Hottest Sales of the Week: A $236,000 Lugia

Vintage is still through the roof. A 1st Edition Lugia in a perfect BGS 10 Pristine, one of just four in existence, led our week at $236,464, and every slab behind it was printed before 2006.

Pitch Black launched Friday and grabbed all the headlines. The big money clearly didn't read them. This is what July 13 to 19 looked like.

The graded grails

Start with the label on the week's biggest sale. This board is usually wall-to-wall PSA, and the Lugia came through in a BGS 10 Pristine instead, a grade only four copies of the card hold. At that level you're bidding on the label as much as the card, and somebody paid just over $236,000 for the pair. A quarter of a century after Neo Genesis hit shelves, its cover bird is still setting the pace.

And look who's back. One board after the PSA 10 went for $682,500, the same Gold Star Rayquaza crossed in a CGC 10 at $168,000. Same card, three labels, three wildly different prices: $682,500 in PSA 10, $168,000 in CGC 10, $108,000 in PSA 9 earlier this month. The sticker on the slab is doing serious work up here.

The rest of the board kept the vintage theme rolling: an Expedition Charizard at $116,156, a 1st Edition Umbreon at $81,348, and a Jungle Snorlax at $70,333. Not a single modern card in sight.

On the sealed side

The sealed side was an old-box parade. A 1st Edition Team Rocket booster box led at $35,395, with a 1st Edition Fossil box right behind it at $33,064, the second Fossil 1st Edition to cross this board in two weeks after the last one brought $41,604.

Two WOTC boxes over $30,000 in one week says plenty on its own. Below them, a Jungle box at $23,790, a Team Up box at $14,100, and a Black & White box at $10,200 rounded out a top five where every product is long out of print.

The read

The Rayquaza's third label in two weeks is the lesson worth keeping: at the trophy end, the grader on the case is part of the asset, so weigh the label before you weigh the bid.

And zoom out, because the label story hides a simpler one: three six-figure Rayquazas inside a month, $682,500, $168,000, $108,000, every one of them sold after Pokemon put Mega Rayquaza ex on the cover of Delta Reign, due November 6. We can't prove the connection, but a headline set tends to reprice its character's whole back catalog, and Japan gets the same set on July 31. If this bid is riding Delta Reign hype, we find out fast. September's 30th anniversary spotlight sits right behind it either way.