The $4.88M Art Academy Mudkip: fan art at the top of the hobby

02

Every PSA 10 has changed hands

PSA has graded three Art Academy Mudkips, and all three are 10s. Assetra has recorded a sale of each one, and the slab photographs show three different certification numbers. The first sold for $42,000 in November 2024. Within two years the same grade of the same card sold for more than a hundred times that.

03

What an Art Academy card is

Pokémon’s Art Academy illustration contest invited players to draw Pokémon, and the winning drawings were printed as real, official cards. The Japanese winners’ cards carry the XY-P promo mark. According to the Japanese promo reference Pokeboon, entries ran from 13 December 2014 to 1 February 2015, each winner was sent 100 copies of their own card, and the cards went out from mid-July 2015. An international round worked the same way: Game Informer reported in June 2015 that its six winners would each receive 100 printed cards of their art.

The cards were never sold in packs. Each design exists as the run printed for one person, with that person’s name in the illustrator credit. The Mudkip’s reads “Illus. Daisuke Ochiai”, and PSA’s label names it ART ACADEMY-DAISUKE OCHIAI.

04

A category, not a single card

The Mudkip leads, but the whole family moved with it. These are every Art Academy card Assetra tracks, ranked by the highest price each has sold for:

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What sets them apart

• Official cards, one artist each. Each design was drawn by a single fan and printed as a real Pokémon card, with the fan credited as its illustrator.
• A run sized for one person. By the accounts above, 100 copies per winner, handed to the winner rather than sold. Every graded copy is visible in the population reports, and for the Mudkip that is three.
• A story collectors can tell. A contest prize carries its provenance on its face: who drew it, why it exists and how few there are.

06

What to watch

• The rest of the family. Several contest cards have sold only once or twice. Each new sale shows how far the October prices carry across the category.
• Newly graded copies. With 100 printed per winner, more copies may still reach a grader, and each one adds to a population counted in single digits.
• A repeat sale. None of the three Mudkip PSA 10s has sold twice yet. The first to do so will be the cleanest read on the card’s level.

Follow the Art Academy Mudkip on Assetra to be told when the next one sells.

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Sources

• Sports Illustrated Collectibles: Mudkip leads Pokémon sales bonanza. The $4.88M Goldin result, the $3.72M Fanatics sale a month earlier, the 31% rise, and the $976,000 Sableye and Gourgeist.
• Auction Report: Art Academy Mudkip sells for $4.88 million. The auction (Goldin 2026 Pokémon 30th Anniversary), the date and the PSA population of three.
• WorthPoint: Art Academy Mudkip tops Goldin's Pokémon 30th Anniversary auction. The Mudkip as the auction's top lot.
• OTIA: Mudkip card market erupts as Art Academy promo sells for $3.72 million. The September sale on the Fanatics September Premier auction.
• Pokeboon: XY-P Mudkip, Art Academy promo (Japanese). The contest dates, 100 copies sent to each winner, distribution from mid-July 2015.
• Game Informer: six Pokémon Art Academy winners will be made into custom cards (June 2015). The international round: six winners, 100 printed cards each.
• Assetra: 2015 Mudkip Japanese XY Promo, card page. Every recorded sale with its slab photograph, the PSA population and the estimate; the other Art Academy cards' records come from their own pages.