The 1998 Blastoise 'Commissioned Presentation' Card: An Artifact From Before English Pokémon Cards Existed

Quick answer: This is a one-off Blastoise card that Wizards of the Coast printed in mid-1998, while it was getting ready to make Pokémon cards in English. It was never sold in packs. It has a blank back and Base Set-style holo foil. CGC, which authenticated it, calls it “among the very first English Pokémon cards ever printed.” It sold at Heritage Auctions on January 14, 2021 for $360,000 in a CGC 8.5 holder (CGC). There are two accounts of why it was made, and they disagree. Both are set out below.

What it is

What it is: a single English-language Blastoise card made by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) in mid-1998 (CGC).
Back: blank.
Stock: not WotC’s normal card stock (CGC found no standard core).
Foil: the same holofoil pattern as the Base Set. CGC matched a star in its foil to the star on a genuine Base Set Magneton.
Art: the same Blastoise art used on a Japanese promo and on Pokémon Blue. CGC credits the art to Ken Sugimori (CGC 12213).
Label: CGC printed “Commissioned Presentation” on the holder, based on the reason the owner gave for the card’s creation. Heritage listed it as “Blastoise #009/165R Commissioned Presentation Galaxy Star Hologram,” CGC NM/Mint+ 8.5 (Hypebeast, CGC 8832).
How it differs from the released card: Heritage’s listing, as reported by Hypebeast, points to details that “never made it on to the final product,” including sharp corners, the blank back, and a “whimsical typeface.”

Why it was made: two accounts

This is the most important thing to get right, and the sources disagree.

The owner’s account (via CGC): the card stayed with a former member of WotC’s public relations team from 1998 onward. That person told CGC it was “created for media use to demonstrate what an English Pokémon card would look like.” It was reportedly featured in one interview that has since been lost. “One other similar example was created for international use, but its whereabouts are unknown.” (CGC)
The auction house’s account (Heritage’s lot description, as quoted in press coverage of the January 2021 sale): Wizards “in mid-1998 commissioned Cartamundi to print two of these cards to be used as ‘Presentation’ pieces to seek Nintendo’s approval to begin printing Pokémon cards in English.” Reports at the time paraphrased the same lot copy (The Flighter, Hypebeast).

Our read: the two accounts agree on mid-1998, on WotC, and on two copies. They differ on who the card was meant for. We have found no document showing it was presented to Nintendo, and the printer (Cartamundi) is named only in Heritage’s description. Until a primary source turns up, we treat the Nintendo-approval story as Heritage’s claim, not an established fact.

The family of Blastoise test prints

CGC’s December 2020 examination covered five cards. Three are “Pokémon-Magic hybrids” and one is the presentation card. The fifth is still on an uncut sheet. (CGC)

Card	Back	Stock	Foil	How it surfaced
A, B	Magic: The Gathering	Magic stock	Urza’s Legacy-style foil	Posted Sept 2016 by James Burton; from former WotC employee Chel Bieze
C	Magic: The Gathering	Magic stock	Urza’s Legacy-style foil	Found July 2019 by Zechariah Maples in a storage unit from a defunct Seattle-area game store
D (presentation card)	Blank	Non-standard	Base Set holofoil	Kept by a former WotC PR team member since 1998
E (uncut sheet)	Magic	Magic stock	Urza’s Legacy-style foil	Held by Chris Nitz, WotC Senior Prepress Systems Analyst, 1998–2004

Sheet E has a black border and appears to be the earliest version. Nitz says it was “the first English Pokémon card printed on foil.”
The sheet itself: it’s a full sheet folded into quarters. The Blastoise is surrounded by Magic test cards, including ten test prints of the Lightning Dragon promo.
Handwritten note: “Pokey Test 8 Colors wkcmywwk.” The letters list the printing inks: white, black, cyan, magenta, yellow, white, white, black.
Testing: CGC examined all five cards with microscopes, UV and infrared light, and X-ray fluorescence (XRF), a scan that measures which chemical elements are in the ink. It concluded they were printed from the same plates with the same inks.
How many exist: CGC later estimated that about seven Magic-back Blastoise test prints exist and said it had certified five. The highest grade it reported is CGC 8 (CGC 12213).

So the presentation card was not the first English Pokémon card ever printed. It is one piece of a small group of mid-1998 WotC tests, and the black-border sheet version came before it.

Where it sits in the timeline

Mid-1998: WotC prints the Blastoise tests, including the presentation card (CGC).
Sept 28, 1998: Pokémon Red and Blue launch in North America, and the US Blue box shows Blastoise.
Jan 9, 1999: the English Base Set launches nationwide, per WotC’s Business Wire release of Jan 7, 1999 (quoted here). That release also says the cards were “presold in select stores immediately prior to the holidays.”
1999 to May 2003: WotC prints all English and other non-Japanese Pokémon cards (CGC).
Dec 2020: CGC certifies four Blastoise test prints, including the presentation card.
Jan 14, 2021: the presentation card sells at Heritage for $360,000.

Why Blastoise?

Nobody knows, as far as we can find. We haven’t seen a source explaining the choice. The same art was already on Pokémon Blue and a Japanese promo, but that’s context, not an explanation. We won’t guess.

The missing second copy

Both the owner’s account and Heritage’s description say there were two copies. Per CGC, the second was “created for international use” and its whereabouts are unknown.

The sale (the ending, not the reason it matters)

Result: Heritage Auctions, Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction, January 14, 2021. It realized $360,000 in a CGC 8.5 holder (CGC).
Bidding: more than two weeks before the sale it stood at $11,000 (CGC 8795).
Same auction: a sealed 1st Edition Base Set booster box realized $408,000.
Not a sale: a Magic-backed Blastoise test print was offered on eBay for $15,000 before CGC certified it, and it didn’t sell (CGC 8832). That was an asking price.
Record: CGC described the Blastoise result as tied for the highest auction price for any English Pokémon card at that time.

This is one public sale of a unique object. It doesn’t make it a reference price for anything else.

Is this the most important Pokémon card ever?

That’s an argument, not a fact. It helps to separate four questions:

Most valuable: that depends on which sales you count and when, and this page doesn’t try to rank prices.
Most famous: the 1st Edition Base Set Charizard is the card most people picture. See our Charizard value guide.
Rarest: the presentation card is one of two reported copies, and one of those is lost. Trophy cards and other prototypes are also extremely scarce.
Most historically important: this is the presentation card’s strongest claim. It is physical evidence of the moment Pokémon cards were being remade for English-speaking players, made by the company that went on to print them. The Japanese Base Set (1996) is the true origin of the game. This card marks its jump to English.

Our position: it’s a strong candidate for the most historically significant English Pokémon artifact. “Most important Pokémon card ever” is a debate worth having, not a settled fact.