Pokémon TCG card auctioning for $60,000 features artwork based on Pokémon Snap! photo
We’re not quite sure what it is.
A card for the Pokémon Trading Card Game that’s currently on auction features artwork based on a photo taken in Pokémon Snap!.
A copy of the Pokémon Gyarados Unnumbered Promo 64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest card is currently up for auction on Heritage Auctions – an auction house that specialises in collectibles – with the current bid on the card being $60,000 (£47,201), at the time of this article being written.
The card is one of only 15 copies, all of which were distributed to the winners of a competition hosted in 1999 – making it a very rare release for the trading card game. Competitors for the 1999 64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest were tasked with taking the best photos of Pokémon that they could in the video game Pokémon Snap!, which was released on the Nintendo 64 console in 1999.
A total of five photos were chosen by the judges as being the top photographs, with each one being printed onto reprint cards from the Japanese Pokémon TCG Expansion Pack. The card currently up for auction features an image of the Pokémon Gyarados, with what appears to be its tongue out – though the image is somewhat difficult to decipher.
The Pokémon card featured in the auction is the only copy to have been graded by CGC, a company that independently judges collectibles on their quality levels and value, with the card receiving a Gem Mint 9.5 grade.
Another card from the 1999 Pokémon 64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest has been auctioned off recently. Depicting a photo of the Pokémon Chansey from Pokémon Snap!, the card was eventually sold for $63,000 in December 2022.
Other rare and expensive Pokémon TCG cards that have been awarded to competition winners and attendees include the 2002 Pokémon World Championships No.1 Trainer, which was awarded to winners of a series of Pokémon tournaments held in Japan in 2002, with each copy of the card having its own unique customisable element in the winning trainer’s name being printed on them.
The auction for the Pokémon Gyarados Unnumbered Promo 64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest card is set to run until tomorrow, with the next bid requiring a minimum of $62,500.