Gold Star Charizard triples to a $195,200 record in Goldin's undercard

Goldin's Spring TCG & Manga Elite auction made its headline on May 17 with the $1,769,000 Bronze Trophy Pikachu — the fifth seven-figure Pokémon sale of 2026, covered in Gloomberg's markets pages. The better read of where six-figure money is actually sitting came from the undercard. A PSA 10 copy of the 2006 EX Dragon Frontiers Gold Star Charizard brought $195,200, an all-time high for the card. Its recent tape, per Sports Illustrated's tracking: $65,600 in December 2025, $100,000 in February, $195,200 in May — doubled in three months, roughly tripled in six. The population report behind the run: 98 PSA 10s out of about 4,800 graded copies, a gem rate near 2%. SI's collectibles desk floated $500,000 before year-end; Gloomberg floats nothing.

The Gold Star tape

The Charizard is the loudest print in a series-wide repricing. The Gold Star cards — the low-pop EX-era chase set of 2004–2007 — have produced a six-figure comp sheet inside seven months: Gold Star Pikachu, PSA 10, $148,800 on February 15; Gold Star Torchic, CGC 10, $117,600 the same day; Gold Star Mewtwo, PSA 10, $85,000 on April 23; Gold Star Umbreon, BGS 9.5, $180,000 back in November, per SI's comp sheet. A tier of vintage-adjacent cards that traded in the tens of thousands through 2025 now clears six figures with regularity — that is the recorded change, and it is the quiet half of the year the trophy headlines belong to.

A 2024 print at vintage money

The sale the undercard will be remembered for is the one with the newest copyright date. A Mew ex Special Illustration Rare from 2024's Paldean Fates — a set younger than some of the grading backlog — brought $236,543 in a BGS Pristine Black Label 10 holder, population 2. That is the highest public sale for any standalone Mew, above every vintage Mew print on record. What the result shows is narrow but real: at the top of the market, holder-and-population scarcity priced above age. The macro tape it landed on, per CNBC's May 22 read of Card Ladder data: the Pokémon index +145% over the trailing year, against +15.2% for the S&P 500.

Below the auction tier, the live singles tape has been doing the same arithmetic at smaller numbers. TCGplayer's May 27 price-trends column put the Ascended Heroes Pikachu ex SIR — debut artist booota — at $1,318.62, against roughly $480 at the start of March; the Evolving Skies Rayquaza VMAX alt art at $945.36; and the Lost Origin Giratina V alt art at $823.75 after a 14-copy single-day buyout on May 2. In the Mega Evolution era, Phantasmal Flames' Mega Charizard X ex SIR reads $950 — roughly half its set's entire $1,721 master-set value — and Chaos Rising's Mega Greninja ex SIR reads $476.64, out-pricing the set's gold-hyper copy at $375 (reads 2026-06-08/09).

The next prints arrive on schedule: Heritage's June 26–27 Trading Card Games Signature auction lists 215 Pokémon lots — the house's first marquee TCG event since its record $7.62 million March sale — and the Goldin 100 closes June 28. What they hammer is next month's comp sheet.

Prices per Goldin results as reported by the linked outlets, inclusive of buyer's premium where the venue reports it; singles reads per TCGplayer's published trends column and the linked trackers, with read dates noted. Index figures attributed to their publishers; Gloomberg does not audit them.