Two Charizards Certified by CGC Trading Cards Sell for $38,000

Two outstanding examples of the fan-favorite First Edition Base Set Pokémon Charizard card graded by CGC Trading Cards™ just traded hands between social media mega-influencers IslandGrown and Logan Paul in an online Whatnot auction for $38,000.

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With more than 350,000 followers on Whatnot, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and Twitter, IslandGrown is the most popular Pokémon TCG Twitch streamer and frequently works with some of the biggest creators in the TCG and gaming space. He started streaming his games and cards about seven years ago.

“TCG has been a big part of my life for a very long time. As I grew up, I was collecting Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic. When I got into high school, I was playing competitively, and I was a regional champion in Hawaii. I’ve always been into cards and being able to take two big portions of my life and put them together — which was content creation and streaming and TCGs — was an incredible opportunity,” he said.

When CGC Trading Cards launched in 2020, he was one of the first submitters with a Shibuya's Pikachu card. His collection came back with many grades of CGC 9, and perhaps one of the very first CGC Perfect 10 cards.

IslandGrown with CGC Trading Cards.

“I like how CGC Trading Cards continues to improve and listens to the community,” he said. “I think that’s very important — not just for grading companies, but for gaming companies. The biggest thing is always community, and the company that can understand that first is going to be the most successful. To see CGC Trading Cards doing that and make changes and really care about the community out there, that’s big and that’s what’s kept me continuing to grade with CGC Trading Cards.”

IslandGrown recently celebrated the purchase of the only recorded two examples of Charizard Pokémon 1999 Base Set 1st Edition 4/102 Holo graded CGC 9, with sub-grades of 10 Centering, 9.5 Surface, 9 Corners and 9 Edges. This card appears over 250 times in the CGC Trading Cards Population Report, but only 18 were found to be grade 9 or higher, and only two with these highest matching sub-grades.

Calling it “the grail card” for collectors, IslandGrown purchased both known examples from social media influencer Logan Paul for $38,000 using the online auction streaming app Whatnot. Paul signed the slab with the inscription, “To Island.”

“The reason Charizard is so popular, I think, is that as kids we made him popular. Probably because it was a dragon and it looked so cool, as well as the fact that it had one of the highest HPs. Back in the day, when kids didn’t know how to play the game, the one with the highest HP wins. So if you had this card, you got 120 HP, and you beat everybody,” he laughed.

CGC Trading Cards uses a highly accurate 10-point grading scale to evaluate Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh! and other trading cards. CGC Trading Cards continues to grow, with the addition of new games, investment in the latest technology, incredible collections certified and record-setting prices realized.