History of the Pikachu Illustrator

[jcincy101]

I remember while my mom bought groceries I would always be in the magazine aisle as a young boy in 1999 reading up as much as I could on video games and Pokémon. Clearly remember the illustrator being touted then in the magazines (Pojo and Beckett were best ones) and had the crown of the top card. So it’s always had that allure. May have not been the “rarest” in truest sense of word … but it certainly had the prestige and “I’ll never own that” feeling.

[pichufan]

@smpratte

I love how some of these posts are supposed to showcase how people were misinformed, yet they are full of misinformation. To the point of calling a publicly sold card “hearsay”. The first illustrator ever sold was for $22,000, in the year 2000. @qwachansey hit it in the head. It was an ebay auction, along with pika trophies. Remember ebay/open market for the next point.

I called it hearsay because there’s very little proof of this ever happening. There’s nothing I could find online referencing this sale until around 2008. If this was a sale which occurred in 2000, that’s 8 years of absolutely nobody mentioning it that I could find. If there’s anything you’re able to dig up before then I’d love to know about it, as otherwise it looks like something someone pulled out of thin air one day.

The way I see it is that companies like Pojo would have been all over a sale of that magnitude but their website mentions nothing about any sale like this: even their price guide which was active online from 1999 until it was last updated in 2002 mentions the 1997 No 1. 2. and 3. trainers but in terms of the Illustrator states “These cards will be added as soon as information becomes available.”

If a sale did happen, fantastic! I’d love to read more about it. But from my perspective as an outsider trawling through old internet posts: it very much feels like hearsay.

If this sale is 100% something which really existed then I totally agree with you that I am misinformed as my own searches have pulled up a whole load of nothing. Your post here is one of many I have read referencing this sale, but is also one of many I’ve read which make no attempt to reveal more information about the sale itself. Please don’t take that as me disbelieving you, I’m just someone who likes to be able to back things up with facts.

@smpratte

The copies being cherry picked that sold on yahoo japan were during a much smaller market, on restricted websites. No one mentioned how the current middle man companies and structures we have today either didn’t exist or were much more primitive. You literally had no option above 10k back then.

If this was in response to my post specifically, I’ve not done any cherry picking myself, I’ve just used data I could find from PokéGym (like this “There were only 12 given out. One sold for $10’000 on ebay!!” comment from 2008) and our very own Giant Auction Thread. If you search for Illustrator you’ll find 20+ pages of results dating back to 2014 - the first 12 pages of which cover the period between 2014 and 2017, and the only reason I stopped at 2017 is because it appears there was a lot of drama surrounding one of the 2017 sales and a lot of relevant posts have since been deleted (which made searching less fun) - that itself related to an eBay sale, not a YJA sale which I believe was the $12,500 copy.

[lowpopping]

@EnlightenedBulbasaur

I like to throw this resource out there whenever stuff comes up: Link to Master List of the Rarest Cards SpreadsheetBut yeah, there’s not much more for me to say about this that hasn’t already been said in the thread (Edit: Oops I guess I kept saying things).

I do think the Illustrator is a great example of how information spreads. With respect to the “6 copies” aspect you basically just had years and years of various people quoting news sources and news sources quoting people and passing that information along when there was never a solid source to begin with.

Even today in the hobby, you’ll see things like extremely popular YouTubers claiming that a 1st edition Charizard is “the rarest card in the world” (even though they know that isn’t true) and you’ll see that other people / news sources quote that. Misinformation spreads extremely easily.

The 39+ number actually has merit to it though, since sources like those posted above have made a convincing case for how they were 39 awarded copies… plus whatever extras there are, of course. My personal feeling is that if count the extras / file copies, it is likely that the absolute minimum number of Illustrators printed was 64 (many of the old back Japanese holo sheets were 8x8).

Another thing worth noting - there were actually 3 separate CoroCoro Illustrator contests between 1997 and 1998. Is it possible that an 8x8 sheet of Illustrators was printed for *each* of these contests? Maybe. This is just rampant speculation. We don’t know if these cards were printed on 8x8 sheets, we don’t know if they were printed multiple times. But it’s certainly possible that they were.

Now you may be saying to yourself - wait, eBulb - there’s no way *192* Illustrators were printed?! Well, 19 have been graded by PSA, and I think a couple were graded with BGS as well. If you were to tell me that 90% of all the Illustrators that were ever printed have not been graded, that would not really surprise me at all.

To understand why, consider something like the *Named* (cards printed with the actual winner’s name, so they are extremely unlikely to be extra copies) Neo Trophies. These are the trophies with the boy/girl trainers with 2-6 Pokemon behind them. If you combine all those cards from 2000-2002, there were 106 No. 1 trophies awarded, 106 No. 2 trophies awarded, and 212 No. 3 trophies awarded. So, in total that’s 424 named Neo trophies (this doesn’t count the 3 special trophies awarded in 2000 that were actually holos with the real faces of the winners).

Of those 424 named Neo trophies, how many have actually been graded by PSA? If a quick count I just did is correct (PSA really spreads them out into different lists), something like 35 of them have been graded in total by PSA. And that includes some copies which we know to be extras (we know they’re extras because they don’t have the names of the winners on them).

Long story short, we know that less than 10% of those cards have been graded. So is it really so hard to believe that the number for the Illustrator might not be something similar?

In my opinion, it is likely that there are more Illustrators and other Grail cards that have actually been printed than most people would believe.

Now having said that… it’s all relative. Even if there are 10x the number of Illustrators that people actually thought there were, then we would *still* have an incredibly small number of cards compared to the number of people who would want one. And just because a card might exist somewhere in the world doesn’t necessarily mean it will ever see the light of day.

Anyway, I suppose I’ll stop rambling.

Wow, that’s a pretty comprehensive spreadsheet, it provides so much useful information. I had a quick look at it, but I’ll have to dive in further for some more info. Thank you EB for this incredible resource.

When you say ‘extra’ or ‘file’ copies, are you referring to the same thing?

Regarding the Neo trophies, how do we know for 100% certain that extra/file copies definitely do not have the name printed on them? Wouldn’t there be named extras if they were printed in the standard 8x8 way you mentioned? Whether they were discarded or destroyed is another question though!

Your post is very educational, thank you for the great response EB. I hope all is well with you otherwise with the recent sales!

[EnlightenedBulbasaur]

@lowpopping

@EnlightenedBulbasaur

I like to throw this resource out there whenever stuff comes up: Link to Master List of the Rarest Cards SpreadsheetBut yeah, there’s not much more for me to say about this that hasn’t already been said in the thread (Edit: Oops I guess I kept saying things).

I do think the Illustrator is a great example of how information spreads. With respect to the “6 copies” aspect you basically just had years and years of various people quoting news sources and news sources quoting people and passing that information along when there was never a solid source to begin with.

Even today in the hobby, you’ll see things like extremely popular YouTubers claiming that a 1st edition Charizard is “the rarest card in the world” (even though they know that isn’t true) and you’ll see that other people / news sources quote that. Misinformation spreads extremely easily.

The 39+ number actually has merit to it though, since sources like those posted above have made a convincing case for how they were 39 awarded copies… plus whatever extras there are, of course. My personal feeling is that if count the extras / file copies, it is likely that the absolute minimum number of Illustrators printed was 64 (many of the old back Japanese holo sheets were 8x8).

Another thing worth noting - there were actually 3 separate CoroCoro Illustrator contests between 1997 and 1998. Is it possible that an 8x8 sheet of Illustrators was printed for *each* of these contests? Maybe. This is just rampant speculation. We don’t know if these cards were printed on 8x8 sheets, we don’t know if they were printed multiple times. But it’s certainly possible that they were.

Now you may be saying to yourself - wait, eBulb - there’s no way *192* Illustrators were printed?! Well, 19 have been graded by PSA, and I think a couple were graded with BGS as well. If you were to tell me that 90% of all the Illustrators that were ever printed have not been graded, that would not really surprise me at all.

To understand why, consider something like the *Named* (cards printed with the actual winner’s name, so they are extremely unlikely to be extra copies) Neo Trophies. These are the trophies with the boy/girl trainers with 2-6 Pokemon behind them. If you combine all those cards from 2000-2002, there were 106 No. 1 trophies awarded, 106 No. 2 trophies awarded, and 212 No. 3 trophies awarded. So, in total that’s 424 named Neo trophies (this doesn’t count the 3 special trophies awarded in 2000 that were actually holos with the real faces of the winners).

Of those 424 named Neo trophies, how many have actually been graded by PSA? If a quick count I just did is correct (PSA really spreads them out into different lists), something like 35 of them have been graded in total by PSA. And that includes some copies which we know to be extras (we know they’re extras because they don’t have the names of the winners on them).

Long story short, we know that less than 10% of those cards have been graded. So is it really so hard to believe that the number for the Illustrator might not be something similar?

In my opinion, it is likely that there are more Illustrators and other Grail cards that have actually been printed than most people would believe.

Now having said that… it’s all relative. Even if there are 10x the number of Illustrators that people actually thought there were, then we would *still* have an incredibly small number of cards compared to the number of people who would want one. And just because a card might exist somewhere in the world doesn’t necessarily mean it will ever see the light of day.

Anyway, I suppose I’ll stop rambling.

Wow, that’s a pretty comprehensive spreadsheet, it provides so much useful information. I had a quick look at it, but I’ll have to dive in further for some more info. Thank you EB for this incredible resource.

When you say ‘extra’ or ‘file’ copies, are you referring to the same thing?

Regarding the Neo trophies, how do we know for 100% certain that extra/file copies definitely do not have the name printed on them? Wouldn’t there be named extras if they were printed in the standard 8x8 way you mentioned? Whether they were discarded or destroyed is another question though!

Your post is very educational, thank you for the great response EB. I hope all is well with you otherwise with the recent sales!

Extra copies / File Copies are just another name for the same thing. Extra because they’re in addition to the awarded copies. File because cards like this are were meant to be saved and stored away by the company that made them, rather than circulated amongst the public.

As for the Neo trophies. All of the copies pkonno has sold (who is known for selling extra copies) have been nameless - strongly implying that none of the extra copies have names and that only the ones that were actually awarded to the winners have their names on it. There also doesn’t seem like there would be any need to make extra copies of the cards with the winner’s names on them. And as far as I’m aware we’ve never seen Neo trophies with the same winner’s name on them from the same year. So all the evidence indicates that the ones with the winner’s names on them were all awarded copies.

One thing I do want to add from my post from before - all of the No. 1/2/3 Trainer cards were awarded in trophy cases, which is something that might lead to fewer of them being professionally graded compared to the awarded Illustrators (which were all distributed in an envelope in the mail).

[chok]

@EnlightenedBulbasaur

Of those 424 named Neo trophies, how many have actually been graded by PSA? If a quick count I just did is correct (PSA really spreads them out into different lists), something like 35 of them have been graded in total by PSA. And that includes some copies which we know to be extras (we know they’re extras because they don’t have the names of the winners on them).

Long story short, we know that less than 10% of those cards have been graded. So is it really so hard to believe that the number for the Illustrator might not be something similar?

Actually this is just one specific scenario. If you look at other trophy cards like the SSB1, there has already been 9 graded, including 2 extra copies which was available in the 2019/20 period and I’ve seen 2 ungraded copies in their winner’s case. In that example, 9 out of 11 or assuming the previous 7 graded before 2018 were all winners copies, 7 out of 9 had already been graded, showing a roughly 80% graded population.

Or another newer example of Wonder Platinum, where there is 20 copies in existence. 7 has been graded by PSA while there are 3 in BGS holders, already 50% of its pop has been graded.

What I am trying to say is that using pop report to determine real release numbers is fruitless because they aren’t consistent between trophy cards.

IMO, the vast majority of people who grade cards are mainly from outside Japan. The Boy/Girl Trainers have less % graded because they have actual names on the card, which makes them more personal and being sold less. That leads to less outflow of those cards from Japan and hence less graded. Cards like Illustrators, Pikas, SSBs and TMBs will be graded almost instantly when they leave Japan because we have the mindset that grading the cards means giving them the best protection and after spending half your life savings, its the only sensible thing to do.

Also if following the pop report, there are 21 total graded Illustrators (19 PSA, 1 BGS, 1 CTA).

[EnlightenedBulbasaur]

@chok

@EnlightenedBulbasaur

Of those 424 named Neo trophies, how many have actually been graded by PSA? If a quick count I just did is correct (PSA really spreads them out into different lists), something like 35 of them have been graded in total by PSA. And that includes some copies which we know to be extras (we know they’re extras because they don’t have the names of the winners on them).

Long story short, we know that less than 10% of those cards have been graded. So is it really so hard to believe that the number for the Illustrator might not be something similar?

Actually this is just one specific scenario. If you look at other trophy cards like the SSB1, there has already been 9 graded, including 2 extra copies which was available in the 2019/20 period and I’ve seen 2 ungraded copies in their winner’s case. In that example, 9 out of 11 or assuming the previous 7 graded before 2018 were all winners copies, 7 out of 9 had already been graded, showing a roughly 80% graded population.

Or another newer example of Wonder Platinum, where there is 20 copies in existence. 7 has been graded by PSA while there are 3 in BGS holders, already 50% of its pop has been graded.

What I am trying to say is that using pop report to determine real release numbers is fruitless because they aren’t consistent between trophy cards.

IMO, the vast majority of people who grade cards are mainly from outside Japan. The Boy/Girl Trainers have less % graded because they have actual names on the card, which makes them more personal and being sold less. That leads to less outflow of those cards from Japan and hence less graded. Cards like Illustrators, Pikas, SSBs and TMBs will be graded almost instantly when they leave Japan because we have the mindset that grading the cards means giving them the best protection and after spending half your life savings, its the only sensible thing to do.

Also if following the pop report, there are 21 total graded Illustrators (19 PSA, 1 BGS, 1 CTA).

I agree with you (that you can’t really use PSA pop to determine the actual distribution of a card).

I was simply speculating on how it could be possible for there to be something like 3 sheets of Illustrators that were printed.

As I said in the post, it’s just pure speculation. We obviously have no real clue how many extra copies there might be.

[lowpopping]

@smpratte

I love how some of these posts are supposed to showcase how people were misinformed, yet they are full of misinformation. To the point of calling a publicly sold card “hearsay”. The first illustrator ever sold was for $22,000, in the year 2000. @qwachansey hit it in the head. It was an ebay auction, along with pika trophies. Remember ebay/open market for the next point.

The copies being cherry picked that sold on yahoo japan were during a much smaller market, on restricted websites. No one mentioned how the current middle man companies and structures we have today either didn’t exist or were much more primitive. You literally had no option above 10k back then.

I bought majority of the illustrators during that slow period and most were private from Japanese collectors. Not an ex employee printing extra copies. I even bought some from Japanese winners of the yahoo auctions that people love to quote. And then of course sold them on the open market and/or in the US for way more. Because they were objectively underpriced on yahoo.

Ultimately most of the data is private, as seen with the recent 900k deal that they decided to share. Therefore people are drawing their conclusions from feelings on a sliver of information.

Thank you for the insight and experience!

[lowpopping]

@qwachansey

IIRC Collector’s Cache made that first early sale, along with other ungraded trophy cards, you could reach out to their team and ask for confirmation? @pichufan . They have a graded 9 as well.

As for prices, while an oddity, the $10.5k Prerelease Raichu was the biggest *public* purchase during I want to say 2009 or 2010; a bit more than raw Illustrators at the time. This was when there was only one graded Illustrator, an 8, grading was not common place.

For the 4-6 number it was not purposeful misrepresentation. There was much less widely shared helpful info than there is now. Heck there were times in Pokémon where people requested payments to view their watermarked scans of rare cards. This was a very commonly held belief well before Scott or anyone else on PokeGym purchased an Illustrator.

Thank you for all your insight!

[lowpopping]

@EnlightenedBulbasaur

I think a big part of the reason the Illustrator was always the most expensive card is at least in part because of the misinformation that it’s the rarest card.

Regardless, it’s nitpicking, because I personally can’t see how any card other than the 97-98 Trophy Pikachus competes with it. It has the combination of insane rarity, beautiful (and original) art, holo, historical significance, and featuring popular Pokémon that only the Trophy Pikas can really compete with.

And the thing that the Illustrator has going for it compared to the Trophy Pikas is the “singularity” aspect (some people say they would need all 3 Trophy Pikas for a sense of completeness, although I felt a sense of completeness when I had just the No. 1). And the other factor the Illustrator has going for it is a wider recognition that it’s “the” card. Some would also argue that it has the most beautiful artwork on a trophy card. (Debatable of course, but I have yet to see any serious collector who didn’t think the artwork on the card is top-notch).

So don’t take my previous post to mean that I think the Illustrator was overrated. My personal feeling is that an Illustrator at $900k (or the raw Illustrator pkonno sold a few days ago for $400k) are both much better value than a PSA 10 Charizard for $350k.

Yes, I mean it does make sense regarding the beauty of the artwork, I mean it was the winner of an illustration contest!

[lowpopping]

@smpratte

@EnlightenedBulbasaur

I think a big part of the reason the Illustrator was always the most expensive card is at least in part because of the misinformation that it’s the rarest card.

Regardless, it’s nitpicking, because I personally can’t see how any card other than the 97-98 Trophy Pikachus competes with it. It has the combination of insane rarity, beautiful art, holo, historical significance, and featuring popular Pokémon that only the Trophy Pikas can really compete with.

And the thing that the Illustrator has going for it compared to the Trophy Pikas is the “singularity” aspect (some people say they would need all 3 Trophy Pikas for a sense of completeness, although I felt a sense of completeness when I had just the No. 1). And the other factor the Illustrator has going for it is a wider recognition that it’s “the” card. Some would also argue that it has the most beautiful artwork on a trophy card. (Debatable of course, but I have yet to see any serious collector who didn’t think the artwork on the card is top-notch).

So don’t take my previous post to mean that I think the Illustrator was overrated. My personal feeling is that an Illustrator at $900k (or the raw Illustrator pkonno sold a few days ago for $400k) are both much better value than a PSA 10 Charizard for $350k.

1000%

To add to your point, people thought 1997 pikas were only 2 copies in total, and that 1998’s were the same/similar rarity as the illustrator, yet they never sold for the same price. I do agree that the 97s are the closest contender to the Illustrator. Their history + rarity + art is over 9,000!

Also something I forgot to mention earlier, the worst case scenario of misunderstood rarity in the history of pokemon: Birthday Pikachu. Birthday Pikachu was thought to be hundreds of copies, when it reality it is thousands and thousands of copies. Yet today the price is higher than when people thought it was one of the rarest cards.

Interesting, the history is fascinating! Thank you for sharing!

[lowpopping]

@pichufan

@smpratte

I love how some of these posts are supposed to showcase how people were misinformed, yet they are full of misinformation. To the point of calling a publicly sold card “hearsay”. The first illustrator ever sold was for $22,000, in the year 2000. @qwachansey hit it in the head. It was an ebay auction, along with pika trophies. Remember ebay/open market for the next point.

I called it hearsay because there’s very little proof of this ever happening. There’s nothing I could find online referencing this sale until around 2008. If this was a sale which occurred in 2000, that’s 8 years of absolutely nobody mentioning it that I could find. If there’s anything you’re able to dig up before then I’d love to know about it, as otherwise it looks like something someone pulled out of thin air one day.

The way I see it is that companies like Pojo would have been all over a sale of that magnitude but their website mentions nothing about any sale like this: even their price guide which was active online from 1999 until it was last updated in 2002 mentions the 1997 No 1. 2. and 3. trainers but in terms of the Illustrator states “These cards will be added as soon as information becomes available.”

If a sale did happen, fantastic! I’d love to read more about it. But from my perspective as an outsider trawling through old internet posts: it very much feels like hearsay.

If this sale is 100% something which really existed then I totally agree with you that I am misinformed as my own searches have pulled up a whole load of nothing. Your post here is one of many I have read referencing this sale, but is also one of many I’ve read which make no attempt to reveal more information about the sale itself. Please don’t take that as me disbelieving you, I’m just someone who likes to be able to back things up with facts.

@smpratte

The copies being cherry picked that sold on yahoo japan were during a much smaller market, on restricted websites. No one mentioned how the current middle man companies and structures we have today either didn’t exist or were much more primitive. You literally had no option above 10k back then.

If this was in response to my post specifically, I’ve not done any cherry picking myself, I’ve just used data I could find from PokéGym (like this “There were only 12 given out. One sold for $10’000 on ebay!!” comment from 2008) and our very own Giant Auction Thread. If you search for Illustrator you’ll find 20+ pages of results dating back to 2014 - the first 12 pages of which cover the period between 2014 and 2017, and the only reason I stopped at 2017 is because it appears there was a lot of drama surrounding one of the 2017 sales and a lot of relevant posts have since been deleted (which made searching less fun) - that itself related to an eBay sale, not a YJA sale which I believe was the $12,500 copy.

Thank you for providing all the information you have and doing the research you did on this topic!

[lowpopping]

@anon83099482

In terms of where the numbers came from, the 4 was first assumed because the Illustrator was linked to the design contest for the Vending Series. That contest had four winners who had designs make it to the Vending Series so it was assumed that they were the ones who got the Illustrator.

Interesting, thank you for providing all this historical information!

[lowpopping]

@jcincy101

I remember while my mom bought groceries I would always be in the magazine aisle as a young boy in 1999 reading up as much as I could on video games and Pokémon. Clearly remember the illustrator being touted then in the magazines (Pojo and Beckett were best ones) and had the crown of the top card. So it’s always had that allure. May have not been the “rarest” in truest sense of word … but it certainly had the prestige and “I’ll never own that” feeling.

Very interesting, even back in 1999 it was being touted in the magazines!

[lowpopping]

I think I have all the answers I was looking for. I was not familiar with the concept of extra copies, but this answers the majority of the questions I had when first posting.

Regarding the price history, as somebody who has only reentered the hobby for one year, the only things I can look at are things like PSA data which can extend until 2016. Sure there may be a forum post on particular cards but I don’t have that 20-year history of price relativity between all chase cards in my head as some long term collectors may have.

I too like to rely on concrete data provided only, when making judgements but there are circumstances where there is no public data provided such as in the context of private sales.

If no public data is provided prior a certain time period or on certain cards then the only way I can be in the knowhow is by asking others. So I would like to thank everybody for their vast knowledge and experience on educating me on this topic.