Lt. Surge's Pikachu #81 value & price
Reviewed by Mumbles · Updated 24 Aug 2026Related Lt. Surge's Pikachu & chase cards
Tap to open
Lt. Surge's Pikachu #81 is one of the friendlier faces from the Gym Heroes set, printed back in 2000 and illustrated by Ken Sugimori in that classic early-era style. It is a common card, so it was never meant to be scarce, but plenty of collectors still hunt it down for the nostalgia of the Gym Leader era. If you are trying to pin down Lt. Surge's Pikachu value today, the short answer is that it sits at $5 raw, which makes it an easy, low-stakes card to chase.
Recent pulls of Lt. Surge's Pikachu
Real pulls of this card across the tracked pack-opening sites, data no price guide has.
$0.95Ultra RarePokemon Dollar PackTilt Rips · 7m ago$0.95Ultra RarePokemon Dollar PackTilt Rips · 13m ago$0.95Ultra RarePokemon Dollar PackTilt Rips · 14m ago$0.95Ultra RarePokemon Dollar PackTilt Rips · 18m ago$0.95Ultra RarePokemon Dollar PackTilt Rips · 29m ago$0.95Ultra RarePokemon Dollar PackTilt Rips · 38m ago$0.95Ultra RarePokemon Dollar PackTilt Rips · 40m ago$0.95Ultra RarePokemon Dollar PackTilt Rips · 43m ago
Chase Lt. Surge's Pikachu yourself
Rip real, graded Pokémon packs live on the top pack-opening sites, the same ones PackSpy tracks. Our #1 pick right now is LastPack.
Affiliate links, we may earn a commission at no cost to you. Play responsibly. 18+.
Card details
- Set
- Gym Heroes
- Card number
- 81 of 132
- Rarity
- Common
- Type
- Lightning
- HP
- 50
- Stage
- Basic
- Weakness
- Fighting x2
- Retreat cost
- 1
- Illustrator
- Ken Sugimori
- Released
- 2000
Attacks
- ChargeColorless
Take 1 Lightning Energy card from your discard pile and attach it to Lt. Surge's Pikachu.
- Lightning Tail20Lightning · Lightning
Flip a coin. If heads, the Defending Pokémon is now Paralyzed.
Where to pull Lt. Surge's Pikachu
Rip real, graded Pokémon packs live on the top pack-opening sites, the same ones PackSpy tracks. Our #1 pick right now is LastPack.
Affiliate links, we may earn a commission at no cost to you. Play responsibly. 18+.
The collector's take on Lt. Surge's Pikachu
Is Lt. Surge's Pikachu worth grading?
So is it worth grading? Honestly, it depends on what you are hoping to get out of it. A raw copy sits at $5, but a PSA 10 has sold for $504, which works out to about 100.9 times the ungraded price. That gap looks tempting, but remember a common card from 2000 has had two decades to pick up whitening, print lines, and edge wear, so gem mint copies are genuinely hard to land. Grading fees eat into your margin fast, and if your card comes back a Grade 9 instead of a 10, you are looking at $53, which barely covers the cost of grading plus shipping. If you already have a copy that looks flawless under a loupe, it might be worth the gamble. If it has any visible wear, it is probably better loved and kept as is.
How rare is Lt. Surge's Pikachu?
As a common from Gym Heroes, Lt. Surge's Pikachu was never printed to be rare, and that print run shows in how accessible raw copies remain today. The real scarcity shows up higher on the grading scale. Pulling a true gem mint PSA 10 from a 24 year old common is a different challenge entirely, since factory printing quirks and decades of handling work against sharp corners and clean surfaces. That is really what drives the jump from $5 raw to $504 at the top grade, it is not the card being rare, it is a perfect copy of it being rare.
Where can you pull Lt. Surge's Pikachu?
PackSpy has tracked this card being pulled 150 times across sites we monitor, including courtyard, mnstr, tilt-rips, lastpack, and collector-crypt, and it has turned up in packs like the Pokémon Basic Pack, Pokémon Starter Pack, Pack 5, Wildcard Starter Pack, and The Amazing Chase Encore. The biggest recorded pull we have logged for this card came in at $382, which shows just how much a single sharp copy can swing in value compared to a beat up one. That said, this is a common card sitting in a $5 raw market, so realistically most people who want one just buy it outright rather than opening pack after pack hoping to hit it. Worth saying plainly, opening packs is a gamble and most rips do not pay for themselves, so treat pulling this one as a fun bonus rather than the plan.
Questions people ask
How much is Lt. Surge's Pikachu worth?+
A raw, ungraded Lt. Surge's Pikachu is worth $5 right now. Its value climbs a lot with grading, topping out at $504 for a PSA 10, but most loose copies you will come across in the wild sit at that raw price point.
Is Lt. Surge's Pikachu worth grading?+
It can be, if your copy is genuinely clean, since a PSA 10 sells for $504 against a $5 raw price, roughly 100.9 times more. But a Grade 9 only brings $53, so if there is any visible wear, grading fees might not be worth the risk.
How much is a PSA 10 Lt. Surge's Pikachu worth?+
A PSA 10, gem mint copy of Lt. Surge's Pikachu is worth $504. That is a big jump from the $5 raw price, which tells you how much collectors pay for a perfect, flawless copy of this common Gym Heroes card.
More Gym Heroes chase cards
See all →
Mumbles built PackSpy so pack-opening data would not be a guessing game. We track real pulls and live card prices across the top pack sites and show what is actually happening, no hype, just the numbers. Every price and population figure here is pulled from live market data. More about Mumbles.
Open a pack that holds Lt. Surge's Pikachu
Rip real, graded Pokémon packs live on the top pack-opening sites, the same ones PackSpy tracks. Our #1 pick right now is LastPack.
Affiliate links, we may earn a commission at no cost to you. Play responsibly. 18+.