This clearly makes it an incredibly rare, even unique, object. The Illustrator Pikachu card falls into this category – it was given away as a prize for an Pokemon Illustration competition in 1998, only around 40 were ever produced, and the one that Logan Paul purchased is the only one in existence that has been rated a perfect “10” by the PSA, an organization that rates the condition of trading cards. While most cards can be found in packs or premade decks, certain cards are given away at special events, such as tournaments or conventions, or to particular individuals, such as employees of the company. In addition, not all trading cards are released in the same way. This is part of the reason why older cards tend to be the most expensive – many of the cards that were originally printed have since been lost, damaged, or destroyed.

The longer a particular card has been out of print, the harder it becomes to obtain it, which can cause the price to go up. If demand for the cards is high enough, this process can even be expedited by scalpers who buy up the cards as soon as possible to restrict the supply, then sell them back at higher prices. Eventually the supply of new packs in the primary market begins to dry up, and as it becomes more difficult, and eventually impossible, to find the cards you need on the primary market, their prices on the secondary market begins to go up. However, due to the cyclical nature of most trading card games, with regular releases of new expansions, this phase doesn’t last forever. Of course, this isn’t taking into account foil, alternative art, or other special versions of a particular card that can make it even more rare and boost up the price. However, this isn’t taking into account the value of all of the other cards you are getting when you open those packs, so in reality recently released cards tend to rise to only a fraction of this value, rarely cracking $100. The exact value of this ceiling varies from game to game, but for Magic: The Gathering it’s around $400, because you need to open an average of around 100 packs to find a given mythic rare card, and each pack is around $4. Under normal circumstances, the primary market creates a ceiling on how expensive a particular card can be – if the price goes too high, it becomes cheaper to simply buy packs until you open the card you are looking for, rather than buying it individually. The first thing to understand about the TCG market is that it’s actually two separate markets – the primary market, which consists of customers receiving the cards for the first time by buying packs, booster boxes, and sealed deck products, and the secondary market made up of hobby stores, online retailers and auction sites selling individual cards. In order for a card’s value to increase there either needs to be higher than average demand, lower than average supply or, often, both at the same time.įirst, let’s look at the supply side. If nobody wants a particular card, then it’s basically worthless – you can find boxes of individual trading cards at pretty much every hobby game store around the country selling cards for a quarter, a dime, or even a penny a piece.

This simple principle means that the price of something depends on how many people want the thing, and how many of the thing is available. But what in the world could make a simple piece of printed cardboard worth such an insane amount of money? Let’s find out!Īt its core, the price of pretty much anything comes down to supply and demand. This is the most expensive Pokemon card ever sold, and among the most expensive trading cards in history. In July 2021, Youtube Logan Paul spend nearly $5.3 million on an extremely rare Pikachu Illustrator Pokemon card.

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