​Sign Up​

September 22nd - September 28th, 2025

Oricorio Ex Is Shinji Kanda’s Next Hitter 💃, Black Label Gyarados Sells $72k 🐉, Pokemon Center Pikachu Boxes Restock 🐭, Ultra Rare Art Academy Tangrowth Sells 🪴

Note: sold listing links sometimes redirect to active listings after some time but should still be discoverable by searching for the listings manually.

​

📋 TLDR

📰 TCG News: Oricorio ex revealed as the next Shinji Kanda promo, Ace Trainer reward card announced, and Pokémon Center Pikachu “Special Boxes” return via lottery

🏆 Card of the Week: Imakuni?’s Doduo

🔢 Card Market Highlights: Ultra rare Art Academy Tangrowth PSA 10 sells $16k, Tropical Mega Battle Prize PSA 9 sells for $25k, “Facing a New Trial” booster box reaches $1.9k, Black Label Neo Shining Gyarados fetches $72k, Sylveon collection box sells $2.85k

😴 Potential Sleepers: Astral Radiance Beedrill V

​

📰 TCG News

🔵 Oricorio ex is the next highly anticipated Shinji Kanda promo card

The Pokémon TCG community is buzzing after leaks and early UPC reveals suggest Oricorio ex will be the next major promo featuring art by Shinji Kanda. Fans have spotted a preview of Oricorio ex as a special art rare (SAR) in the Inferno X set, its artwork being heralded as a “new masterpiece” by Kanda, and speculation runs high that this card will also appear as a UPC promo included with Mega Charizard X ex products. If confirmed, this would continue the trend of pairing striking alternative art promos with major box products, and it would likely drive intense collector demand, especially given Kanda’s prestige and fan appeal.

​
​🔵 2025 Pokémon Championship Series Ace Trainer reward card revealed​

The Pokémon Company has revealed the 2025 Pokémon Championship Series Ace Trainer Reward card, a competitor-exclusive Celebratory Fanfare Stadium card illustrated by Yuu Nishida, featuring Pikachu, Darumaka, Clefairy, and Budew. Trainers in North America, Europe, and Oceania who achieved Ace Trainer status by reaching 200 Championship Points in Pokémon TCG, VGC, or Pokémon GO, or by qualifying through Pokémon UNITE team standings will receive the card, which includes a Play! Pokémon stamp. Rewards will be shipped by January 31, 2026, with additional program details for the 2026 season to come.

​

​🔵 Pokemon Center reopens lottery for Pikachu “Special Boxes” after secondary market spike​

Japan’s Pokémon Center has announced a new lottery for the three Pikachu “Special Boxes” (in commemoration of the Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Tohoku Pokemon Centers) after the products skyrocketed in price on the resale market, jumping from their original ¥2,090 (about $14) retail price to $300–$500. The lottery is open until September 30, with winners set to be notified between October 3 and 14, and payments required upon notification. Shipments for the boxes are scheduled to be delivered between November and February.

🏆 Card of the Week

Imakuni?’s Doduo
​This promo card features the eccentric Japanese musician and entertainer Imakuni? alongside Doduo. Tomoaki Imakuni is a staff member at Creatures, Inc and was known in the late 90s for appearing at Pokémon events in a full black bodysuit. Imakuni was involved in various aspects of the TCG and Pokemon games including work as the credited artist on several cards. The card artwork reflects his quirky personality, showing him running beside Doduo in a cartoonish style. The card’s attacks contain strange instructions like throwing the cord horizontally or singing a song (this card was banned for tournament use and was reprinted in English in 2016 as a part of the XY Evolutions set).

🔢 Card Market Highlights

​

📦 Sealed Product Market Highlights

🔵 Japanese 1st Edition Pokekyun booster box sells for $8.5k

​Listing​

Pokekyun was released in 2016 and features some of the most unique cards in the TCG with a heart-shaped holofoil inset. Each card also features charms on the left side of the artwork to further describe the featured Pokemon. The English equivalent of this set was featured in the Generations set. Because the quality control and pull rate for rarer cards is generally worse in English, the English equivalents of these cards have a greater value.

However, they completely ignore the theme of the original set including the booster box art and holofoil of the cards themselves making the Japanese version much more collectible. The non 1st edition version of this set goes for about half of the value of the 1st edition.

​
​🔵 Sylveon collection box sells for $2.85k

​Listing​

This collection box contains 9 holo promo cards featuring every Eevelution which range in value from a few hundred up to almost $10k (in a PSA 10 but sub $100 ungraded). This box also contains 4 packs from the Black & White era including Dragons Exalted (~$170/pack), Next Destinies (~$160/pack), and Legendary Treasures (~$180/pack).

Sales for this box have been steadily increasing since June from $2.3k to about $3.4k but seem relatively stable with some sales dipping under the high end.

​

🔵 XY Fates Collide booster box sells for $2.47k

​Listing​

The top chase cards of Fates Collide include Umbreon EX 119 (~$2k PSA 10) and Alakazam EX #125 (~$2k PSA 10). Booster box values have been relatively stable around $2.3k since July but is up overall about $1k since the beginning of the year.

Fun fact about this set is that the marketing material heavily focuses on Mega Alakazam as the unifier of two worlds in the Pokemon universe. Perhaps as a result, it makes for some interesting collaboration on some cards like Lucario #63 which features Mega Alakazam in the background.

​

​
​💎 Singles & Graded Cards Highlights

🔵 PSA 10 Pokemon Art Academy Gosha Tangrowth sells $16k

​Listing​

The illustration for this card was created by artist Gosha (also known as James Franzen) using the Pokémon Art Academy software on a Nintendo 3DS. It was one of 12 global winners selected from entries submitted on Miiverse in 2015. Only 100 copies of each winning art were awarded directly to the artists, many of which could have possibly stayed with the artist themselves, limiting general availability (at least 50+ have been graded via PSA and CGC).

​

🔵 Inferno Ex Mega Charizard X ex sells $700+

​Listing​

Inferno Ex (Japanese original of English Phantasmal Flames releasing November 2025) dropped in Japan on September 26th and as is typical with the initial Japan release of a set, the top chase cards are always inflated out of the gate. The Mega Charizard X ex is selling from anywhere in the $550-$800 (ungraded) range depending on condition. Most likely the prices will come down a bit once the English equivalent releases in November but with that being said the art of this Charizard card is incredibly iconic and with the market boom its possible it doesn’t dip that low even on release of the English set.

​

🔵 Mega Evolutions Mega Lucario & Gardevoir sells $800+

​Listing - Lucario

​Listing - Gardevoir

The latest English Set, Mega Evolutions, released this week on Friday the 26th, and out of the gate we are seeing the top chase cards (Gold Mega Lucario and Gardevoir) at a huge premium ungraded. By comparison, the Japanese versions of both of these cards are now sitting in the $400-$500 range. Now that both sets are released in Japanese/English, it will take a bit of time for the English version to settle a bit like the Sunbreon from Prismatic Evolutions. I think we can expect these cards to dip a bit in value before climbing back up again.

​

​

🕰️ Vintage & Niche Market Highlights

🔵 PSA 9 Tropical Mega Battle Prize sells for $25k

​Listing​

The Tropical Mega Battle was an invite-only Pokémon TCG event held at the Hilton Hawaiian Village from 1999 to 2001 that brought together top players from the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and Japan. Attendance was small at roughly 50 competitors per year, and the tournament is widely regarded as the direct precursor to the modern World Championships. Prize and participant promos from these events, such as the 1999 Tropical Wind, were produced in very limited quantities and were given only to attendees and winners, which is a major reason they are so coveted today. There are only 3 graded in a 10 with one selling for $65k in 2020.

​

🔵 Japanese Facing a New Trial booster box sells for $1.9k

​Listing​

Not exactly vintage or niche but wanted to highlight because sales for this booster box rarely come up and price data as a whole is very scarce (so perhaps niche in that sense). Released in Japan in 2017, this set is an enhancement subset in the Sun and Moon era designed to supplement and reprint certain cards with mirror holo treatment. Because boosters of this set were not printed in massive quantities, factory sealed boxes are hard to come by and few remain in pristine condition. The top chase card of this set is Acerola 56 (close to $5k in a PSA 10 and $1k for its English counterpart from Burning Shadows).

​

🔵 BGS 10 Black Label Japanese Neo Shining Gyarados sells for $72k

​Listing​

Note: Fanatics Collect adds a 20% Buyer’s Premium on to the hammer price so it ultimately sold for $90k but that is not necessarily what the buyer collected which would be closer to $72k before taxes, fees, etc.

This collector recently submitted a Japanese Shining Gyarados to Beckett which came back as a Black Label. This however was a 1 of 1 make it exceedingly rare among graded cards. One interesting note about the Japanese Neo Shining cards is that they were much harder to pull compared to their English counterparts when it’s usually the opposite case.The PSA 10 of this card goes for around $10k and Black Labels usually carry a several X premium but $72k is a wild price tag.

😴 Potential Sleepers

Astral Radiance - Beedrill V 161

PSA 10 - 3639 pop / 6134 total - $175 average

Ungraded - $40 average for near mint condition

Quick note that in 2025, Astral Radiance was declared as no longer in print. As a result we will most likely start to see the popular chase cards increase in price drastically but it won’t be immediate in my opinion. Just to recap the set, the top chases of Astral Radiance include, Machamp V 172 (~$430 in a PSA 10), and Starmie TG13 (~$390 in a PSA 10).

Given the price it's not exactly a super sleeper but this Beedrill card has really nice vibrant art and it's actually Beedrill’s only full art card with art like this (from what I could tell anyway). I think it is still a sleeper relative to the top chase cards of this set that have been steadily climbing to the $500 mark and I think Beedrill could ride that wave but it's more of a long term hold.

📚 Educational Commentary – Collector’s Corner

How do you buy raw cards safely online? (applies to graded cards as well)

First and foremost it is always recommended to use marketplaces that offer buyer protection and understand how returns work before you bid. On eBay for example, eligible trading cards may be routed through the Authenticity Guarantee and purchases are covered by the Money Back Guarantee when items are not as described (this guarantee has saved me a couple of times actually). On TCGplayer, Buyer Safeguard and refund policies outline steps for misgraded or counterfeit items and require returning suspected counterfeits through their process. Keep all messages on the platform, save photos, and record an unboxing video so you have documentation if you need to open a claim.

In any other case, ask for clear photos of the front and back in natural light, plus angled shots under light to reveal scratches and print lines. Not all sellers will be receptive to this and it’s not necessarily a red flag but definitely something to keep in mind. Zoom in on corners and edges for whitening, check centering with a ruler overlay or online centering tool, and avoid listings that use only stock images. Be aware that some fake listings and even cards themselves reuse stock or existing photos, so details like the holo sparkle or reflections appear exactly the same. A quick reverse image search can help you spot duplicates.

🫐 Berries For Thought

💭 Are you planning on picking up any of the recent sets that have gone out of print?

💭 What do you think about Shinji Kanda cards?

Share your thoughts on the above questions by replying to this email! (I read all of them 🙂)