With the 30th anniversary here, I expected renewed interest and value in the 1996 CoroCoro Pikachu and Jigglypuff promos, the very first Pokémon TCG cards ever released. While some collectors may not be fans of fat Pikachu or may overlook these promos, they are undeniably an important part of Pokémon history.
High grade copies of the Pikachu are quite rare, with PSA 8 to 10 examples seldom appearing. A PSA 8 sold in December, and aside from that, I had not seen another until this PSA 9. On closer inspection, it is clear this is not the glossy version, as the illustrator is listed as Keiji Kinebuchi rather than Ken Sugimori.
The card is mislabeled and is coming out of the PSA Vault. It is surprising that this kind of error is still happening in 2026, and it makes me curious how many similar cases might exist. I have reached out to PSA about it but have not heard back yet.
This card was graded years ago, which you can discern from the 57xxx cert number. Unfortunately, many non-glossy copies are misgraded as glossy. The owner of this copy likely knows that it is mislabeled, but is using the anonymous nature of listing through PSA Vault to get away with the sale.
PSA Vault does not monitor their messages. You can imagine how many thousands they get every minute.
I would recommend reaching out to PSA directly so that they can either deactivate the cert or contact the vault administratively. It will be a massive headache for them to offer the Grade Guarantee on this mislabeled card if it indeed sells for $12k to a less knowledgeable buyer.
By the way, I don’t think the 30th anniversary will impact these very niche promos.
