It seems like seven-figure Gold Star card sales are becoming a regular occurrence in the high-end Pokémon TCG market. Barely a week after a PSA 10 Torchic Gold Star from 2004’s Team Rocket Returns sold for an astonishing $2.7 million, its Water-type setmate Mudkip has joined the million-dollar club. A PSA 10 Mudkip Gold Star sold through Fanatics Collect for $1.02 million with buyer’s premium on Sept. 21, attracting 48 bids along the way and establishing an extraordinary new benchmark for one of the earliest English Gold Stars. Team Rocket Returns introduced Gold Stars to the English Pokémon TCG in 2004, with Shiny versions of Torchic, Mudkip, and Treecko serving as the set’s three glittering starter chases. Treecko has also been busy rewriting its own record book, with two PSA 10 copies selling for $132,000 and $114,000 in August. Apparently, completing this particular starter trio in Gem Mint condition now requires the sort of budget normally reserved for lavish lakeside estates.
Mudkip’s $1.02 million result is particularly wild because the card’s previously visible PSA 10 sales history lived nowhere near seven figures. PSA currently lists only 42 copies in Gem Mint 10 graded, with none graded higher, making the card a genuine condition rarity even before its latest auction appearance. Fanatics Collect previously sold another PSA 10 copy for $20,400 in December 2024, meaning this latest result utterly obliterated that benchmark with a staggering 4,900% increase in less than two years. That enormous jump should not be read as proof that every PSA 10 Mudkip Gold Star is suddenly a million-dollar card, especially when ultra-rare collectible pricing can shift dramatically due to a notable confluence of factors. Still, the ingredients are obvious enough: Mudkip is a beloved Hoenn starter, the card comes from the inaugural English Gold Star set, and Gem Mint copies are scarce enough that buyers cannot simply assume another one will appear whenever they feel like opening the wallet.
Mudkip is also far from an isolated million-dollar Gold Star card. A CGC Pristine 10 Rayquaza Gold Star from EX Deoxys sold for $1.02 million through Fanatics Collect in August, before Torchic detonated expectations with its $2.7 million result the month after. Mudkip has now joined those two cards at seven figures within the space of only a few weeks, giving the Gold Star market something more substantial than a single outlandish result to mull. That certainly does not mean the entire category should be repriced overnight, and these microscopic top-grade populations make broad market conclusions especially dangerous. Either way, when recognizable starter Pokémon cards show up in high grades and dressed in shiny clothing, collectors would do well to take notice. At this rate, the next PSA 10 Gem Mint Gold Star starter to hit the auction block could have considerably more eyes (and considerably deeper pockets) waiting for it.
