Welcome to Rare Candy's "Spotlight On" series, where we feature the history and stories behind some of the rarest and coolest cards and collectibles.
Looking for an Illustrator of your own? Keep an eye on Rare Candy's auctions where new exciting cards and collectibles are made available every week!
To some, it’s known as the “Pikachu Illustrator,” the “Pikachu Holo Illustrator,” the “Pokémon Illustrator,” or, if we’re being technical, “ポケモンイラストレーター.” No matter what you call it, it’s the most sought-after Pokémon card of all time and the Holy Grail of the Pokémon TCG.
And for good reason, too! Fewer than four dozen Illustrators were likely ever produced, making it one of the rarest cards not just in the Pokémon TCG but in all of trading card history. To compare, there are rumored to be thousands of Magic: The Gathering’s infamously rare Black Lotus cards still in circulation! (Or, if sports are your thing, up to 200 of the now ultra-expensive Honus Wagner T206 baseball card may have been printed before it was pulled from distribution.)
The card was never released to the public in any booster packs or in-person events. You basically had to be living in Japan in 1998 to even have a chance of obtaining one when it was first released, and now mint condition copies sell for hundreds of thousands (and sometimes even millions!) of dollars. More on that later.
So what makes this card so interesting, other than how much people are willing to throw down to own one? Let's dive into the card's history, unique characteristics and some of its rise to grail status.
Where Did It Come From?
True to what the name would suggest, the Pokémon Illustrator Card was originally awarded to winners of the first ever "Pokémon Card Game Illust Artist Contest" in 1997, Japanese manga anthology CoroCoro Comic (which still publishes the “Pocket Monsters” title to this very day!) invited its readers to submit drawings of their favorite Pokémon for a chance to be featured as illustrations on actual trading cards.
Given that the magazine’s target audience is largely elementary school-aged boys, the original winning submissions are extremely adorable.
At the end of the contest, 23 illustrator cards were given out in total: 20 to “Excellence Award” winners, and another three to the “Best Award” winners. They were also featured as prizes for two more contests in 1998 — “Mewtwo's Counterattack Commemoration” and “Pikachu's Summer Vacation” in honor of that year’s Pokémon movie and accompanying short — but were only sent to eight winners for each event.
That means altogether only 39 of these elusive cards were ever officially distributed. Add to that another two Illustrator cards sold in 2017 by “pkonno2002” (thought to be Yuichi Konno, an early developer of the TCG’s ruleset) on Yahoo! Japan Auctions, and only 41 legitimate cards are believed to exist in the entire world.
What Makes It Special?
Let’s break it down. The card itself is made up to look like the Trainer cards from the original 1996 Base Set, but with one obvious difference: instead of “TRAINER,” the card reads “ILLUSTRATOR,” and it’s the only card ever published to do so.
Other one-of-a-kind features include a fountain pen symbol at the bottom right which mirrors the one Pikachu is holding in the holographic Atsuko Nishida-illustrated artwork. (Some people think it’s a paintbrush, but those markings on the top look like a fountain pen nib to us — not to mention that there’s an inkwell just underneath Pikachu’s little feet!)
If the name Atsuko Nishida sounds familiar, it’s because she’s been with Pokémon since the very beginning as a GAME FREAK character designer, creating some of the cutest, most beloved Pokémon of all time — including all three original starters (Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle) and yes, even Pikachu itself.
Nishida is also responsible for the art on the giant promo “Pikachu’s Summer Vacation” card, which appeared as an insert in the same issue of CoroCoro that announced the third (and final!) contest to award its winners with Illustrator cards. (The Electrode topper to Pikachu’s raft is an adorable, if ominous, touch.)
Now, back to that Illustrator card: in case you can’t read the Japanese text, Bulbapedia translates the caption as:
“We certify that your illustration is an excellent entry in the Pokémon Card Game Illust Contest. Therefore, we state that you are an Officially Authorized Pokémon Card Illustrator and admire your skill.”
This is essentially the real-world equivalent of the diploma you get from GAME FREAK for catching every Pokémon in the original Game Boy titles, except a hundred times cooler.
Where’s It Been Seen Lately?
Of course, odds are that if you ever get the chance to touch this card in person, there’ll be a thick plastic case protecting it from the elements (and your palm sweat). As of 2023 PSA has graded around 28 Pokémon Illustrator cards, with only 9 graded as mint condition or higher.
And boy, have those cards been selling! Starting in 2019, when a PSA 9 Pokémon Illustrator card was sold in New York for a whopping $195,000 USD, the price of these collectibles has risen exponentially regardless of grading — to $375,000 in 2021 (PSA 7), $480,000 in 2022 (PSA 8), and $570,000 in 2023 (PSA 8.5).
Of those, there’s only one card to ever achieve the perfect PSA 10 rating, and it’s also the current Guinness World Record holder for the most expensive Pokémon card ever sold in a private sale. It now belongs to YouTuber and WWE wrestler Logan Paul, who bought it in 2022 for $4 million in cash and a trade-in PSA 9 card valued at $1.25 million for a grand total of $5,275,000.
If you watched Wrestlemania 38 that year, you may have seen the card dangling from a gold chain around Paul’s neck during his entrance.
Soon after, Paul announced in a video that he would be listing the coveted card on his cryptocurrency-backed platform, Liquid Marketplace, inviting his fans to “co-own” it with him for a fraction of the price.
Looking for an Illustrator of your own? Keep an eye on Rare Candy's auctions where new exciting cards and collectibles are made available every week!
