DALLAS, TX.- A First Edition Base Set Charizard certified as a Gem Mint 10 by PSA realized a price of $550,000 with buyer’s premium, beating out the pandemic-era record for the highest price paid for this card at a public auction and leading Heritage Auctions’ Dec. 12–13 Trading Card Games Signature® Auction to an event total of $5,279,820 — the all-time high total for a trading card games auction, handily topping the previous record of $4.01 million set in 2021 by Heritage.
The success of the event is evidence prices are back up to — and even beyond — the heights they reached during the trading card games hobby’s Covid boom, says Heritage Auctions Trading Card Games Consignment Director Jesus Garcia.
“It’s really nice to see that we’ve had a big rebound in prices and that they’re this much higher,” Garcia says. “We’ve seen a lot of new buyers come into the market at levels we haven’t seen since Covid.”
Widely considered a fan-favorite even over the franchise mascot, Pikachu, Charizard’s popularity has only grown since he was featured on the cover of Pocket Monsters: Red, one of two versions of the first released games in Japan. This copy of what Garcia calls “arguably the most sought-after Pokémon card” is one of only 125 certified as a Gem Mint 10 by PSA.
A Pokémon VS Tropical Mega Battle Complete English Deck is one of eight English language decks awarded to participants in the 2001 and 2002 Tropical Mega Battle events. Cards from these decks are difficult to find, and complete decks are especially rare. It commanded $275,000 on Dec. 12.
Decks awarded to players in those Tropical Mega Battle events were printed in the players’ respective languages, which resulted in just a single deck printed in French. That lone French-language copy of the Tropical Mega Battle deck realized $175,000.
Pikachu No. 1, 2 and 3 Trainer cards, with fewer than 10 of each in any condition listed on the PSA census, are also considered “grails,” Garcia says, and their prices reflected the immense desirability. A 1998 Gold No. 1 Trainer sold for $450,000, making it the second-biggest lot of the event, and a 1997 trio — a Gold No. 1 Trainer, a Silver No. 2 and a Bronze No. 3 — finished at $237,500, $275,000 and $225,000, respectively.
Another Pokémon highlight of the two-day event was the sale of a Pokémon Unlimited Base Set Uncut Sheet (Wizards of the Coast, 1999) Rare, Holo, with a total of 110 uncut cards, for $106,250.
“The Pokémon market is really hot, the highest it’s ever been, far outpacing most of the record sales we saw during the Covid boom,” Garcia says. “Even though a lot of people consider it to be a bubble, this is very different from what saw in the Covid years. There’s a large number of new people getting into the market, and prices are at all-time highs. I’m excited for 2026 to see how far the market can go and looking forward to more highlights.”
Other notable lots from the Dec. 12–13 Trading Card Games Signature® Auction include, to name a few:
• A Magic: The Gathering Black Lotus from the Alpha Edition, one of two certified by CGC as NM/Mint 8, with just 23 graded higher, sold for $68,750
• A sealed booster box from the Magic: The Gathering Arabian Nights expansion set released in December 1993, containing 60 booster packs of eight cards apiece for a total of 480 untouched cards, commanded $218,750
• A Pokémon Pikachu Illustrator Unnumbered Promo CoroCoro Comics card certified as Mint 9 by CGC, one of just 39 copies distributed, realized $325,000
• A Pokémon Squirtle 007 Japanese 64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest Promo graded EX-MT 6 by PSA sold for $118,750
• A Pokémon Japanese Base Set Sealed Booster Box reached $75,000
