Summary
- The viral Hot Cheeto shaped like Charizard has finally sold for $72,000.
- Its original bidding began at a modest $250 before quickly jumping into the thousands.
- For one reason or another, it didn’t manage to top the near $100,000 that a Harambe chip sold for.
After a couple of weeks on the open market, the viral Hot Cheeto shaped like Charizard has sold for — wait for it — a whopping $71,000. With the Buyer’s Premium, a mandatory “fee assessed by Goldin which is 22% of the final bid price of items purchased,” the grand total is $87,840 for a non-official Pokémon card.
Previously, when we initially covered the fabled “Cheetozard,” its bids were sitting at a touch over $4,000. Of course, that was on February 22, and with the auction ending on Saturday, March 1, things were bound to get even zanier. In total, 60 bids were placed across the duration of the auction, with the initial bid starting at a meager $250 before skyrocketing.
Among the many Pokémon collectibles that exist, including life-sized Gardevoir plush, or a real-life Koraidon motorcycle, few things, if anything at all, will ever top this chip.
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How We Got Here
If you’re wondering how exactly we ended up in a reality where a Hot Cheeto could sell for $18,000, well, first welcome to the wild world of collectibles. But more importantly, the chip dates back several years and has switched hands on more than one occasion.
Via a Polygon article, the odd collectible was first in possession by 1st and Goal Collectibles, though it was largely held in storage. Another collectibles group, Arena Club, secured the chip and included it in a mystery giveaway. That winner, who isn’t identified, eventually worked with Goldin Auctions to get it up.
At some point, the chip was embossed onto a custom-made Pokémon card, which Cheetozard is an evolution of Cheeteleon. We’re going to pretend that Cheetomander is out there somewhere. As wild as the end price is, it still didn’t manage to top the near $100,000 sale for a Cheeto shaped like Harambe. Keep checking those crisps, people, you never know what you may have.
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