Pokémon Pikachu Illustrator PSA 9 Sells for $5 Million at Heritage Auctions

A Pikachu Illustrator graded PSA Mint 9 has sold for $5 million at Heritage Auctions, adding another massive result to what has already been an extraordinary year for high-end Pokémon cards. The 1998 Japanese promotional card, enhanced with an MBA Gold Diamond designation, sold in Heritage’s September 18-19 Trading Card Games Signature Auction.

Pikachu Illustrator has long occupied a category of its own in the Pokémon hobby. The card was never released through packs or sold at retail. It was awarded to winners of illustration contests promoted through CoroCoro Comic in Japan in 1998. Heritage says 39 copies were distributed across the first three competitions. It is also visually different from ordinary Pokémon cards. The Atsuko Nishida artwork depicts Pikachu holding drawing tools, while the card carries a pen symbol in the lower-right corner instead of the usual rarity symbol. It is also the only Pokémon card to use the word “Illustrator” at the top.

The example sold this weekend already stood out among the surviving copies before bidding began. PSA has certified 15 Pikachu Illustrators at Mint 9, according to Heritage, with only one example graded higher. This particular card is the only PSA 9 that Heritage identified as carrying an MBA Gold Diamond.

Mike Baker Authenticated uses the Gold Diamond designation to identify cards it considers exceptional within their assigned grade. Heritage Trading Card Games Managing Director Jesus Garcia explained before the auction that the designation effectively indicates MBA views the card as being worthy of roughly a 9.5 even though PSA assigns whole-number grades. “The Gold Diamond sticker shows how nice of a 9 it is,” Garcia said.

The premium attached to this particular copy became very clear once bidding was over. Another PSA Mint 9 Pikachu Illustrator sold at Heritage on March 28, 2026 for $1,406,250. Just six months later, the MBA Gold Diamond example brought $5 million, more than three-and-a-half times that price.

Go back a little further and the jump becomes even more dramatic. A PSA 9 Pikachu Illustrator sold at Heritage in June 2022 for $840,000, while another Mint 9 example brought just $54,970 at Heritage in November 2016.

The $5 million sale does not challenge the overall Pikachu Illustrator record. That distinction still belongs to the unique PSA Gem Mint 10 copy formerly owned by Logan Paul. Goldin sold that card for $16.492 million in February 2026, a transaction verified by Guinness World Records as both the most expensive Pokémon card and the most expensive trading card ever sold at auction.

Paul had previously acquired the PSA 10 Illustrator in a private transaction valued at $5.275 million, which included a PSA 9 Pikachu Illustrator valued at $1.275 million plus $4 million in cash. That makes the latest Heritage result particularly interesting. A PSA 9 Pikachu Illustrator has now sold publicly for almost as much as the entire transaction that secured the only PSA 10 copy for Paul several years earlier.

CollectiblesNews.com recently reported on a wave of six- and seven-figure Pokémon transactions, including a record $550,000 Jigglypuff CoroCoro promo sale and a stretch in August that PSA described as a record month for six-figure Pokémon card sales.