Hottest Sales of the Week: A $682,500 Rayquaza

We need you to look at that first number twice. A PSA 10 Gold Star Rayquaza just sold for $682,500, the biggest sale we've tracked since this report started.

And the rest of the board kept pace. Every single slab in the top five went six figures this week, and we can't remember another board like it. Here's the week of July 6 to 11.

The graded grails

Let's start with the monster. That's three straight weeks of giant Gold Star sales on this board, and this one lapped the field. Rayquaza sits at the very top of the Gold Star ladder, this copy is a PSA 10 with a pop of just 47, and bidders took it to $682,500. Almost seven hundred grand for a card from 2005's EX Deoxys.

Now scroll down to number five. The same card in a PSA 9 sold for $108,000 the same week. One grade apart, more than six times the price. We walked you through this exact math on the Legendary Collection Pikachu just last week, and the top of this market keeps proving it.

The middle of the board was no slouch either: a pop 48 first edition Chansey at $165,000, a Snorlax Lv X at $156,000, and another Poncho Pikachu going Black Label at $120,000. Five slabs, five six-figure prices. That's the whole story of the week in one line.

On the sealed side

Sealed had itself a week too. A first edition Fossil booster box led at $41,604, and behind it came a little of everything: an Evolving Skies case at $14,800, a Team Up display, a factory master case of 151 bundles, and a sealed Rumble game box for the oddball collectors.

Five products, five totally different corners of the hobby, all finding buyers in the same week the modern shelf keeps marking down. And yes, we noticed the 151 case at $11,400. Out-of-print demand looks exactly like this.

The read

The cooldown we covered on Friday is real, and it did not lay a finger on the trophy end. The biggest Gold Star sale has grown three weeks straight, from $168,000 to $192,000 to $682,500, and a number like this one resets the comp for every big slab under it. September's 30th anniversary window is creeping closer too, and that kind of spotlight tends to find the vintage end first. If you hold anything low-pop, weeks like this are why you hold it.