As part of Heritage Auctions' Comics & Comic Art event, a sealed, first edition Pokémon Base Set Booster Box sold for a record-breaking $360,000 USD.
According to Heritage's official release, the sale concluded the first day of the auction, which amassed $7.83 million in total sales. The rare Pokémon First Edition Base Set Sealed Booster Box (Wizards of the Coast, 1999) was purchased by Thomas Fish, president of BlowoutCards.com, for $360,000. This sale shatters the previous world record, which was set just a few months ago in September when a similar Pokémon Trading Card Game set was sold by Heritage for $198,000.
"I am thrilled to purchase this pedigree box as well as the Pokémon Demo Game Sealed Booster Pack (Wizards of the Coast, 1998), PSA GEM MT 10, from the Pokémon Central Collection," Fish said in a statement, having bought said booster pack for an additional $22,800. Heritage says the main item -- the First Edition Base Set Sealed Booster Box, which is still in its original shrink wrap -- is "considered the pinnacle of Pokémon box collecting," explaining that bidders were "exceptionally aggressive," with online bids topping the previous world record of $198,000 before the auction even opened.
"This set is the pinnacle for all Pokémon collectors, and the back-to-back record-breaking sales show that," said Heritage Auctions assistant Comics & Comic Art operations supervisor Jesus Garcia. "This set comes from a very low print run, and to find one that is still sealed and in such great condition explains why the demand for it was so intense."
The first day of the four-day Comics & Comic Art auction saw numerous other noteworthy sales, including "the highest price ever realized for a Batman comic book," with a copy of Detective Comics #27 -- the Dark Knight's very first appearance -- with a Fine/Very Fine grade of 7.0 selling for $1.5 million.