I’m glad you don’t have any regrets. Hypothetically can you trade your 1998 Pika Set for an Illustrator of equal condition?
I think you’ve made the right decision! Value/condition aside, I would prefer a Pokémon Illustrator over a single trophy, but I most definitely prefer a set of three 1997/1998 trophies over a single Pokémon Illustrator.
Greetz,
Quuador
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Before I knew anything about the Pokemon hobby or TCG, I knew about the illustrator. When I told some of my other collector friends I was getting into Pokemon, I was asked several times “did you buy an illustrator yet”? It’s been out there for years as the most visible “expensive” card in the hobby. I personally would bet that nothing takes it’s crown. So many valid points raised on both sides but at the end of the day the card has cache and status. Unless a fiasco like the gold star dogs (which still sell for prices they “shouldn’t”) or something similar happens I’m not sure what would be able to take it’s place. People like to place value on an “uber” thing. Just like 1st ed base charizard or the black lotus in magic, both of which you could make many of the same arguments for or against
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I don‘t know… but of all the collectors I know who own a complete pika set, none of them would trade it for an illustrator.
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I like the artwork of the Illustrator card and as far as trophies come it’s one of the most attractive, especially pre-2000.
However I think the reason for its popularity is because of a lack of understanding or perhaps a collective ignorance about the card’s total print number. Back in 2013 a lot of people would have argued that only 6 were printed and as late as 2017 you find people firmly believing 12 was the actual number. It’s now widely understood that 39 is the correct number based on the accessibility of the information we now have today. A lot of people still make the claim that Illustrator is “the rarest Pokémon card”.
Whist I certainly can’t predict a future which didn’t happen, I definitely believe that had the 39 figure been more widely accepted and publicised 10-15 years ago we wouldn’t be seeing such high values today and we’d likely be seeing one of (if not all of) the 1997/8 Pikachu trophies holding a higher value.
My opinion would be:
Is it overrated in terms of its eye appeal? No, not at all, it’s a beautiful card.
Is it overrated in terms of perceived rarity? Yes, I believe it still is.
Is it overrated in terms of value? Yes, again.
This is not to say I don’t believe it should be a $300k card, but rather I don’t think it would be outperforming other rarer trophies were it not for past confusion.
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I feel like I’ve read these same arguments multiple times across different threads. And they just aren’t very convincing.
The literal rarity (ie. Number of copies) is not that important. People dont value things simply because they exist in extremely low quantity. I posted the Cock-Of-The-Rock on the previous page and it is not more desirable than the illustrator despite it being lower pop. I could sketch a picture of a bunny and mark it 1/1 and it would not touch an illustrator. There are many pokemon cards that have had less copies made available than the illustrator and they still sell for less.
The term “rare” has multiple meanings. Yes, it always means a limited quantity but more importantly it implies some sort of value or exceptional appeal. This is why it’s so common to hear that “1st edition charizord is the rarest base set card” despite it having roughly equivalent print numbers to any other holo in the set. But what this statement is trying to communicate is that, yes the card is hard to come by, but more importantly it has an underlying appeal and quality that makes it more desirable than all the other base set holos.
In the same sense, colloquially the illustrator is the rarest pokemon card in that it is both extremely limited and, for whatever reason you want to argue, is recognized to have an appeal that transcends any other card. Even if another card is rarer purely by quantity, it doesn’t matter. In the same way the Mona Lisa is not the most well-painted piece of all time and Honus Wagner is not the #1 baseball player.
Anyone is free to have their own personal thoughts on the card. But to reject its status as being generally recognized as the “rarest” pokemon card… that’s not something one individual gets to determine.
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I dont want to argue semantics. You can disagree with how both merriam and myself have defined “rare” but either way the main point you’re making here is the same one I was getting at
But what is the 3rd best Pokemon card?
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My point above isn’t trying to tie rarity to value but rather to tie people’s perceptions of the card’s status in the hobby as it being “the rarest” to value. If a collective mindset believes something to be the rarest it’s going to attract attention from it having that status. My point above wasn’t an “it shouldn’t have value because it isn’t as rare as X” but rather “it gained its value from people believing it was the rarest”.
As just one of many, many examples, Business Insider in 2019 made the claim that “Pikachu Illustrator is considered the rarest Pokémon card in existence” (www.businessinsider.com/rare-pokemon-card-pokemon-illustrator-sells-for-195000-2019-10).
If I search on Google for “what is the rarest Pokémon card”, the top result I see is a ZenMarket article with the title “Pikachu Illustrator card” and a synopsis of “The Pikachu Illustrator card is by far the rarest card in circulation, making it the Holy Grail of Pokemon!” (i.imgur.com/mxFAPZM.png) - this was published just 4 months ago.
To a lot of people this card isn’t just “rare”, it’s “the rarest”. To use the linked Merriam-Webster definition of “rare” shared above it is to many people believed to be the most “seldom occurring or found” Pokémon card.
We know that not to be true, but a collective mindset has believed that to be true since at least 2004 and people to this day are still writing articles claiming it to have that status, which in turn boosts its visibility to a wider audience and thus in my mind makes its status in the hobby overall overrated.
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In terms of pricing I’d say these 4 are at the top.
Illustrator, OG Pika trophies, 1st Ed. English 'Zard, NR Japanese 'Zard.
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It has a higher official distribution and is easier to purchase one today than the Pika trophies. Not sure how that is up for debate. But that doesn’t mean it’s overrated – if anything, cards can have “too low” distribution with no public sales, which hurts their price if there is no established market/price history of movement for people to feel comfortable purchasing for large sums.
Edit – a card like Snap Pikachu is obviously rarer than either the Illustrator or Pika trophies based on any dictionary definition. Both harder to find and fewer printed. But doesn’t mean it would outsell the Illustrator.
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Rarity includes how easy or hard it is to purchase, imo.
Even if there are 39 illustrators, there are not 39 illustrators available to buy.
Rarity isn’t an objective population of cards. It includes collector’s willingness to sell, and your ability to buy. and since the illustrator is so coveted and held dearly by collectors, they rarely come up for sale, contributing to it’s overall rarity.
we’re well past the point where the number of illustrators matters or contributes to its rarity.
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I’m not sure anyone is using rarity in a vacuum as an argument for anything here. As a general rule, rarity needs context. That doesn’t mean that the rarity, as a metric, isn’t of singular importance to the equation, because it clearly is.
Discussing how that has or hasn’t affected the status of the Illustrator over the years will probably remain inconclusive. I lean in favor of the Illustrator remaining king, simply because I think a correction would be long overdue if the extra copies were a problem. I assume that most of the people in the market for these are deeply involved in pop reports and the latest news on unearthed copies.
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What does overrated in this context even mean? That it get´s too much credit for what it is? If so I strongly disagree, even if it isn´t the “rarest” card, it´s by far the most recognizable trophy card.
We can cry that it´s unfair but this is what the hobby/community has decided decades ago already. Doesn´t matter if this opinion is partially founded on a few incorrect data points.
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Pro tip: Trophy Kangaskhan has more in common with the illustrator than rarer cards.
Singularity + rarity, but enough to create data = better inertia.
I have rarer cards than the illustrator but they never sell. For example, my psa 9 2001 tropical wind is one of the rarest cards in the hobby. Its been the highest grade for over a decade, with a total of 3 copies graded in 20 years. The card simply is too rare to create sales data.
The 97 pikas are the closest contenders to the illustrator. However the singularity aspect puts the illustrator above. The market has proven that point. Even for the tone deaf people who still die on the hill of “ThE IlLUStrAtOr sOlD cUz PeOpLe THoUghT OnLy 6 COpIeS”, that is easily disproven. The first sale of the illustrator was for 22k in the year 2000. It sold in the same auction as 97 pikas. Back then people thought 97 pikas were only 2 copies. Last I checked 2 is less than 6, yet the illustrator sold for 3 times as much.
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I’m glad qwa and pratte mentioned the supply/price piece.
The illustrator would be worth a lot less if there were actually only 6. Its really tough to see huge jumps in cards when the last sale was 2 years ago.
With family kang especially (illustrator less so) the population is high enough that one is transacted every month, keeping the price moving.
Yanma Neo Discovery PSA 10 for example took me a while to sell at what I honestly think was a cheap price relative to rarity. The issue was that the only comp was 2 years old at 1/8th of my asking, but after my sale, the next one had no trouble selling + moving up in price.
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I would much rather have any set of the pikachu trophies (just 1 set) in a psa 10 than an illustrator psa 10, that is from an investment standpoint and a personal preference standpoint.
I also know of current offers for just 1 pikachu trophy in a 10, and I think it’s more than a lot of people realize publicly lol.
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@casual, To reiterate what you’re saying that it takes a sale to bump the price, I completely agree with you.
We have seen this with the Japanese 09 Pichu design contest card. Extremely low pop, almost no sale data for years, an old $300 price tag had stuck, one was listed at 950 which sold instantly then sold later on for 5,000+.
It simply takes the first buyer to take that risk when there’s no data to support them.
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