30th Celebration Pikachu Cards: All 30 for $24 or 120 Packs

All 30 of the 30th Celebration Pikachu cards cost $23.90 together as Near Mint singles on TCGplayer on October 28, 2026, while pulling the same 30 from packs takes about 120 packs on average.

That gap is the whole decision if you're filling a 30-pocket frame or a binder page with them. Twenty-eight of the 30 sell for under a dollar, and only one costs more than $1.50. Shinji Kanda's 040/128 is $4.76, 20% of the run on its own, after doubling in the week of October 19 and giving some of it back. Our printable 30th Celebration checklist is the page for ticking cards off; this one covers what the 30 Pikachu cost and how their prices have moved since launch.

The 30th Celebration Pikachu list: 023 to 052, one in every pack

The official 30th Celebration page promises "30 Pikachu rare cards to collect", and every booster pack "contains one." Each pack holds five foil cards, one of them a Pikachu, plus a foil Basic Energy, per Pokémon's product showcase. On the English checklist they're 023/128 to 052/128, inside the main set rather than above it. Pokémon's Pikachu reveal adds: "Each Pikachu card features a different illustration, artist, and attacks." They also carry a second number, out of 30, in the Pikachu numbering on the card face.

Here is the full run with TCGplayer's Near Mint market price in release week and on October 28.

TCGplayer market price, Near Mint, English. "Week of Sep 14" is the price-history week that holds the September 16 release; Oct 28 is the search read that day. Illustrators: Pokémon's card database and TCGdex. Changes and totals use unrounded prices.

All 30 are cheaper than in launch week, and most fell by half

The 30 cost $67.06 together in release week and $23.90 on October 28, down 64%. The median card lost 65%, and 28 of the 30 lost more than half. Not one is above its launch-week price. The smallest drop was 040/128's, at 32%. The biggest was Susumu Maeya's 035/128, from $2.52 to $0.54, a 79% fall; Asako Ito's 027/128, the second-priciest in launch week at $4.27, is now $0.94.

Chart: SetPulls. Source: TCGplayer price history and search API, read Oct 28, 2026.

Our read is supply. Every pack sold adds a Pikachu to the market. TCGplayer's price history counts between 7,659 and 11,615 Near Mint copies sold per card over its one-year window, 249,854 across the 30, and every card had at least 136 listings on October 28. On October 5, u/Pho_King_Yummy asked r/PokeInvesting what to do with all 30: "Get them graded by Beckett for their flat fee and store these cards away for 5-10 years?" The top text reply, from u/Puzzled-Leopard-1499 (9 points as of October 24), was blunt: "They come in everypack. I am doubtful they will appreciate that much tbh".

So far the prices agree with the reply. We don't forecast, but grading is a sum we can do: CGC's Bulk tier was $17 a card on October 28, with a 25-card minimum, so slabbing the full run costs $510 in fees, 21 times what the 30 raw cards cost. Our PSA vs CGC vs BGS fee comparison covers the other tiers. We didn't price Beckett.

040/128 is the only Pikachu above $1.50

Card image: pokemon.com card database

Shinji Kanda's Pikachu, 18 of 30 in the Pikachu numbering, has 80 HP and the Overwriting Bolt attack. It was the priciest of the 30 in launch week at $7.02, and TCGplayer's own seller blog put it at number 4 in its September 2026 report of top-selling Pokémon cards with an average sale of $1.00 to $49.99, at a $5.28 average sale. The blog's explanation: "Cards illustrated by Shinji’s Kanda have a reputation for spiking over time. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, Kanda’s Pikachu Rare card has become the best-selling and the most expensive of the 30 cards at this rarity."

Then it slid with the others, to $2.62 in the week starting October 12, and came back. In the week starting October 19 its market price was $5.34, double the week before, and it sold 2,420 Near Mint copies, the most of any of the 30 (027/128 was next at 1,499). By October 28 it had eased to $4.76. It had 136 listings that day, while the other 29 had between 642 and 1,280 each. We found no source that explains the October jump; the September ranking predates it.

For a run builder, 040 alone is a fifth of the run, and the other 29 together cost $19.14. Pulling it is no shortcut either. At one in 30 packs on average that's about $357 of loose packs at $11.91 each, the same single-card arithmetic our 30th Celebration pull rates guide runs for the chase rares.

Our read: about $24 in singles beats about 120 packs

If all 30 are equally common, the pack math is the classic collector's problem. The first packs almost always add a new Pikachu; once you hold 29, each pack has a 1 in 30 chance of the one you're missing, so that last card alone takes 30 packs on average. The total averages 119.8 packs, which matches the "about 120 packs on average" in Bill's Archive.

Chart: SetPulls. Source: SetPulls arithmetic, assuming equal odds for the 30 Pikachu.

One Elite Trainer Box (9 packs) gives about 7.9 different Pikachu. Sixty packs give about 26 of the 30 and a 0.6% chance of the full set. Half of collectors would finish by 113 packs, and one in ten would still be short after 168.

Chart: SetPulls. Source: TCGplayer search API and CGC Cards fee page, Oct 28, 2026; Bill's Archive ETB list price.

Those packs aren't wasted; they carry the rest of the set too. But even at the $49.99 list price, far under the Elite Trainer Box's $120.21 TCGplayer market price on October 28, the Pikachu run alone justifies none of it. Our pull rates guide calls the Pikachu set the one goal chase packs serve well, and both hold: if you're opening for the chase cards anyway, the Pikachu come with them, but counted on the 30 Pikachu alone, singles are cheaper.

Two sources disagree here, and the difference is the date. Bill's Archive's September page priced "All 30 as singles ~$59"; on October 28 the same 30 came to $23.90. Bill's Archive also states the catch in the pack math: "Nobody has published a per-Pikachu count large enough to show whether some variants are short-printed, so treat the equal-odds assumption as a starting point." TCGplayer's sales counts don't settle it, because copies sold measure demand as much as supply.

Our verdict: buy the Pikachu, open packs for the rest

The call: buy the 30 Pikachu as singles, 040 included, and open 30th Celebration packs only for the cards above the Pikachu. With the whole run at about $24 on October 28 against roughly 120 packs, no pack price we found makes pulling them the cheaper way.

What would change our mind: a large published pack count showing that some Pikachu are short-printed. Then the cheapest cards on the list might be cheap only for now, and buying them early would matter more than it does today.

Who should open packs and who should buy the run

Buy the run if the 30 Pikachu are the point, for a frame or a binder page. u/Much_Essay_9151 replied to u/Puzzled-Leopard-1499 (2 points as of October 24): "Id love to have all 30 and get a 30 card frame for it". That buyer needs about $24 plus shipping, not 120 packs.

Open packs if you want the set's other cards and treat the Pikachu as a bonus; our 30th Celebration card list covers what else those packs hold. Keep the doubles for trades, and buy the last five or so as singles: by the time you hold 25, the next new one takes 6 packs on average and the last one 30.

Related Reading

• 30th Celebration prices, 30 days later
• How to sell Pokémon cards: TCGplayer vs eBay fees
• How to store Pokémon cards

References

1. Pokémon, 30th Celebration expansion page, read Oct 24, 2026.
2. Pokémon, Look at Electrifying Pikachu Cards from Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration, Aug 18, 2026.
3. Pokémon, 30th Celebration product showcase, read Oct 24, 2026.
4. Pokémon, 30th Celebration card list (PDF), read Oct 24, 2026.
5. Pokémon card database, Pikachu 040/128, read Oct 24, 2026.
6. TCGplayer, Pikachu 040/128 product page and price history for all 30 Pikachu Rares, read Oct 28, 2026.
7. TCGplayer, 30th Celebration Booster Pack and Elite Trainer Box, read Oct 28, 2026.
8. TCGplayer seller blog, Top Selling Pokémon Cards on TCGplayer: September 2026, Oct 6, 2026.
9. Bill's Archive, 30th Celebration Pull Rates and 30th Anniversary English products and MSRP, read Oct 24, 2026.
10. CGC Cards, grading services and fees, read Oct 28, 2026.
11. Reddit, r/PokeInvesting, "What to do with all 30 pikachus?", Oct 5, 2026.