I recently became aware of a series of limited edition prints released exclusively by the Pokemon Center in 2002, but I can find basically zero info about them online. Here’s an example of what one looks like:
Does anyone have any further info on the release? And what prints like these would be worth, approximately? I’m stunned at how little info I can find online about these.
Note: I don’t own either of these prints – these are just photos I found online.
@swolepoke is the resident historian on these sorts of pieces and while he is busy rn he has an Instagram post explaining;
I mean essentially they’re prints that were produced at sold at the Pokémon center in 2004/2005. The first series was limited to 100 of each piece made. Ken Sugimori Rayquaza Art Collection 1st Edition print. Pokémon Center Japan Exclusive. Only 100 made. Not to be confused with the Pokémon Center US “2nd Edition” prints released in 2016, These original prints are incredibly hard to come by. With a retail price of $250 and only 100 of each artwork being printed, this was a difficult piece to come by even in 2004. Even on the secondary market today, you rarely ever see these listed for sale. From doing as much research as I could, it seems a lot of the original buyers still own their pieces to this day. Understandable as they had never done something like this before, and wouldn’t again for many more years.
The Charizard piece you’ve posted is obviously copyrighted 2002, but I would assume the release is very similar in terms to the retail pricing and distribution.
Ok, awesome, thank you!! Great info. I didn’t realize the second edition prints came out that much later. What’s really weird is that the second edition prints are more limited than the first series prints (only 50 copies of each second edition print according to the Jirachi print description). I imagine that the first series prints would still command more, though.
Yeah I agree that’s super odd; to me, the artwork is gorgeous regardless so I personally wouldn’t care that much on the copyright year or numbers released. I have no idea on what the different series prints are worth on the secondary market, but man they’d be an amazing addition to any collection.
@zorloth Did you notice the 1st print pop up on a Japanese marketplace as well today? I looked into it briefly but did not do near the amount of digging you had. Thanks for sharing!
I didn’t! I actually only learned of the series today while looking through someone’s Instagram posts. They have the Latias/Latios one and I knew upon first sight that I NEEDED to get one lol. Such a gorgeous series of prints; I wish they came up for sale more often, but I guess that’s just the nature of highly-limited items .
The photos of the Charizard print I just pulled from an (extraordinarily overpriced) eBay listing.
Ah yes I believe it was listed for 500,000 yen if I am not mistaken. Very cool limited art piece but not something I would buy for that price personally
Ha, much more reasonable price than the eBay listing, at least! The eBay one is listed at $12.6k . $3500 still seems very high, but definitely more within the realm of reason lol.
I have a few of the second edition ones but the art is pretty much the same as the clear file folders you can find for Sugimori art. All I remember is that they came out 2020 and they cost 250$ a piece. Also I believe the charizard was not available as a second print (not sure but i never saw it in the store). The rayquaza sold out so fast I was not able to even add to cart.
If you want to go further down the price ladder you can also get them in the 2014 canned postcard set (along with some others). They come up fairly frequently in Japan for 5000 yen or so, but they generally go quickly.
I’ll add the caveat that they have this matte finish that doesn’t look great in person, but for the price they’re honestly amazing.
I love these too. From my google search, the shiny Charizard print is 1/150 and the rest are 1/100. The Charizard has a special
Metal logo. You can check out the blog post below to see a picture of them.
I know there are 4 more sugimori prints released in Japan for B&W and XY with the legendaries from those eras featured. They are unnumbered and you see them pretty regularly on Mercari for around $200. They are much smaller in size compared to the other prints and are lower in quality.
The “2nd edition” English ones are all 1/50 and you can see them all on the Pokémon center website in the art section. They’re all sold out.
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. $3500 still seems very high, but definitely more within the realm of reason lol.
