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The Most Valuable Pokémon Card in the World has been sold at auction, fetching a price just north of the $50,000 the seller desired.
The mint-condition "Pikachu Illustrator" sold for $54,970 on Thursday at an auction conducted in Beverly Hills, Calif. by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions.
The original card was never put up for sale or found in the Pokémon Trading Card Game. It was an award for winners of an illustration contest conducted by the CoroCoro manga. A total of 39 copies were given out among two contests, with only 10 known still to exist.
Barry Sandoval, the director of operations for comics at Heritage Auctions, said a Pikachu Illustrator sold in the early 2000s for about $23,000.
The illustration is by Atsuko Nishida, one of Pokémon's principal graphic artists. Heritage credited the surge in popularity for the Pokémon Go mobile game with driving interest in the card and its price. The seller and the buyer are unknown.
