Logan Paul Sets Guinness World Record for Most Expensive Pokemon Card Purchase Ever

By: Water Pokémon Master · Posted Posted onApr 3, 2022 at 1:02 PM · 44 Comments

Logan Paul has revealed he now owns the holy grail of Pokemon cards: a PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator card. He debuted the card last night for his WWE wrestling match in Texas.

Following his match, Guinness World Records presented Paul with a certificate for “most expensive Pokemon trading card sold at a private sale.”

Guinness revealed Paul purchased the card last July in Dubai for a record $5,275,000. Paul gave the owner $4,000,000 in cash plus a PSA 9 Pikachu Illustrator he purchased for $1,275,000. In other words, he “upgraded” his PSA 9 to a 10 for $4,000,000. It should be noted there could be other private sales that exceeded this, but only Paul took the initiative to contact Guinness.

Unlike his fake Base Set case, Paul’s PSA 10 Pikachu is a known specimen with a long history in the fandom. The card has gone through multiple owners over the years and was graded as a PSA 9 several times due to a small chip in the corner. However, it was regraded again and ultimately received a 10.

WWE and Guinness World Records both advertised Paul’s purchase on social media, so there is some level of marketing involvement from both companies. WWE matches are staged, the same as reality shows or stage plays, so bringing Pokemon in to the mix helps Paul’s “character” allure with younger fans. It also serves to advertise Pokemon to a larger audience, which is a net good for the hobby in the long run.

The “Pikachu Illustrator” cards were originally awarded through three card illustrator contests in CoroCoro magazine in 1998. Winners received a copy of the promo plus their winning artwork on a promo card. It’s estimated a maximum of 39 copies of the cards were awarded. However, only 24 are still known to exist thanks to PSA grading.

While there are other cards in the Pokemon TCG that are technically rarer than this Pikachu card, such as the “No. 1” and “No. 2” Mewtwo cards, Pikachu usually fetches a higher price due to the unique artwork and the fact it’s Pikachu. It’s also illustrated by Atsuko Nishida, the creator of Pikachu.

In February a PSA 7 Pikachu sold for a record $900,000. At the time it was the most expensive Pokemon card in history.

View thread (44 replies)
"The card has gone through multiple owners over the years and was graded as a PSA 9 several times due to a small chip in the corner. However, it was regraded again and ultimately received a 10."
lmao at accidentally explaining how PSA grading aka "keep sending until you get a 10" works
 
ZestyGan said:
wow I'm totally positive this won't greatly effect how normies view the tcg as a whole and cause another surge in scalping and overpricing
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Scalping is/was caused by supply and demand issues that started during the pandemic, like all TCGs. It's not just Pokemon, it's sports cards and Magic too.

The narrative that it's all Logan Paul's fault comes from people who couldn't see the larger picture during the pandemic and pinned it on a notable face in an attempt to come up with an explanation for what was happening. I was honestly annoyed of that narrative because it's just so basic and lacks nuance. The people who presented that narrative also failed to mention the pandemic issues that the TCG companies themselves acknowledged.

I'm sure Paul is causing some of the negative hype with his whole "bling bling Chingling," but it's not a crime to show off your love for Pokemon. Just check out all the financial collectors on Instagram before the pandemic started -- people like Paul have always been part of this hobby. Yes, Paul's hyping will bring in some people who are here for the wrong reasons, but in the long run there's going to be a lot more fans who find a new love for Pokemon and stick around to make our community better.
 
Water Pokémon Master said:
Scalping is/was caused by supply and demand issues that started during the pandemic, like all TCGs. It's not just Pokemon, it's sports cards and Magic too.

The narrative that it's all Logan Paul's fault comes from people who couldn't see the larger picture during the pandemic and pinned it on a notable face in an attempt to come up with an explanation for what was happening. I was honestly annoyed of that narrative because it's just so basic and lacks nuance. The people who presented that narrative also failed to mention the pandemic issues that the TCG companies themselves acknowledged.

I'm sure Paul is causing some of the negative hype with his whole "bling bling Chingling," but it's not a crime to show off your love for Pokemon. Just check out all the financial collectors on Instagram before the pandemic started -- people like Paul have always been part of this hobby. Yes, Paul's hyping will bring in some people who are here for the wrong reasons, but in the long run there's going to be a lot more fans who find a new love for Pokemon and stick around to make our community better.
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Honestly it was mostly the pandemic because people were losing jobs, and show logan paul's videos and other ill-informed news outlets about Pokemon and other TCGs. So it was a domino effect. People started hating paul after that one ill-informed video on youtube.
 
Water Pokémon Master said:
Scalping is/was caused by supply and demand issues that started during the pandemic, like all TCGs. It's not just Pokemon, it's sports cards and Magic too.

The narrative that it's all Logan Paul's fault comes from people who couldn't see the larger picture during the pandemic and pinned it on a notable face in an attempt to come up with an explanation for what was happening. I was honestly annoyed of that narrative because it's just so basic and lacks nuance. The people who presented that narrative also failed to mention the pandemic issues that the TCG companies themselves acknowledged.

I'm sure Paul is causing some of the negative hype with his whole "bling bling Chingling," but it's not a crime to show off your love for Pokemon. Just check out all the financial collectors on Instagram before the pandemic started -- people like Paul have always been part of this hobby. Yes, Paul's hyping will bring in some people who are here for the wrong reasons, but in the long run there's going to be a lot more fans who find a new love for Pokemon and stick around to make our community better.
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Or maybe it's just that people hate it when a putz like this get a spotlight. I don't think this guy is doing anything special to make people aware that Pokemon exists. Anyone with a leaning toward this type of thing is already well aware. His negative vibe is not helpful.
 
Artifactor said:
In all honesty is "rich person spends a lot of money on a thing" worthy of actually being a Guinness World Record?
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It's a reminder that Guinness isn't a serious organization, but an "event organization" - you send them a wad of cash and they'll certify your "world record" in anything, they can even invent an easy world record for you to beat, they do it for genocidal regimes all the time.
 
Water Pokémon Master said:
Scalping is/was caused by supply and demand issues that started during the pandemic, like all TCGs. It's not just Pokemon, it's sports cards and Magic too.

The narrative that it's all Logan Paul's fault comes from people who couldn't see the larger picture during the pandemic and pinned it on a notable face in an attempt to come up with an explanation for what was happening. I was honestly annoyed of that narrative because it's just so basic and lacks nuance. The people who presented that narrative also failed to mention the pandemic issues that the TCG companies themselves acknowledged.

I'm sure Paul is causing some of the negative hype with his whole "bling bling Chingling," but it's not a crime to show off your love for Pokemon. Just check out all the financial collectors on Instagram before the pandemic started -- people like Paul have always been part of this hobby. Yes, Paul's hyping will bring in some people who are here for the wrong reasons, but in the long run there's going to be a lot more fans who find a new love for Pokemon and stick around to make our community better.
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It was clearly both but Pokemon was even worse off than other TCGs. It's not a coincide there's multiple video essays on how bad 2020 was for the PTCG and, as far as I'm aware, none for magic or yugioh. Call me crazy for pinning it on the dude who directly ruined the prices of every old le epic charizard...
 
Oh good sweet LORD, he went and put it the damn thing on a gaudy bling chain to show it off at his “wrestling” matches. If that thing gets damaged during those fixed shows I think the fandom’s rage would be enough to flash-fry that cocky-yet-completely-bald rooster from orbit.
Water Pokémon Master said:
Scalping is/was caused by supply and demand issues that started during the pandemic, like all TCGs. It's not just Pokemon, it's sports cards and Magic too
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It isn’t just scaping that’s is/was an issue, but retailers’ inability to keep the products stocked even with product limits put in place. An X-amount-of-items-per-person-per-day limit is a good start, but when you don’t put limits on certain products (who in their right mind is buying 5 ETBs from a Target store) then you run the risk of keeping shelves bare for weeks (if not months) at a time and that’s not exactly a good look for said stores. You know those Eternatus VMAX Premium Collection boxes? I remember seeing those shelf-warm at my local Targets for a while when they dropped in Early September 2020, but come Late September 2020 and it suddenly became very, very hard to find ANY sort of TCG product in stores.
Water Pokémon Master said:
The narrative that it's all Logan Paul's fault comes from people who couldn't see the larger picture during the pandemic and pinned it on a notable face in an attempt to come up with an explanation for what was happening. I was honestly annoyed of that narrative because it's just so basic and lacks nuance. The people who presented that narrative also failed to mention the pandemic issues that the TCG companies themselves acknowledged.
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It’s been said elsewhere (and probably here too) but the guy’s a useful idiot to anyone savvy enough to rub his ego the right way. How else could he be fooled into buying a fake 1st Edition Base Set booster case when everyone in the PTCG community told him to not risk it by buying it?
Water Pokémon Master said:
I'm sure Paul is causing some of the negative hype with his whole "bling bling Chingling," but it's not a crime to show off your love for Pokemon. Just check out all the financial collectors on Instagram before the pandemic started -- people like Paul have always been part of this hobby. Yes, Paul's hyping will bring in some people who are here for the wrong reasons, but in the long run there's going to be a lot more fans who find a new love for Pokemon and stick around to make our community better.
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I don’t know… pre-pandemic times had things like tournament results, post-tournament articles, prerelease hype, and other non-collector things take center stage for most of the PTCG. But come pandemic times and the collector scene zarking explodes with no possible end in sight unless TPCi prints modern sets into the ground.

And while I used to have some respect for the collector section of the TCG fandom, the incredibly disturbing shift from simple collecting to more investment-laden and monetary-value-obssessed collectors has made me lose it in an instant and swap it for pure hatred.
 
Jesus some of y'all have negative friends or social skills. Before Logan it was "hurRRRRRRRR whY aM I mOckEd fOR lIkiNg pOkemOn duMb nORmiES!!!!" now a dude helped push the card-collecting part of Pokemon into being cool and suddenly he's responsible for all scalping and everything bad in society to ever occur.

By all accounts he loves the hobby and simply has money. I've seen a lot of people, both young and older, enter my LGS and have a blast buying product since the printers have finally gotten back to speed. If it's because of Logan Paul, then I thank him for making a bigger community that lets more people enjoy a pretty cool hobby. Get off your high horse and touch grass instead of screeching whenever the man expresses his love for the game.
 
HershelLayton said:
Jesus some of y'all have negative friends or social skills. Before Logan it was "hurRRRRRRRR whY aM I mOckEd fOR lIkiNg pOkemOn duMb nORmiES!!!!" now a dude helped push the card-collecting part of Pokemon into being cool and suddenly he's responsible for all scalping and everything bad in society to ever occur.

By all accounts he loves the hobby and simply has money. I've seen a lot of people, both young and older, enter my LGS and have a blast buying product since the printers have finally gotten back to speed. If it's because of Logan Paul, then I thank him for making a bigger community that lets more people enjoy a pretty cool hobby. Get off your high horse and touch grass instead of screeching whenever the man expresses his love for the game.
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He didn't "push the card collecting part of Pokemon" he over inflated the value of 1st edition Charizard of the time (And it's not just him, a lot of Poketubers over exaggerate the value of their older cards). Older players and scalpers saw it as a get rich scheme and over valued their cards and scalped sets with Charizard until that dried up and they resorted to anything Pokemon.

I won't say he didn't re-ignite interest into newer players but you're fooling yourself if you don't believe he did more harm than good.
 
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WWE matches are staged
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I laugh when someone mentions this, always knowing someone who thought WWE matches were real would be as confused as a kid finding out *something that has to do with Christmas, won't spoil it for anyone*.
 
I mean, sure, there are discussions to be had about Logan's persona, about the hobby, money, whatever. But let's be honest here, 90% of the hate directed at the guy, however coated in elaborate texts and arguments, it's just a visceral, bitter jealousness at the dude's money and success. It just seeps through the righteous rhetoric's cracks.
 
Diego Lima said:
I mean, sure, there are discussions to be had about Logan's persona, about the hobby, money, whatever. But let's be honest here, 90% of the hate directed at the guy, however coated in elaborate texts and arguments, it's just a visceral, bitter jealousness at the dude's money and success. It just seeps through the righteous rhetoric's cracks.
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I disagree, it's not about ones money or success, it's the impact they have. When a man spends $5,000,000 usd on a single card, it sends a signal that there is big money to be made in Pokemon. People who have money then spend it on Pokemon as an investment rather than a competitive or collective hobby. This spending in turn reduces overall product which increases the prices. Suddenly, it's more expensive to enjoy a once moderately priced hobby. No longer can I go to a store and hope they have what I want, I now need to pre-order everything many months in advanced to hopefully get ahold of the product I want. I don't believe the problems we are facing are entirely LP, but at the very least he is a part of it. And he genuinely pulls stunts that otherwise add to this (seriously, remember the hype over his 1st edition sealed case, realise that he not only hyped it up, but MADE money of a fake product (view money + full refund)). Does he like Pokemon? Sure. Does he do everything he does to make money? Most definitely. I just wish it didn't roll onto the rest of us. I just wanna go back to enjoying my hobby without it completely breaking my bank, which is a lot easier when I can get what I want; and, when I get it, it is at MSRP.
 
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