On September 28, 2026, a Pokemon card most collectors had never heard of sold for $8.4 million through Fanatics Collect, instantly becoming the second-most expensive Pokemon card ever sold at auction. The card drew 64 bids before closing, with the final figure including a 20 percent buyer's premium.
It is nicknamed Raincoat Pikachu, a reference to the illustration showing Pikachu wearing a red raincoat and holding an umbrella. Only 100 copies of the card were ever printed, and it did not come from a booster pack at all.
Instead, the card originated from an art contest tied to the Nintendo 3DS game Pokemon Art Academy, with the winning illustration by artist Y. Fujishima turned into an official promo card. That origin story is a huge part of why this sale feels so different from typical grail-card headlines.
This guide walks through where the card came from, how its price got here, and how it stacks up against the only Pokemon card that has ever sold for more.
Pokemon Art Academy was a 2015 Nintendo 3DS drawing game that let players create their own Pokemon artwork. Nintendo ran a companion contest inviting fans to submit original illustrations, and the winning entries were turned into a small batch of official promo cards distributed in Japan.
Y. Fujishima's raincoat-and-umbrella Pikachu beat out thousands of other submissions to become one of those winning designs. With only 100 copies ever printed, it was always going to be scarce, but almost no one expected that scarcity to translate into an eight-figure sale a decade later.
The card went up for auction through Fanatics Collect and closed on September 28, 2026 after drawing 64 bids. The final hammer price combined with the platform's 20 percent buyer's premium brought the total to $8.4 million.
That kind of bidding activity on a single card is rare even by the standards of the high-end collectibles market, and it signals this was not a quiet, single-buyer negotiation but a genuinely competitive auction.
The only Pokemon card that has ever sold for more is the Pikachu Illustrator, a PSA Gem Mint 10 copy that sold for $16.49 million in February 2026 through Goldin Auctions. That card originated from a 1998 CoroCoro magazine contest and features art by Pikachu's original designer, Atsuko Nishida.
Both record-setting cards share a theme worth noting: neither came from a standard retail pack. Both were contest-exclusive promos with tiny print runs, which is increasingly the pattern behind the Pokemon hobby's biggest sales.
A PSA 10 copy of the Art Academy Pikachu sold for just $12,600 in July 2024. Less than a year later, in June 2025, another PSA 10 copy sold for $19,200. The September 2026 sale at $8.4 million represents roughly a 440-fold increase over that June 2025 price.
That kind of jump in a little over a year is not a typical appreciation curve, even for rare Pokemon cards. It points to the Pokemon grail market increasingly behaving like fine art or sports memorabilia, where a single high-profile sale can reset the entire price floor for a card type overnight.
Sales at this level are not really about the Pokemon secondary market as collectors generally experience it. They are closer to signals about where ultra-high-net-worth collectors are willing to park money, with grading and rarity acting as the gatekeeping mechanism.
For everyday collectors, the practical takeaway is less about chasing eight-figure cards and more about recognizing that even a $12,600 card can eventually be revalued at hundreds of times that number if its rarity story holds up. Grading and provenance matter more than ever in that kind of environment.
Both record-setting Pokemon sales this year share the same underlying structure: a tiny, non-retail print run tied to a specific contest moment rather than a mass-produced set. That combination of low supply and a clear, tellable origin story is proving to be exactly what ultra-high-end buyers are willing to pay the most for.
It also means the next record-breaking Pokemon card is more likely to come from another obscure contest promo than from a chase pull inside a modern booster box. Collectors watching this space closely are increasingly focused on old promotional giveaways rather than current retail product.
Even a card nowhere near this price tier benefits from the same display logic once graded, and a magnetic acrylic PSA case gives any slab the same secure, fully visible presentation a record-setting sale demands.
$8.4 million, including a 20 percent buyer's premium.
Because the artwork shows Pikachu wearing a red raincoat and holding an umbrella.
Only 100 copies were ever printed.
No, it is the second-most expensive. The Pikachu Illustrator sold for $16.49 million in February 2026.
A PSA 10 copy sold for $19,200 in June 2025, roughly 440 times less than the September 2026 sale.
Whether a card is worth $12,600 or $8.4 million, the grading and storage principles are identical. An aluminum graded case with a key lock system gives any high-value slab the kind of secure, display-ready home a card like this deserves.
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