A single Pokémon card from 1997 is sitting at $2,425,000 and bidding has not reached the live stage yet. The card is the 1997 Pokémon Japanese Promo Gold First Place First Tournament #1 Trophy Pikachu, graded PSA 8, and it is one of just eight copies of the card recorded in the PSA census. It headlines Goldin's 2026 Pokémon 30th Anniversary auction, and pre bidding alone has already pushed it past the record price for any Trophy Pikachu.
One tournament, one winner, one card
The card was never sold in a store and never came out of a pack. It was awarded to the winner of the first official Pokémon TCG tournament, held at Makuhari Messe Event Hall in Chiba, Japan in June 1997. The runners up received Silver and Bronze versions. The design returned for later tournaments in 1998, which is why Bronze and Silver copies surface from time to time, but a Gold First Place card from that very first tournament is one of just eight copies recorded in the PSA census.
The record fell during pre bidding
On October 14 the lot stood at $2,425,000 after 31 bids, and that figure is before the buyer premium. With the 22 percent premium added, the all in price is $2,958,500. The previous Trophy Pikachu record was $1,769,000 including premium, paid in May 2026 at Goldin for a 1998 Bronze Third Place card graded PSA 10. Read that again slowly. A PSA 8 has beaten a PSA 10 from the same trophy family by roughly 67 percent on hammer price, because on a card this scarce the grade stops mattering. There is no cleaner copy to wait for.
Why this matters beyond one auction
Trophy cards sit at the very top of the vintage market, and when the top moves, everything underneath it gets repriced. The same Goldin auction carries a BGS Pristine 10 Skyridge Gengar, a sealed 2005 EX Deoxys booster box, and PSA 10 Black Star promos of Eevee and Venusaur, all drawing strong early bids of their own. A result this big also pulls fresh money and fresh attention into vintage Pokémon right in the middle of the 30th Celebration year, when modern product is already flying off shelves.
What to watch
The auction runs through October 25, and the closing stretch with extended bidding is where trophy lots usually find their real number. Whatever it lands at becomes the new benchmark for every tournament promo in the census. If a Bronze card could hold the record at $1.769 million, the ceiling for the rarest Japanese promos just moved, and every collector holding vintage grails will be watching this one on closing night.