This might be the coolest/scarcest item I’ve ever seen in the hobby. This needs more attention. Seems like you might literally be the only person here to own an original piece of TCG art.
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The rush “Pokémon” art is just the tree background, it doesn’t include any Pokémon. No artist has any rights to the Pokémon they draw. If that wasn’t enough of a buzzkill, the background art isn’t unique/proprietary. It’s a watered down reuse of a Forest card.
The harsh answer for mtg art: there isn’t much demand. The demonic tutor is case and point. Sure Len isn’t the most cooperative, (I’ve messaged him about some alpha cards and just ended up getting them publicly for less), which is exactly what happened with the demonic tutor. The fact it sold for almost 100k less in auction than the private offer showcases the spotty demand. And we are talking an alpha demonic tutor. Not some random modern art.
As mentioned earlier, you most likely can’t sell original art at a profit, which indicates the lack of market interest. It’s very niche.
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But the market has low demand largely (IMO) because of lack of awareness. When I told MTG friends that I bought a piece of original MTG art, most of the reactions were “wait, that’s a thing?” The entire market is in a single Facebook group with 10k members, the vast majority of which don’t even own any original art. I have a gazillion MTG friends on FB and a grand total of 2 of them are in that group. The occasional Heritage auction is only really publicized within that group. I think that the market has plenty of room to grow since most MTG collectors don’t even know it exists.
I agree. I still think it’s very niche even with more awareness.
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It’s still a rare piece of art from a Pokemon card regardless of value. How often does the original background art of a card come up for sale? My understanding was it had multiple high dollar offers, so definitely some demand from the higher tier market.
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It did not have higher offers. I was one of the people they tried selling the painting to. The owners were offer shopping the entire time. They kept saying vague statements like, “so and so said it could be worth x”, “we think it is worth x” yet the actual sale price was well under their imaginary valuation.
With that said I would be curious to see what it would do in a public auction. As the owners were out of their depth.
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I own 6 pieces of MTG Artwork, most of which was obtained in 2017. The growth of prices since then has been reasonable (300-500% on average). Whilst there are definitely better investments out there, I quite enjoy them as display pieces much moreso than my mtg/pokemon cards, which adds to its total value to me as a collector. The unique nature of the arts also adds to my passion for the items. But honestly, monetary value aside, I think most MTG art collectors simply do not care about the investability of their artworks. They just enjoy the item with little or no thoughts towards flipping them (unless trading/selling to get a different piece of artwork). This, in part, explains why some of the modern pieces sell for so much more than you would think they are worth. The bidders know that this may be the only chance of grabbing this one of a kind item. With these items having so much personal value, you get individuals offering ludicrous amounts of money for the most random artworks. If I remember correctly, one of my friends was offered ~$200,000 on his Oona Queen of Fae artwork. He turned it down. Ide be willing to bet most people in this forum haven’t even heard of that card before because it simply is not a SUPER SUPER famous card. Yet, people value it so incredibly. Krenko is another prime example. My other buddy is offering $100,000+ on this original art. Its pretty nutty to be honest.
Jumping back to the pokemon background by Chris Rush, I think it’s a really cool part of Pokemon history that has some value to the owner which cannot be measured by dollars and cents. Some might consider it to be a dull artwork or uninteresting without the pokemon in it but I am willing to bet SubF cherishes it because of the way it makes him feel. This is irreplaceable. Did it go for more than it was worth? Less? Who knows. But, to the only person that matters, it went for the right price.
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People have their own values for art. One of my favorite MTG arts is Bountiful Harvest to the point I own two dozen, I loved it when it came out. To me that would be awesome to own the original art even if it’s not at all a popular card. I wouldn’t even know where to begin the sourcing process.
To own any art that appeared on a TCG is incredibly cool IMO regardless of no Pokémon on it. There are so many background arts alone that are instantly recognizable. Imagine having a framed piece of for example the Skyridge Umbreon Rooftop background (just the background no Umbreon) that would be amazing!
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If you PM me the details of what you need cleaned up I might be able to clean it up digitally in between my commission work 
I’m guessing it’s mostly up-ressing which entails some redrawing, but shouldn’t be too difficult.
It came up for sale because I asked Chris’ wife to find it, it took her a couple of months but she eventually did. I was definitely disappointed the mewtwo was done digitally and added in post when Lana showed me the piece back in January. I was the high offer on this for a couple of weeks, I thought the offer I made was already way over priced for what the piece was.
I was outbid by 3k IIRC and asked to match it, I declined as did everyone else that it was offered to and the piece sold. I was kind of relieved to be outbid as I was less and less happy with the price the more I thought about it as Lana and Sierra shopped it around, especially for such a basic painting vs what you could get for comparable prices in MTG.
It’s historically cool, but ulltimately just a less detailed version of a basic land that Chris did for MTG which Scott linked.
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Are you able to share the price or is that private info? I’m assuming that it is, but I figured I’d ask since I’d be very curious to know what it roughly sold for.
I legitimately don’t know if we’re talking about $3k or $50k lol (though I would imagine it’s somewhere in between, and probably closer to lower end of that).
@subf can if he wants it’s not my business to share that
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