| RECON // NEWSLETTER NO. 004 |
WED OCT 14, 2026 |
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Know the market. Collect with conviction.
TCG · VIDEO GAMES · ANIME
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 | | IMAGE: COURTESY CHRISTIE’S, VIA THE ART NEWSPAPER |
Christie’s second anime art sale is live through Oct 22, seven months after a debut that made $1.44M on 41 lots
| SALE | CHRISTIE’S NY · ONLINE THRU OCT 22 |
| LOTS | ABOUT 130 · EST. $344,350–523,200 |
| PICTURED | AKIRA KANEDA CEL · EST. $5,000–7,000 |
$1.44M MARCH DEBUT · 41 LOTS · WITH FEES
Christie’s has about 130 lots online through Oct 22, estimated at $344,350 to $523,200 in all: an Akira cel of Kaneda on his bike and a Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn cel at $5,000–7,000 each, a Pokémon series cel at $2,000–3,000, Osamu Tezuka drawings and Ultraman vinyls, per The Art Newspaper. The March debut totaled $1,442,466 with fees on 41 lots, per Christie’s; 35% of its buyers were Millennials or Gen Z and 36% were new to the house, per Il Sole 24 Ore, and Ito Ikuko’s Sailor Moon sketch made $88,900 on a $5,000 low estimate. Heritage’s May sale set the category record at $2.5M, with Akira and Pokémon cels at $73,200 each. The full file explains what a cel, a genga and a douga are, and why the cel supply stopped growing.
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| BIG SALES |
RECENT COMPS · SINCE OCT 11 |
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The second PSA 10 Art Academy Pikachu sells for $1,037,000 at Goldin, an eighth of the first copy’s unpaid $8.4M
A PSA 10 2015 Art Academy Pikachu, the Y. Fujishima contest promo with 100 printed, sold for $1,037,000 with the buyer’s premium on an $850,000 bid in Goldin’s TCG Weekly auction that closed Sunday night, Oct 11, per Chase Society and Collectibles News. The first PSA 10 to sell publicly made $8,400,000 at Fanatics Collect on Sept 27 and still showed unpaid 15 days later, per Chase Society, so the paid ladder runs $17,400 (July 2025), $156,250 (Heritage, June 27) and now $1,037,000. PSA’s census has 57 copies at a 10, and Goldin notes nobody knows how many of the 100 ever left the artist’s hands.
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A PSA 10 red-dot Typhlosion sells for $1,549,690 at Alt, the week’s top graded Pokémon sale
A 2000 Neo Genesis 1st Edition holo Typhlosion with the red dot error, PSA 10, sold for $1,549,690 with the buyer’s premium at Alt on Thursday, Oct 8, per Chase Society’s roundup of the Oct 5–11 week. PSA has graded 13 copies a 10, dot or not, and its label doesn’t note the dot; the June PSA 10 that made $415,500 at Alt has none, so Chase Society says to read the 3.7x gap with care. The same night a PSA 10 1st Edition Base Set Charizard (pop 123) made $1,385,274, about three times the $462,500 Heritage sale in June, and both lots showed payment pending at Alt four days in.
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A sealed early-print Famicom Zelda, CGC 9.2 A+, sells for $32,500 at Heritage
Heritage sold a sealed 1986 Famicom Disk System Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy graded CGC 9.2 A+ for $32,500, ComicBook.com reported Oct 12; the yellow ‘Disk System’ text on the box marks an early production run, and later boxes carry it in white. The closest comp in our ledger is a CGC 9.0 A+ copy listed as a first print that made $12,000 on eBay in the week of Sept 15–22, per The Graded Games Report, so two grade steps and a label that names the variant bought a 2.7x gap. On the NES side the early-print premium runs much further: Heritage sold early- and first-production copies of The Legend of Zelda for $870,000 (July 2021), $705,000 (Oct 2021), $375,000 (Aug 2024) and $300,000 (May 2025).
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| TCG |
Wizards’ Oct 12 Banned and Restricted update changed no tabletop format. The only moves came in Competitive Brawl on Arena, where Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow, Spider-Man 2099 and Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice are newly banned as commanders and nine more cards are now banned only in the command zone, per MTGGoldfish. (MTGGoldfish, Oct 12) |
| TCG |
Alt’s Oct 8 session also moved a sealed 2002 Legendary Collection booster box at $381,000 with premium, per Chase Society. Goldin sold one for $184,220 on Aug 9, so this box paid about twice that in two months; Chase Society wants a second sale before calling it the level. (Chase Society, Oct 12) |
| TCG |
Wizards detailed the Marvel: Darkhold Destiny line for April 9, 2027: Collector Boosters, 14-card Booster Packs, a Bundle and an Arcanum Bundle, two Scene Boxes and four Commander decks with 30 new cards each, per ICv2. No prices yet; the tie-in comic’s first digital chapter lands Feb 26. (ICv2, Oct 12) |
| TCG |
Bandai’s Naruto Card Game launches worldwide in June 2027 with starter decks ST-01 Naruto, ST-02 Sasuke and ST-03 Gaara and a first booster, Here Comes Naruto Uzumaki!, per ICv2. Bandai plans 1 million demo decks from spring 2027, per Collectibles News; no prices yet. (ICv2, Oct 13 · Collectibles News, Oct 12) |
| Video Games |
A sealed Final Fantasy VII (PS1, 1997) graded CGC 9.9 A++ realized $185,303 with premium in Goldin’s Summer Pop Culture Elite auction, which ended Sept 10; CGC calls it the record for a graded copy. On eBay, The Graded Games Report lists a WATA 9.8 A+ sealed copy at $17,000 in July and a PSA 9.8 A first print at $13,000 in August. (CGC, Oct 1) |
| Anime |
Spirited Away returns to US theaters Oct 17–21 for its 25th anniversary, per Cartoon Brew. The last big Ghibli cel results came at Heritage’s May 15–17 Art of Anime sale, where a Princess Mononoke San production cel made $67,100, the house’s top price for the film, and a My Neighbor Totoro Catbus cel $46,360, per Heritage’s release via Anime News Network. (Cartoon Brew, Oct 5 · Anime News Network, May 20) |
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| UPCOMING RELEASES |
DROP DATES |
| OCT 30 |
One Piece Card Game EB-05 Heroines Edition vol. 2 (English): 75+2 types, $4.99 a pack LIVE LISTINGS ON EBAY → |
BANDAI |
| NOV 6 |
Delta Reign (Pokémon TCG, English): ETB, booster bundle, booster box LIVE LISTINGS ON EBAY → |
PRE-ORDERS OPEN |
| NOV 20 |
One Piece Card Game OP-18 The Dominance of God (English): 127+1 types, $4.99 a pack; Japan Nov 21 LIVE LISTINGS ON EBAY → |
SAINT GUNKO AND SAINT SHAMROCK DEBUT |
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FIELD NOTE
Cels stopped. Paper didn’t. Every cel is pre-digital.
Studios painted cels until they moved to digital color around the turn of the century, so the supply of cels is fixed, and it shrinks with every cracked paint layer and every sheet stuck to its background. The drawings underneath, the genga and douga, are still made on paper for many shows, so for anything animated since the switch, the paper is the only production original. Christie’s has a Kaneda cel estimated at $5,000 to $7,000 closing Oct 22. Heritage sold a Kaneda motorcycle cel for $48,000 in October 2023 and an Akira cel for $73,200 in May. Where the Oct 22 result lands against those two numbers shows whether Christie’s bidders price Akira the way Heritage’s do.
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