The Most Important Pokémon Card

Heritage Auctions · 2021

A near-record price.

$360,000

Final price · 52 bids

After 52 bids, the card sold for $360,000, including the 20% buyer’s premium—the second-highest price ever paid for an English Pokémon card. Only one card had sold for more: a 1st Edition Charizard, at $369,000 a month earlier.

Slabbed 1998 Blastoise presentation card

CGC · Auction report$360,000Pokémon Test Print Blastoise Blasts to $360,000 at AuctionRead the CGC article ↗

CGC's verdict after the sale

“The Blastoise Commissioned Presentation Galaxy Star Hologram graded CGC 8.5 is now tied for the highest price ever paid at auction for any English Pokémon card.”

Source: Certified Guaranty Company (CGC), January 2021Read the original report ↗

When it returns, could it take the crown outright?

The beginning of English Pokémon

Japan started it. America unleashed it.

Before booster packs, playground trades, and a worldwide phenomenon, there was this licensed presentation card. Wizards of the Coast commissioned it for Nintendo to show what Pokémon could become in English. This is the card that brought Pokémon cards to America.

The most limited English Pokémon card

Only two were made. One has been missing for decades — and may be lost forever.

The pitch that changed everything

It showed Nintendo what Pokémon could become in English—and helped launch the phenomenon in America.

Front of the 1998 Blastoise presentation card

Built to impress Nintendo

A galaxy built to show what Pokémon could become.

The star-scattered Galaxy Star holofoil makes Blastoise feel less like a test and more like a declaration. This was the image placed before Nintendo at the beginning of the English-language story.

The Galaxy Star foil.
The same Galaxy Star foil as Base Set — on a card printed a year earlier.
Even the reverse is unusual.
The card has a completely blank back, shown here as part of the gallery.

Blank white back of the Blastoise presentation card — The only Pokémon card with a blank back.

The two-copy mystery

Two were made. Only one is known.

Heritage records two presentation copies. The card shown here is the only one publicly seen and certified. The other copy—said to have been made for international use—has never surfaced.

The survivor

Authenticated by CGC and sold publicly by Heritage.

The missing copy

No verified public appearance. No grading record. Its whereabouts remain unknown.

Archival Wizards test-press sheet with the Blastoise test print circled at lower right — Blastoise on a Wizards test-press sheet (circled) — printed alongside Magic cards because test runs were expensive. WotC's lead typesetter called this black-border version the first English Pokémon card ever printed on foil.

Printer notes on the Blastoise color trial with the words Pokey Test and the Blastoise test print circled — The printer's notes — 'Pokey Test' (circled) marks the Blastoise color trial; the surrounding notes cover the Magic cards sharing the sheet.

A card put under the microscope

The most analyzed and authenticated Pokémon card of all time.

CGC mounted an extraordinary investigation before certifying this card. It studied the card itself, related test prints, and surviving production material.

That remarkable depth of examination is what sets its authentication apart. The fascinating technical story is preserved in CGC's own coverage for anyone who wants the deep dive.

Read CGC's full investigation ↗ · See CGC's auction story ↗

So—is it the most important?

No card makes a stronger claim.

Pikachu Illustrator may be more famous, and a PSA 10 can be called “pop one” because only one has earned that grade. But that is rarity by grade. Thirty-nine Illustrator cards were distributed; only two Blastoise presentation cards were made. By original print run, Blastoise is far rarer—and it is tied directly to the moment Pokémon cards crossed into English.

This is the card that started it all, perhaps the most prestigious and rare of all Pokémon collectibles.

— Thomas Fish, Blowout Cards · via Artnet, January 2021

The best stories about the card.

Heritage Auctions

It started one of the greatest cultural phenomena in American history.

90 seconds on how this card made history.