What Are Pokemon Snap Cards?
Pokemon Snap Cards come from the original Pokemon Snap game for the Nintendo 64. In this game your job was to explore and take pictures of Pokemon on your journey. To promote the game in 1999, there were 2 official competitions held. The top 5 best pictures of Pokemon taken by fans in the game would have there pictures used as art for Pokemon cards. Since there were two of these competitions a total of 10 different variations of these cards exist as far as we know. But some have different rarity and value. Here’s a list of all Pokemon Snap cards.
How Rare Are Pokemon Snap Cards?
The reason these cards are so rare is there were only 20 of each card printed in the first competition and 15 copies for the second competition. These cards were only given to the winners and no one else. The winners didn’t receive one of each card but 20 or 15 copies of their own cards. This makes them even more rare with some of them not being in circulation at all. It’s said that some of these will never see the light of day but the ones that have resurfaced are going for a lot of money. One of the Magikarp cards recently sold for over $130,000!
Every Pokemon Snap Card
Pokemon Snap Pikachu Black Star Promo
This is the most common and cheapest Pokemon Snap card of them all. The Japanese Snap Pikachu card was used as a Black Star Promo that came with Volume 1 of Pokémon Card Trainers magazine in 1999. The English version came out in 2001 and was used as a promo card in the Pokemon League. These are the most accessible because they were plenty printed as a promotion and given to many players around the world.
- Worth: ~$30+
Pokemon Snap Pikachu Card
This Pikachu card is not the promo version but the real thing! These are extremely rare as only 20 of them were printed. These are also one of the most wanted Pokemon Snap cards because Pikachu is the most popular and well known Pokemon.
- Worth: ~$300,000
Pokemon Snap Squirtle Card
One of the 3 starter Pokemon, Squirtle has 15 copies somewhere in the world. We haven’t found anyone selling these cards but we know they’re out there.
- Worth: Unknown
Pokemon Snap Charmander Card
Only 15 copies of the Pokemon Snap Charmander exist. We expect this card to go for more than many others considering one of the most popular Pokemon in the TCG is Charmander’s evolution, Charizard. There was a Japanese auction that went up in 2021 for this card.
- Worth: ~$100,000
Pokemon Snap Bulbasaur Card
Out of the 3 original starter Pokemon this is the most printed, while the others only have 15 copies, there are 20 copies of this Bulbasaur card printed. That doesn’t stop this card from being extremely rare. So rare in fact, we can’t find any auctions of this card but found this reddit post showing one off.
- Worth: Unknown
Pokemon Snap Magikarp Card
The Snap Magikarp is the Pokemon Snap card that made the most recent headlines. It sold for over $130,000. Only 20 copies of these exist.
- Worth: ~$130,000
Pokemon Snap Gyrados Card
The evolution of Magikarp, Gyrados has the same amount of copies as there were 20 printed. This one is a little special because a large YouTuber known as MaxMoeFoe owns one. They got theirs graded which is very hard to do. Grading services have had a hard time authenticating these cards in the past because of the lack of information on them.
- Worth: $50,000+
Pokemon Snap Articuno Card
The Articuno is a particularly wanted card out of these because it’s the only legendary Pokemon. There are only 15 copies of these. We’ve seen images of these cards out there but no auctions so far.
- Worth: Unknown
Pokemon Snap Chansey Card
Chansey is another fan favorite with it being a holo from the original base set. There are 15 copies of Snap Chansey cards in the world. We found one that was graded by BGS but none sold so far.
- Worth: Unknown
Pokemon Snap Poliwag Card
20 copies of the Snap Poliwag cards exist. A BGS 8.5 graded Snap Poliwag card is on sale for about $34,800 on goldin at the moment.
- Worth: ~$34,800?
Pokemon Snap Koffing Card
15 copies of the Snap Koffing cards exist. This particular card is very rare because there’s not much information out there on this card. We’ve found a forum claiming they owned a copy but no proof was found. As far as we know none of these are in circulation and may be the rarest Pokemon Snap card of them all.
- Worth: Unknown