A Pokemon promo card that never touched a store shelf fetched $8.4 million, all thanks to a fan’s contest entry.
The sale landed days after resellers moaned that the Pokemon 30th anniversary set pays out too little, so a hobby fretting over margins got a rude jolt. Only 100 copies of this 2015 card exist, so one surfacing always turns heads and it’s safe to say Sunday’s bidders went further.
Raincoat Pikachu card sells for $8.4 million at auction
Sold on Sept. 28, the PSA 10 Gem Mint 2015 Pokemon Japanese XY Promo Art Academy Fujishima Pikachu drew 64 bids and closed at $8.4 million with Fanatics’ 20% buyer’s premium included, according to Men’s Journal.
Collectors call it Raincoat Pikachu, since the artwork shows the mascot under an umbrella in a red slicker. Two things help explain the price: the top PSA 10 grade on the lot, and the fact that the card was never sold in stores, which left collectors chasing a slab that no shop ever stocked.
Artist Y. Fujishima won the Dress-Up Pikachu category of a global contest built around the 3DS game Pokemon Art Academy, where his design stood out among thousands of entries, and his prize was 100 officially printed copies of it.
Prices sat in the low five figures until recently, because PSA 10 examples sold at Fanatics Collect for $12,600 in July 2024 and $19,200 in June 2025. That makes this week’s price roughly 440 times the latter, and the card spent about a decade waiting for its moment.
The numbers make it clear Pikachu isn’t some small fry in this market, but if that wasn’t proof enough, there are even more extraordinary sales with Ash’s sidekick that took place last week. A 2002 Legendary Collection reverse holo, worth $510 in December 2017 and $264,000 as recently as June, sold for $780,000, while a 2006 Holon Phantoms Gold Star copy fetched $480,000 after going for $148,800 at Goldin in February, both PSA 10s.
Even so, the Raincoat sale sits well short of the record, which Logan Paul set when his Pikachu Illustrator sold for $16.4 million in February, although a fan’s contest prize now belongs in the same conversation.
I’m Abhishek Sharma, an author at TigerJek.com. I enjoy exploring games, testing different strategies, and turning what I learn into clear, useful guides. My goal is to help players understand the game better and improve without the usual confusion.
