Rare Pokémon ties record sale at auction
A rare Pokemon card recently sold via auction on Fanatics Collects for a record-tying $180,000. The 2005 Pokemon Japanese Play Umbreon Gold Promo card, graded a BGS 9.5, hit the record mark after 44 bids, with the auction ending on November 16, 2005, according to various social media posts.
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Distribution of this card was incredibly thin. It was a card that was only given to players in Japan who scored incredibly high in a official Pokemon fan program. Only a handful of players received the special card.
This sale ties the record set almost two years ago, also on Fanatics Collect. On February 22, 2024, the auction ended after 26 bids, hitting the $180,000 mark. That card was graded a PSA GEM MT 10.
Fanatics Collect now has the both sales records for the same card, graded by two different companies, selling nearly two years apart, which is an incredibly good sign for the TCG and Pokemon market.
It's been quite the year for Pokemon and TCG. With boxes flying off the shelves and values on single and graded cards, it's no wonder there cards are tying and setting records. The highest sale of a TCG card occurred in September. On eBay, a 19998 Japanese Promo Pikachu Illustrator card, graded a PSA Mint 9, went for $4 million on September 12, 2025.
The crazy limited print run of the 1998 Illustrator cards makes it hard to check comps to see if that $4 million mark is up or down from the last sale. However, on Card Ladder, you can see that this same card graded, a PSA GEM MT 10, went for more than $5.275 million. That sale was on July 22, 2021 and the height of the COVID market spike. However, you could assume that if a GEM MT 10 of this card went to auction today it would bring it more than $5 million.
After graduating from the University of North Dakota in 2008, Cole worked as an advertising copywriter until shifting to print journalism a few years later. Managing three weekly newspapers in the Dakotas, Cole won numerous awards from the North Dakota Newspaper Association including Best of the Dakotas and, their top award, General Excellence. He returned to collecting in 2021 and has since combined his passion for writing with his love of cards. Cole also writes for the Sports Cards Nonsense newsletter and has made guest appearances on multiple sports card collecting podcasts including Sports Cards Nonsense, and the Eephus Baseball Cards Podcast. IG: coleryan411 X: @colebenz