On August 28, 2026, a single Pokémon card crossed the $1 million mark at auction for the first time in English-language history. The card is the Gold Star Rayquaza from the 2005 EX Deoxys expansion — and the specific copy that sold is the only one in the entire world to have ever received a CGC Pristine 10 grade. It sold for $1,020,000 through Fanatics Collect’s August Premier Auction, attracting 35 bids before the hammer finally came down after an extended bidding period that had the card sitting at $850,000 just hours before the final price was set.
That $1,020,000 final figure — which includes the buyer’s premium — makes it the most expensive English Pokémon card ever sold at public auction, surpassing the previous record by $65,200. It’s also the first English Pokémon card to cross the seven-figure mark at auction, a milestone that would have sounded completely disconnected from reality to anyone opening EX Deoxys booster packs in 2005.
Why This Specific Card Is Worth Over a Million Dollars
A million dollars for a Pokémon card is a number that needs explaining, and the explanation involves several converging factors that each individually push the price up — and together create something almost without precedent in the hobby.
The Gold Star Rarity
Gold Star cards were first introduced in the EX Team Rocket Returns expansion in 2004, and they immediately became the most sought-after cards in the competitive collector market. The Gold Star treatment depicted Pokémon in their shiny colour variants — alternate colour schemes that are extraordinarily rare in the games themselves — with artwork that extended beyond the usual illustration window and gold holofoil detailing that made them visually distinct from anything else in the set.
Pull rates were brutal. Gold Star cards reportedly appeared at a rate of approximately one per every two booster boxes — or roughly one in every 72 packs. In a set of ordinary cards, you’d need to open two full booster boxes for a statistical shot at a single Gold Star. Fewer than 30 different Pokémon received Gold Star cards across all the sets they appeared in, making them scarce by design as well as by odds.
The EX Deoxys Production Problem
Even within the Gold Star category, the EX Deoxys Rayquaza stands apart because of a specific manufacturing issue. CGC has confirmed that EX Deoxys cards were notorious for factory-level edge wear — damage that occurred during the production process before cards were ever inserted into booster packs. Cards were being damaged before they even reached retail, meaning the condition ceiling for the entire print run was lower than average from the moment production finished.
The population data tells the story. CGC has received more than 250 copies of the Gold Star Rayquaza EX Deoxys for grading. Of those 250-plus submissions:
- Only 12 copies received a Gem Mint 10 rating
- Only one copy — the one that just sold for $1,020,000 — ever received the higher Pristine 10 (black label) rating
- No Pristine 10 copies exist in the BGS or TAG grading registries either, meaning this is the only perfect-grade copy in any major grading company’s population report on the planet
This is what collectors call a population one card — there is genuinely one copy of this card in this condition in existence. Every other copy that has ever been submitted has come back with something less than perfect. This one did not, and given the production damage endemic to EX Deoxys, it’s entirely possible another Pristine 10 will never emerge from the remaining population of ungraded copies.
Rayquaza’s Cultural Weight
The card could theoretically be any Gold Star Pokémon and command a significant premium based on its grade alone. But the fact that it’s Rayquaza — the legendary sky dragon introduced in Generation III across Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald — pushes it into an entirely different category. Rayquaza is one of the most culturally beloved Legendary Pokémon in franchise history, combining imposing visual design with genuine power both in the games and in the competitive TCG meta. Its shiny form — depicted on the Gold Star card in its iconic black colouring by illustrator Masakazu Fukuda — is one of the most visually striking in the franchise. The combination of the right Pokémon, the right rarity, the right art, and an impossible condition grade converged into a price that the hobby has never seen for an English card before.
The Auction Drama — Extended Bidding on a Million-Dollar Card
The final hours of the auction were tense. Fanatics Collect uses an extended bidding format, where the countdown clock resets every time a new bid is placed — meaning a card in high demand can stay in active bidding for much longer than the listed closing time. On the morning of August 28, the card was sitting at $850,000 with 35 bids and the countdown repeatedly dipping under one minute before resetting as new offers came in.
Fanatics Collect described the card as potentially “the single greatest copy” of Gold Star Rayquaza in existence — which, given that it is demonstrably the only Pristine-graded copy of any version at any grading company, is about as accurate a statement as they could make. When the bidding finally closed, the $1,020,000 figure represented what the market decided a one-of-a-kind piece of Pokémon history was worth.
What Record Did This Beat — And What Records Still Stand Above It?
The previous record for the most expensive English-language Pokémon card was held by a PSA Gem Mint 10 First Edition Base Set Charizard — the version pulled by Logan Paul and Ken Goldin during a famous 2021 box break that generated enormous mainstream media coverage. That card had sold for $954,800 in early 2026, and the Gold Star Rayquaza surpassed it by $65,200 to claim the English record.
For broader context on where this sale sits in the Pokémon card market:
- A Gem Mint 10 copy of the same Gold Star Rayquaza (not Pristine, just the next grade below) sold for $168,000 on July 19 — just six weeks before the Pristine copy sold for more than six times that amount
- A PSA 8 copy of the EX Deoxys Rayquaza Gold Star sold for $60,000 at the same Fanatics auction series
- Even a BGS 7.5 copy sold for $28,200 — a new record for that grade, representing a 68% increase from the previous high of $16,750 just a few months earlier
The card that still holds the overall record — in any language, for any Pokémon card — is the Pikachu Illustrator promo card, also owned by Logan Paul. That card sold for $16.492 million earlier in 2026, making it the most expensive trading card ever sold in any collectible category. The Gold Star Rayquaza, for all its historic achievement, sits comfortably in a different tier by comparison — but it has now become the definitive benchmark for the English-language market.
The Broader Pokémon Card Market in 2026
The Gold Star Rayquaza sale doesn’t exist in isolation — it’s part of a sustained elevation of the entire Pokémon TCG collector market that has been building for several years. Throughout 2026, even heavily worn or low-grade copies of Gold Star Rayquaza have been selling for prices in the five-figure range at auction. The hobby has attracted serious institutional money, with major auction houses like Fanatics Collect, Heritage Auctions, and others treating high-end Pokémon cards as legitimate collectibles investment assets rather than novelty items.
The simultaneous boom in new Pokémon TCG releases is also driving fresh interest. September will see the launch of the 30th Celebration expansion, honouring three decades of the Pokémon franchise with a new rarity tier and reprints of iconic cards. The final main set of 2026, Delta Reign, puts a Mega Rayquaza ex front and centre when it releases on November 6 — which may not be a coincidence in terms of timing with the record sale. Rayquaza as a commercial property is clearly having a moment, both in 2005 vintage and 2026 modern form.
For anyone who pulled a Gold Star Rayquaza from an EX Deoxys pack back in 2005 and has it sitting somewhere in a binder: get it graded.
In other TCG news this week, Magic: The Gathering’s Reality Fracture is facing Play Booster shortages thanks to a Panama Canal drought — a supply chain situation that affects a very different kind of cardboard but is equally frustrating for collectors trying to get their hands on new product. And if you’re following gaming news more broadly, GTA 6’s November launch is predicted to cost the US economy $1 billion in lost productivity — another big number in a week that’s been full of them.
