Vintage Pokémon cards have been crushing sales records:
A PSA 10 Rayquaza Gold Star just sold at auction for $1 million USD
A PSA 10 Torchic Gold Star, with more than 8 days left in the auction, has already cleared $1.3 million USD.
A PSA 9 Illustrator Pikachu just sold in a private sale, facilitated by Goldin, for $2.7 million USD.
Even this Snorlax Lv.X card from 2009 sold for $156,000 on Fanatics Collect.
The highest bid, as of Sep 2, 2026, of $1,337,500 for the PSA 10 Torchic Gold Star on Alt Auctions.
Make no mistake: These are stunning sales. Back in 2020, when I first getting into the hobby, the leading sales for any card in the hobby were a wave of 1st Edition Base Set Charizard cards for $150,000 up to $400,000. Back then, it was easy to wonder how much higher Pokémon card prices could go.
When a $400,000 Charizard feels impossible, there's no way you can imagine a $1 million Rayquaza Gold Star.
Especially when, in late 2020, that same PSA 10 Rayquaza was selling for closer to $10,000. You read that right: This $1 million dollar sale a 100x return in less than 7 years.
Historical price data from pokedata.io for the Rayquaza Gold Star in PSA 10, showing a $9,500 price in Feb 2020.
These prices are only achievable because the demand for Pokémon cards has grown. A lot. Enough that it has me wondering, yet again: How much higher can Pokémon card prices really go?
I don't have a crystal ball and will never know for sure, but I have seen that, over time, all kinds of assets have increased in price beyond our imaginations, and continued going up.
I remember when Apple became the world's first trillion-dollar company back in 2018. Today, we have 16 companies worth a trillion dollars or more and the world's most valuable company, NVIDIA is worth more than 5 trillion.
Homes are more expensive. Gold is more expensive. Any asset with real scarcity seems to have done the same. And every time prices rise to never-before-seen levels, it starts to feel like they can't possibly go any higher. But they do.
Why?
Because demand has risen faster than supply.
Demand is not the number of people who want to buy something. Demand is the total amount of money all buyers are willing to spend.
There is more money than ever before in the world today. In the U.S. alone, the money supply has increased nearly 3x since 2008. And, with more dollars floating around than ever before, it seems people are willing to spend more of that money on assets like stocks, homes, gold... and collectibles.
U.S. M2 money supply growth reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED)
These are truly remarkable times for Pokémon and collectibles, and my bet is this is still just the beginning.
As usual,
Thanks so much for reading the TCG Buyers Club newseltter. My name's Grey, I buy cardboard, and I'm on a mission to make collecting and investing in Pokémon simple.
Cheers 🍻