Card Ladder's tracking crossed $1 billion in monthly card sales for the first time in October 2026: $1.07 billion, spread over more than 9.2 million transactions, according to a Nov. 2 report from SI Collectibles. The month's biggest trading card game sale, a PSA 10 Mudkip, went for $4.88 million at Goldin. Big as that sale was, it accounts for less than half of one percent of the total.

What Card Ladder Counted

SI's D. Allen Thompson laid out the numbers from Card Ladder's monthly volume charts. The year opened with $445.06 million in sales in January 2026. By August, the monthly figure was over $912 million. October then reached $1.07 billion, the first month in Card Ladder's tracking to pass the billion-dollar mark.

The transaction count rose along with the dollars. SI reports that October was a record month for the number of transactions, about half a million more than the next-highest month, August 2026. SI puts the average card sale at about $116.

Analysis: By SI's figures, October's dollar volume was roughly 2.4 times January's. That is a large climb inside one calendar year, and it came from more sales, not just bigger ones: the transaction record and the dollar record fell in the same month.

The Grail at the Top

The month's headline sale came out of Goldin's 2026 Pokémon 30th Anniversary auction. ICv2 reported on Oct. 29 that the auction, held Oct. 25, totaled over $28 million and logged 18 record-setting sales. Its top lot was a PSA GEM Mint 10 2015 Pokémon Japanese XY Promo Art Academy Daisuke Ochiai #XY-P Mudkip, which sold for $4.88 million with buyer's premium included.

It was not the only seven-figure result. ICv2 lists a PSA 8 1997 Pokémon Japanese Promo Gold 1st Place 1st Tournament #1 Trophy Pikachu at over $3 million, also including premium. Two more PSA 10 cards from the same 2015 Art Academy promo run, a Sableye and a Gourgeist, brought $976,000 each. A factory-sealed 2005 Pokémon EX Team Rocket Returns box sold for $384,300.

SI calls the Mudkip "the biggest sale of a TCG card in October of 2026 reported so far" and says its $4.88 million counts toward the October total. Card Ladder's Pokémon chart, as SI describes it, shows Oct. 25 as the biggest single day of Pokémon card sales, with over $18 million. Pokémon cards also held three of the top five spots in October's sales, according to SI. The other two went to one baseball card and one basketball card.

On whether Pokémon's 30th anniversary drove the record, SI is careful. Its answer is that the celebration "certainly didn't hurt."

Grails vs. Volume

Analysis: The most expensive card of the month makes the best headline, but it explains very little of the total. Divide $4.88 million by $1.07 billion and the Mudkip comes out at about 0.46 percent of October's tracked sales, less than half of one percent. Even the entire Goldin auction, at a little over $28 million, would be under 3 percent of the October figure.

Analysis: The rest of the billion is made of ordinary transactions. An average of about $116 across more than 9.2 million sales describes a market of everyday buying and selling. Grails sit on top of that market, but they are not what carried October past $1 billion. SI makes a similar point: "It isn't just the big-time sales that make this card market what it is."

Analysis: That distinction matters when the next big auction lands. One record sale can top a weekly sales list, but a monthly total of this size moves with the number of transactions.

Breadth Across Segments

SI also reports what Card Ladder's segment indexes showed for the month: 30 market segments were up and 12 were down. Of the 12 that fell, only five were down more than 1 percent since the prior month. SI adds that some of the biggest percentage gains came in relatively small sectors.

Analysis: A volume record with most segment indexes rising points to broad activity, not one category pulling the rest.

What SI Says Could Change It

SI's piece closes with a plain answer to when the boom ends: "nobody really knows." Thompson names the risks he sees, including an internal scandal that damages customer trust, rising inflation, and a sudden shift in investment markets.

For now, the record stands as Card Ladder recorded it: $1.07 billion in one month, nine-plus million transactions, and a $4.88 million Mudkip that was the brightest single sale and a very small share of the whole.

Confidence note: Card Ladder's monthly totals, transaction count, average sale, Pokémon top-five share, Oct. 25 Pokémon sales day and segment counts come from SI Collectibles (D. Allen Thompson, Nov. 2, 2026), which cites Card Ladder data. The Goldin auction's total, record count and lot results come from ICv2 (Jeffrey Dohm-Sanchez, Oct. 29, 2026). Passages labeled Analysis are the blog's interpretation. Image: Goldin, via ICv2.