Pokémon Dark Charizard Holo #006 — Team Rocket Japanese, PSA 9 Mint

Team Rocket, printed in Japan in 1997, was the set that gave the Pokémon TCG its first sustained narrative: Pokémon taken from their trainers and turned to the service of the organisation, a premise carried through the artwork of the entire expansion.

Dark Charizard is its emblem. The card presents the franchise's most recognisable Pokémon in corrupted form, with a darker palette and an aggressive composition that no other Charizard printing has repeated; for collectors who specialise in the character, it is the variant that sits furthest from the cheerful original. The Japanese printing of the period, produced ahead of the international release, is prized for the density of its holo layer and for the precision of its cut.

PSA has graded this example 9 Mint and encapsulated it in a sealed holder. For a card of 1997, whose holo surface and black borders accumulate marks almost inevitably, that grade represents a well-preserved survivor of an expansion whose visual identity has never been revisited.