Pikachu Pokémon card to sell for £250,000 at auction – do you have an ultra rare one in your collection?

One of the rarest Pokémon cards will sell for up to €300,000 (£251,700) at auction later this month.

The card, a Pokémon Illustrator, holds the record for the most expensive single card since YouTube star Logan Paul bought one for $5.2 million (£3.97 million) in April 2022.

Only 39 Pokémon Illustrator versions were made, and now French auctioneers Aguttes are auctioning off one of the rare cards.

Pokémon cards are used to play a game in which fantastical creatures battle each other and can be bought, sold and traded and have seen a huge resurgence of interest in recent years.

The Pokémon Trading Card Game, to give its full title, has been around since 1996 and cards are still being made today.

Many investors are flocking to Pokémon as an alternative asset class, attracted by the cards’ rising value and limited supply.

Pokémon Illustrator, classified as a public service announcement, is expected to sell for between £125,000 and £251,000.

The card will be sold in lot 175 of the auctions that will begin on October 15.

The card was designed by artist Atsuko Nishida, who helped create the Pikachu character for the Game Boy video games.

The Pokémon Illustrator was originally created as a prize for the first and second place winners in a CoroCoro Comics drawing contest in January 1998.

The first Pokémon Illustrators batch had 23 cards, and in subsequent art contests another 16 were given out.

Aguttes trading card expert Francois Thierry said: ‘This card is a real trophy, a must-have for the biggest Pokémon enthusiasts. Owning this item places them among the most unique collections in the world.

How to know if your Pokémon card is valuable

There are likely hundreds of thousands of Pokémon cards in the UK, many of which are languishing in hidden boxes.

However, individual Pokémon cards are likely to be worth only a few pence or sometimes a few pounds, especially if they have been played with.

But sealed packs of Pokémon cards, and some rare individual cards, command high prices, and for serious investors, this is where the money is.

The best case scenario for a casual Pokémon collector is to get a few hundred pounds for a rare card in good condition.

That price can increase into the thousands if they have the card professionally examined and graded.

To get a rough idea of ​​whether your old Pokémon cards might be valuable, look at the bottom of each card.

The symbols printed at the bottom indicate how rare a card is.

A circle is common, a diamond is rare, a star is rare, and a white or gold star is ultra-rare. Holographic and first edition cards are also often worth more than standard cards.

The rarity of a card and the condition it is in also affect its value.

Anyone who wants to know how much a Pokémon card is worth can check selling prices on auction websites like eBay.

Alternatively, the TCGplayer app allows users to get prices by uploading photos of their cards.

Do you have a Pokémon or trading card collection that you’d like our resident expert Dan Hatfield to appraise? Email: editor@thisismoney.co.uk with details and subject ‘Modern Treasure’