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Ian YoungsCulture reporter
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Logan Paul wore the card around his neck for his Wrestlemania debut in 2022
Logan Paul has sold an ultra-rare Pokémon trading card for a record-shattering $16.5m (£12m), according to the auction company.
The YouTuber and wrestler bought the Pikachu Illustrator card - the best preserved example of one of the rarest Pokémon cards ever - in a deal worth $5.3m (£3.9m) in 2021, a record at the time.
The winning bidder was venture capitalist AJ Scaramucci, son of financier and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci. AJ Scaramucci said it was the first acquisition of a planned "planetary treasure hunt".
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AJ Scaramucci pictured with father Anthony Scaramucci in 2024
The auction result was "absolutely insane", Paul said on a YouTube live stream as confetti fell.
Guinness World Records adjudicator Sarah Casson then appeared to declare it the most expensive trading card ever sold at auction.
"I'm on a quest to buy a T-Rex dinosaur fossil, I'm going to buy the Declaration of Independence, and I'm not stopping there," he said. "This was only the beginning."
Paul included the diamond necklace he used to wear it during his WWE debut at WrestleMania 38 in 2022, which he hung around Scaramucci's neck.
Pikachu Illustrator cards were issued as part of a contest in 1998 and only about 40 are known to exist.
Paul's card was the only one of those to have been graded as a 10 by PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator), which rates the conditions of trading cards, meaning it is a "virtually perfect card".
Trading cards related to the hugely popular Japanese animation franchise have soared in value in recent years.
Auction boss Ken Goldin was seen persuading Paul to part with his prized possession in the latest season of Netflix's King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch.
"The Pokémon market is blazing hot. It's dominating the market and that's the number one card," Goldin told him.
He offered Paul a $2.5m (£1.8m) advance and a cut of everything else sold in his Pokémon and TCG (trading card game) auction, of which the Pikachu Illustrator was the star lot.
Paul admitted the funds would be useful for his "expensive wedding".
"I'm not a reseller. I'm a collector," he told Goldin on the show. "But, candidly, I could use the liquidity. I'm good at making money. I'm better at spending money."
Paul married Danish model Nina Agdal in a lavish wedding in Lake Como, Italy, in August 2025.
