Logan Paul is not just a well-known entertainment figure, he is also a shrewd one. The kid who built his fame on social platforms and parlayed it into a WWE career is now poised to cash in on his prized Pikachu Illustrator card, the holy grail of Pokémon collectibles. After buying it in 2021 for nearly $5.3 million, Paul could be looking at a wild upside, if it sells for $12 million, that is about $6.7 million in profit, roughly a 126% jump in about four years. That moment is now being set up by Ken Goldin, the founder of Goldin Auctions and the star of Netflix’s King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch.
Goldin is scheduled to auction the card on Goldin’s website on January 12, with an estimate of $7 million to $12 million. The card already made history in 2021, setting a Guinness World Record as the most expensive Pokémon trading card sold in a private sale. This time, the scenario is even hotter, at least in Paul’s words, and he has accepted a $2.5 million advance to put the trophy piece on the block. The deal is also featured in the latest season of the Netflix show, which debuted on Tuesday. Goldin has wanted the card for a while, he previously offered Paul $7.5 million for it, and Paul turned it down.
“The Pokémon market is hot. It’s hotter than it’s ever been,” Paul told Bloomberg TV in a joint interview with Goldin. “Ken gave me a deal I could not refuse.” If the auction does hit an insane $12 million, it would land at a perfect moment, with Pokémon heading into its 30th anniversary in 2026, a nostalgia trigger that can push grown-up fans with grown-up money to spend big on a once-in-a-lifetime collectible. Goldin leaned into that broader “icon asset” appeal, pointing to how crossover demand can rewrite price ceilings. “That is how we can see something like a basketball card with pictures of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant sell for $12.5 million dollars,” he said.
As for the Pikachu Illustrator itself, it is not a card you could ever pull from packs. It is a promo prize awarded through a Japanese illustration contest in 1997 to 1998, which is why it sits in a different league from typical rarity. While many believe only 39 copies were officially made, Paul’s card is widely regarded as the only PSA 10 example in existence, a “perfect” grade that turns a rare trophy into a singular one. According to Guinness World Records, the wrestler negotiated for months before acquiring it from a private collector, sometimes described in hobby circles as part of a top-tier Middle Eastern collection.
And because Logan is Logan, he did not just store the card, he turned it into a public flex, wearing it as jewelry and turning it into a recognizable artifact with cultural gravity far beyond collector circles. Now, with celebrity provenance, extreme rarity, and top condition stacked together, the card has a real chance to break its own record, possibly by double or more.
