Pokémon card winner Scaramucci says collectibles are asset class

Social media influencer and wrestler Logan Paul made history last week when he sold a rare Pokémon card for $16.5 million, a world record price for an auctioned trading card. The winner views it as an investment.

AJ Scaramucci — son of investor and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci — won the bidding war for the “Pikachu Illustrator” card, made in 1998 and one of only an estimated few dozen to exist. 

It’s the crowning achievement in the Solari Capital founder’s short collecting career, which started with trading cards during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I mean, Picassos are great,” he said in an interview, explaining the Illustrator card’s importance. “But Pokémon means way more than just a Picasso painting to people.”

After winning, Scaramucci said the card’s purchase was the first action in what will be, as he dubbed, a “planetary treasure hunt.” He said the goal, which he is embarking on with his younger brother, is to collect a number of real-world, scarce assets across varying categories. 

Trading card markets have exploded in recent years. According to data from Card Ladder, an analytics firm that tracks trading card prices and sales, the monthly sales volume in secondary trading has nearly doubled in the last two years.

EBay CEO Jamie Iannone in the company’s earnings call last week detailed that the largest contributor to gross merchandise volume growth in the fourth-quarter were collectibles, particularly “driven by continued strength in trading cards.”

Paul himself bought the illustrator card in 2021 for nearly $5.3 million, indicating he sold it with a more than 200% return. Card Ladder’s “Pokémon index” has grown 145% in the past year. Compare those gains to the S&P 500, which is up 15.2% in the past year. Or compare it to “Magnificent Seven” darling Alphabet, which is up 73.4% in the past year. 

“Especially in 2025, the growth has been astronomical,” said Ken Goldin, founder and CEO of Goldin Auctions, which is owned by eBay. Goldin helped facilitate the auction for the illustrator card last week. “We have people who are buying solely either because they absolutely love it or they firmly believe that trading cards and collectibles are a legitimate alternative asset class.”

Scaramucci is someone who is buying Pokémon cards for both of those reasons: his own pleasure and the investment potential. 

“The compounded annual growth rate of these cards is out of control,” he said. “And they should be treated as investments because that’s what they are. It’s just obvious.”

Scaramucci added the cards are a way to play the “debasement trade,” where investors fearful of countries devaluing their currencies move money into hard assets. 

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