PSA Says August Set Record for Six-Figure Pokémon Card Sales

August was one of the biggest months yet for the high-end Pokémon card market, with PSA saying more cards reached six figures than during any previous month. PSA highlighted the surge on X, saying August established a new record for the number of six-figure Pokémon card sales and produced more high-end activity than June and July combined.

“The high-end Pokémon market had one of its hottest months ever,” PSA said. “Led by a massive Pikachu Illustrator sale, August topped June and July combined.”

That Pikachu Illustrator was one of several major Pokémon cards to cross the six-figure threshold during the month.

On August 16, CollectiblesNews.com reported that a 1998 Pikachu Illustrator graded BGS 8.5 sold for $1,006,500 at Goldin. The card is one of just five examples recorded at that grade in Beckett’s census and became another seven-figure result for one of the hobby’s most famous Pokémon collectibles.

The Illustrator was hardly alone. A 2005 Pokémon EX Deoxys Rayquaza Gold Star graded CGC Pristine 10 sold for $1.02 million at Fanatics Collect, setting a record for any Rayquaza card and becoming the highest-priced English-language Pokémon card ever publicly sold.

Earlier in the month, a group of exceptionally rare Pokémon Snap promotional cards also generated huge prices. A 1999 Pokémon Snap Bulbasaur sold for $809,943 at Goldin, while rare Charmander and Squirtle cards from the same promotion also reached six figures. Those cards were produced as prizes tied to Pokémon Snap photo contests, giving them the kind of extremely limited distribution that continues to draw top-end collectors.

Rayquaza produced another six-figure result later in August when a Japanese Clash of the Blue Sky Gold Star Holo #067 graded PSA 10 sold for $122,000 at Goldin.

The strength was not concentrated in just one corner of the hobby. August’s biggest sales included trophy and contest cards, Japanese promotional issues and high-grade cards originally distributed through regular Pokémon TCG products. That mix is important because the top end of the Pokémon market was once dominated almost entirely by a small group of trophy cards and early Japanese rarities. Those pieces are still producing enormous prices, but cards such as the CGC Pristine 10 Rayquaza Gold Star show that elite examples from standard TCG releases can now compete at the seven-figure level as well.

PSA’s latest numbers put all of those individual sales into a broader context. Rather than August being defined by one or two unusually expensive cards, the grading company shows that August produce 74 Pokémon transactions at $100,000 or more, compared to July which produced 28 transactions and June that produced 37 transactions.

With Pokémon celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2026 and several major auction houses continuing to bring important collections to market, August has now established a new benchmark for just how active the upper end of the Pokémon card hobby can get.