DUMB $: Anthony Scaramucci’s son buys Pokemon card for $16 million from influencer
Logan Paul sold his Pikachu Illustrator Pokémon trading card for $16.492 million, including the buyer's premium, at a Goldin Auctions sale.
The buyer was AJ Scaramucci, founder of Solari Capital, a venture capital firm with connections to Wall Street and the Trump family through his father, Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly as White House communications director in 2017. Scaramucci's winning bid was $13 million.
Paul originally acquired the card in a 2021 private sale for $5.275 million, a transaction that also set a Guinness World Record at the time for the most expensive Pokémon card sold privately. He later traded a PSA 9 version of the same card, valued at $1.275 million, plus $4 million in cash.
The card is one of approximately 39 known examples issued in 1998 as prizes for winners of an illustration contest run by Japan's CoroCoro Comic magazine. Designed by Atsuko Nishida, the artist who created Pikachu, Paul's copy is the only one graded a perfect 10 by Professional Sports Authenticator, denoting virtually flawless condition. He had it encased in a custom diamond-encrusted box and wore it on a matching necklace during his WWE entrance at WrestleMania 38 in 2022.
The sale follows a 41-day auction period that saw the price surge in the final hours from around $6.88 million amid 97 bids, reflecting the sharp rise in values for rare Pokémon cards, which have become sought-after alternative assets amid broader interest in collectibles.
(read more below)
Guinness World Records certified the transaction as the most expensive trading card ever sold at auction, a record this same card had previously set for Paul.
During a live YouTube stream, Paul described the outcome as "absolutely insane" and presented the card and necklace to Scaramucci, who was present at the auction house. Scaramucci called it the first step in a "planetary treasure hunt" aimed at acquiring items like a T-Rex fossil and the Declaration of Independence, documented on his site TreasureTrove.com. The deal was chronicled in Netflix's "King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch," where auctioneer Ken Goldin offered Paul a $2.5 million advance and a share of other Pokémon sales.
Paul, whose estimated net worth is $150 million from YouTube, WWE, and ventures like PRIME Hydration, cited the funds as useful liquidity following his August 2025 wedding to model Nina Agdal in Lake Como, Italy.