Pikachu

Pikachu sits at #19 in Hidden Fates, released in August 2019. Hidden Fates is part of the modern English Pokémon TCG era and uses the standard contemporary card frame and rarity tiers. Illustration by Kagemaru Himeno. Himeno is one of the most-recognized vintage TCG illustrators. Her work shows up more in Neo-era and later sets, but earlier appearances carry a small premium with art-focused collectors.

The flavor text on the card reads: "Its nature is to store up electricity. Forests where nests of Pikachu live are dangerous, since the trees are so often struck by lightning." Pokédex entries from this era are short and often quirky, written by the original Japanese localization team for a specific stat-block layout that no longer exists in modern cards.

The franchise mascot. An Electric-type rodent with red cheeks, a lightning-bolt tail, and a vocabulary limited to its own name in the anime. The most-printed Pokémon card in history. The Base Set print has a famous yellow-cheeks variant that commands a premium over the standard red-cheeks 1st Edition.

Hidden Fates shipped in Holofoil and Reverse Holo, plus a special Shiny Vault subset (numbered SV1 through SV94) that runs alongside the standard 69-card set. Shiny Vault cards use alternate-color shiny treatments and pull at lower rates than the standard holos.

Modern Commons grade easily and trade thinly in graded condition. Raw pack-fresh copies are the practical buy for set completion. PSA 10 submissions on a Common from a modern set rarely return enough premium over raw to justify the service fee.

Raw copies of this card are inexpensive enough that the grading math rarely justifies submission unless you have a clearly pack-fresh example. For set completionists, picking up a clean raw copy and sleeving it is the practical move.