Two Pokémon cards cleared $3 million in the same auction this week. Goldin's 2026 Pokémon 30th Anniversary Auction closed in extended bidding on the night of Sunday, October 25, and its top two lots now sit among the biggest public Pokémon results on record. The week's top sports card came from Heritage: a restored T206 Honus Wagner that sold for almost exactly what it brought last time. Prices include buyer's premium. Signals, not appraisals.
1 — 2015 Pokémon Japanese XY Promo Art Academy Mudkip (Daisuke Ochiai), PSA 10: $4,880,000
$4,880,000 ($4,000,000 winning bid, 73 bids), closed Monday, October 26 at 12:56 AM CDT after extended bidding, per Goldin's lot page. The slab reads 2015 P.M. JPN. XY Promo #XY-P Mudkip, Art Academy–Daisuke Ochiai, PSA GEM MT 10, cert 176246498. Goldin lists a PSA 10 population of three. Auction Report ranked it the auction's No. 1 lot.
Goldin's description says the card was one of 10 winners of the first Art Academy promotion, and each winning artist received 100 copies. A month ago, a PSA 10 of the same card sold for $3,720,000 at Fanatics Collect's September Premier Auction, per SI Collectibles. We could not confirm whether it's the same copy.
AOM signal: Two public PSA 10 results in a month, $3.72M and then $4.88M, on a pop-3 card. That's a rising tape on very thin supply, not a price for the card. Our Art Academy Record Board lines up every sale we can source.
2 — 1997 Pokémon Japanese Promo Gold 1st Place Trophy Pikachu (1st Tournament), PSA 8: $3,080,500
$3,080,500 ($2,525,000 winning bid, 32 bids), closed Sunday, October 25 at 9:30 PM CDT, per Goldin's lot page. Slab: 1997 P.M. Japanese Promo #1, Trophy Pikachu, Gold 1st-1st Tournament, PSA NM-MT 8, cert 110375850.
Goldin says this is one of eight copies in PSA's census and that the card went to a first-place winner at the first official Pokémon TCG tournament, held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan, in June 1997. In May, Goldin sold a 1998 Bronze 3rd Place Trophy Pikachu in PSA 10 for $1,769,000, which Star City Games called the top public sale for any Trophy Pikachu at the time. This PSA 8 Gold beat it by more than $1.3 million.
AOM signal: For tournament prizes, the event and the placing can matter more than the grade. A PSA 8 of the 1997 Gold outsold the only PSA 10 of the 1998 Bronze. New to these? Start with Trophy Pikachu, explained.
3 — 1909-11 T206 Sweet Caporal 150/25 Honus Wagner, PSA Authentic (Restored): $1,982,500
$1,982,500, per Sports Collectors Daily, in Session 1 of Heritage's Fall Sports Catalog Auction. Heritage's lot page (Lot #80145) confirms the card and shows it sold on October 23, 2026; Heritage shows the price only to signed-in users, so the figure here is SCD's. SCD reports the card is encapsulated by PSA as Authentic with a restoration designation for added color and border trimming.
The price history is the story. SCD says this same card has sold three times since September 2023: $1,968,000 that month, $1.98 million in April of last year, and now $1,982,500.
AOM signal: Three sales within about $15,000 of each other over three years gives this card a stable band. A "Restored" qualifier makes it a different asset from an unaltered low-grade Wagner, so read the whole label before you compare prices.
Also this week
- More from Goldin's 30th Anniversary sale (prices per Auction Report): Art Academy Sableye and Gourgeist, both PSA 10, at $976,000 each (we confirmed both on Goldin's lot pages); 2007 POP Series 5 Gold Star Umbreon PSA 10 at $738,100; 2004 EX Team Rocket Returns Gold Star Mudkip PSA 10 at $610,000; and a 1996 Japanese Base no-rarity-symbol Mewtwo PSA 10 at $603,900.
- A Gold Star check: that $610,000 Gold Star Mudkip PSA 10 is well below the $1,020,000 a PSA 10 brought at Fanatics in September, per SI Collectibles. Same card and grade, different copy and venue, a $410,000 gap. That's why one sale is never a floor.
- Heritage's Mantle records: a 1960 Topps #350 Mickey Mantle PSA 9 sold for $329,400, more than five times the prior record of $64,102.80, per SCD.
- A UK attic hoard: 42 complete Pokémon master sets sold for a reported £1.56 million at Ewbank's on October 21 against a £250,000 estimate, per the Farnham Herald, which also cites a £1.2 million hammer total. That's a whole collection, not a single card, so it isn't ranked here.
Find Similar at Upcoming Sales
- Goldin TCG auctions and results
- Heritage Auctions weekly sports auctions
- Auction Report's 2026 auction schedule
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Keep Exploring
- Trophy Pikachu, explained
- Art Academy Record Board
- Pokémon terminal
- PSA Verify: check a cert before you buy
- Gem Hunter map
Signal, not an appraisal. Figures from Goldin's lot pages (buyer's premium included), Heritage's lot page, Sports Collectors Daily, Auction Report, SI Collectibles, Star City Games and the Farnham Herald, as linked; verify live before buying or selling.
