNews.com this year. Earlier in August, a 1998 Pikachu Illustrator graded BGS 8.5 sold for $1,006,500 at Goldin. Unlike the new Rayquaza record, Illustrator Pikachu is a Japanese promotional card rather than an English card released through a regular Pokémon TCG expansion.
Another group of extremely rare Japanese promotional cards produced huge results at Goldin this month. A 1999 Pokémon Snap Bulbasaur sold for $809,943, while rare Charmander and Squirtle cards from the same promotion also reached six-figure prices.
Those sales demonstrate just how broad the upper end of the Pokémon card market has become. Trophy cards, contest prizes and Japanese promotional issues have traditionally produced many of the hobby’s biggest prices, but the Rayquaza result shows that an exceptionally graded English expansion card can now reach the same seven-figure territory.
Rayquaza has long been one of the signature Pokémon of the Gold Star era, but the Fanatics Collect result establishes an entirely new level for the character.