In a sea of goldmines, the Pokemon video game franchise numbers among Nintendo’s most golden. Despite not owning the rights directly, the Big N profits so strongly from the sky-high sales figures of every new title in the decades-old series of monster-catching adventure games. Over the years support for the franchise has not dwindled, and the games have continued to hold their value. More than that, as copies of the older games have become increasingly hard to come by, factory-sealed units are known to fetch a pretty penny on auction sites.

Here, we’re taking a look at the most expensive games in the Pokemon franchise and how much they’re worth. All headlined estimates are for factory-sealed copies, sourced via PriceCharting, with individual notations per entry on how much they’d fetch in varying less-than-perfect conditions.

Updated July 15, 2022 by Quinton O’Connor: Compendiums of market-value video games can’t be one-and-done bits of publishing. Maintaining an accurate reference chart for the amount of cash Pokemon diehards will drop for their favorite games means revisiting the [Slowpoke] well from time to time, as we’ve done so today and will no doubt continue doing in the future.

10 Nintendo Switch Pokemon: Let’s Go Bundles ($700)

  • Let’s Go Pikachu tends to outperform Let’s Go Eevee, hovering around the $700 mark to Let’s Go Eevee’s $550
  • “Graded” Switch bundles don’t change the needle much, coming in around $750
  • Open-box bundles linger for around $400
  • Loose copies of either game are commonly purchased for $25 or less

For obvious reasons, the vast majority of this list includes far older Pokemon games than anything else on the Nintendo Switch. In fact, there’s nothing here for the 3DS, either — or even the DS, barring the HeartGold & SoulSilver figurine batches you’ll soon see.

And it’s not because none of the newer fare is pricey. Pokemon Black & White Version 2 cartridges can both sell for over $250. But that’s just chump change, relatively speaking.

So, why do these Switch console bundles manage to hit the $700 mark? It’s probably a combination of the appealing (well, subjectively speaking) Joy-Con designs, the unique Switch dock aesthetic, and the fact that there’s an entire Switch in there most of all. This one crosses over with folks who collect limited-time console packages, so the interest is there, if not outrageously high.

9 Pokemon FireRed ($1100)

  • For $320 on average, you can get the game with its box and manual in an iffier state.
  • Loose copies cost only around $80.
  • Grade-10 sealed Pokemon FireRed will make any seller happy to the tune of $4500.

Pokemon FireRed still does to LeafGreen what Red used to do to Blue — its resale value is a few hundred higher. Now, that means sealed copies of LeafGreen are going to fetch about as much as those Let’s Go bundles, but it’s Charizard’s timeless mug that roars for more.

Once again, loose carts aren’t all that spectacular, but collectors will need to save up. Or be born into money, we guess. That works, too.

8 Pokemon Gold & Silver ($1100)

  • Complete (opened) copies of Pokemon Gold & Silver net around $275.
  • Loose is the way to go for bargain-hunters, at $50. Beware that loose Game Boy fakes are nearly as prevalent as DS fakes!
  • Collectors can expect to drop over $1600 for graded copies.

There was a brief period of time in which some analysts predicted that Pokemon would be a fad. A huge fad, but a fad nonetheless. The arrival of the second-generation games, Gold & Silver, helped to secure that as plain falsehood. While they didn’t sell quite as many copies — nor have any subsequent titles! — they still lit the sales charts on fire. And for good reason, as their quality is superb.

Of note, Gold’s companion game — Silver — hasn’t tended to attract quite so lofty a sum. At least, not in North America and Europe. Japanese copies can easily rival Pokemon Gold here, but that’s a separate matter!

7 Pokemon Emerald With Carrying Case Bundle ($1750)

  • Even loose, you’re looking at spending around $530 here. The carrying case is that big a deal.
  • You can slash a few hundred and spend $1150 or so for open-box units.
  • Grading doesn’t change things much with merchandise like this, as can be seen with the $1900 tag.

Snugly unopened copies of Pokemon Emerald sell for several hundred, but this limited-availability bundle complete with a neat carrying case is on another level. As we note, even loose ones are costly, since keeping the carrying case in prime condition for all these years is no small task.

Emerald, as the successor version to Ruby & Sapphire, inevitably sold fewer units. It’s a vastly better iteration of the Hoenn region, per plenty of fans, and well worth adding to the catalog. Maybe just the game, though…

6 Pokemon Red & Blue ($1800)

  • Complete, but opened/used, copies fetch around $250
  • Loose copies will only set you back about $50
  • Grade-10 Pokemon Red & Blue versions sell for as high as $2600

A bit of trivia: in the past, Pokemon Red has demanded far higher market value than Pokemon Blue. This despite more copies of Red having been sold through the years; no doubt, Charizard on the cover and protagonist Red’s canon name have had something to do with that.

At present, however, we’ve lumped both versions together thanks to their relatively equal value. Red’s just not hitting the home runs like he used to, though that can (and in all likelihood will) change in the years to come. In any case, the original Pokemon games can be purchased on the cheap, or you can spend big bucks for guaranteed authentic copies all nicely sealed.

5 Pokemon Crystal ($3000)

  • Complete opened packages still need you to part with a sum to the tune of $500.
  • Graded copies kick this up to $3800, where it competes with the top sellers on our list.

Pokemon Crystal, for the uninitiated, is Pokemon Gold & Silver… except cooler. For the first time in the series, players could choose a female identity. But more than that, many aspects of the original Johto journey are expanded in meaningful ways.

It sold well, but as with Yellow, Emerald, Platinum, and Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon, it was never going to push as many parents into forking over the coin, because so many kids (and adults) already owned Gold & Silver. Whereas Yellow doesn’t hit the price tags that Red & Blue do, Crystal eclipses its progenitors tidily.

4 Pokemon SoulSilver Lugia Figure Bundle ($3100)

  • Most of us drool over the prospect of landing a copy of SoulSilver (or HeartGold) sealed with a Poke Walker accessory, but the figurine variations go the extra mile.
  • Speaking of going the extra mile, if you’re already doling out this much cash, maybe get the graded bundle if you can find it for $3300.
  • Complete copies demand about $1600 and loose ones are $$1100.

Gold & Silver were great, balancing many of Red & Blue’s wonkier aspects (Psychic-types were basically gods, for example) whilst improving upon them in virtually every way. The 2010 remakes, HeartGold & SoulSilver, thus had a steep Mount Moon to climb if they were to earn as much contemporary praise. They succeeded, and then some, and in the eyes of millions of Pokemon veterans, “HGSS” remains the franchise’s peak.

This bundle contains not only the original Pokemon SoulSilver game for Nintendo DS but packages it with a Lugia figurine and a special Poke Walker jacket. Its astronomical price can’t be denied, but it trails its counterpart enough to get a separate entry…

3 Nintendo 64 Pokemon Stadium Battle Set ($3300)

  • Graded gets even wilder, at $3600 or more.
  • Want everything but don’t mind buying used? You can save a ton and spend $1050.
  • Given the above, we wouldn’t necessarily recommend purchasing just the Nintendo 64 console and game separately, as it doesn’t save you much. $930 is the average right now.

This one gets a price bump thanks to the fact that it includes a Nintendo 64 console but the price for a “new-in-box” version is still quite high. In fact, the included Nintendo 64 isn’t even a Special Edition and doesn’t contain any unique art.

This set included everything players needed to boot up Pokemon Stadium, including a console with a standard controller, an extra Atomic Purple controller, an Expansion Pack, Trainer’s Manual, and even a game printing with a special holographic trading card. It’s highly sought after by collectors and fetches a high price.

2 Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire ($3800)

  • Want it graded? You’ll need to spend over $7600. Yeah.
  • Even opened copies command $2400.
  • Interestingly, there’s simply not enough data to report on loose copies here.

There were three ways to trade Pokemon with your friends back when Ruby & Sapphire were the hotness. You could do what most of us did, linking two Game Boy Advances together via Link Cable. You could do what a fewer number of fans had the chance to do, purchasing the Game Boy Player accessory and hooking it up to a GameCube. Doing so allowed players to see their hard-earned critters on TV screens, a “wow” moment only replicated and exceeded with the Switch’s catalog.

Or, if you lived near enough to the New York City Pokemon Center here in North America (or snagged a one-run GameCube bundle in PAL territories), you could buy Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire, a snazzy little thing that echoed the Game Boy Player functionality with enhanced features.

The rarity, of course, has spiked the price to truly wild levels over the past 20 years and counting. We’re clearly in “only if you’re rich” territory now.

1 Pokemon HeartGold Ho-Oh Figure Bundle ($4300)

  • Opened copies are still about $2000.
  • Loose ones hover around $1500.
  • Graded? $4700. That’s a lot.

Which Johto legendary is cooler, Ho-Oh or Lugia? Your answer doesn’t matter to the ruthless wheels of capitalism; to the Pokemon market, the answer is adamantly Ho-Oh. A $1200 difference is nothing to sneeze at.

And since ending this list with a reference to sneezing would be a bit awkward, we’ll tack on this final sentence simply to say that $4300 could also pay the rent for a few months in many parts of North America. Do with that knowledge what you will. (Go on, buy the game. You know you want to.)

NEXT: Pokemon: The D&D Alignments of Every Rival Character