US$9,700 solid-gold Pokémon figure going on sale in Japan, life-size gold-leaf Pikachu appears too

Artisans create an extremely expensive, and extremely accurate, recreation of a certain Steel/Ghost-type Pokémon.

If you’re lucky enough to find an interest in your youth that you can enjoy into your adult years, and also fortunate enough to secure a grown-up job that allows some extra room in your budget for fun stuff, you’ll eventually find yourself in a situation where you’re pondering splurging on your hobby. Sure, that anime/video game figure is expensive, but it looks cool, and it’ll make you happy, so why not go for it? Live a little!

However, even relatively well-to-do Pokémon fans will probably need some extra time to mull over the series’ latest figure of Gholdengo.

If we were going by looks alone, picking up this figure would be a no-brainer. According to its Pokédex entries, Gholdengo’s body is made of gold, and this figure boasts an appropriately alluring shine. This fidelity to the source material wasn’t achieved with special paint applied to plastic, though, and is instead a result of the figure being made of solid 24-karat gold.

At 6 centimeters (2.4 inches) in height and weighing 15 grams (0.53 ounces), in terms of size and weight the 24-Karat Gholdengo would be perfect for setting on the corner of your desk to mingle with whatever capsule toys or acrylic mini standees reside there. Price-wise, though? This probably deserves a special place where it’s less likely to get knocked off its perch, since the asking price is 1.54 million yen (approximately US$9,700).

That price tag is going to bump the solid-gold Gholdengo out of the reasonable-to-buy range for many fans, but it’s still in the awesome-to-look-at category, and so thankfully the one-of-a-kind piece will be on display at the Takashimaya department store in Yokohama, which is holding the Yokohama Grand Gold Exhibition later this month. Two other golden Pokémon figures will also be on display, a life-size Pikachu (50 centimeters tall) and a life-size Gholdengo (120 centimeters, according to its Pokédex entry).

Instead of being solid gold, the life-size figures are covered in gold leaf, with roughly 200 sheets used for Pikachu and 730 for Gholdengo. Neither one is being offered for sale at the event.

The exhibition will also feature many non-Pokémon pieces, with over 1,000 gold items being shown by participating artisans, such as golden orin singing bowls and figurines of the upcoming Chinese Zodiac animal, the sheep.

The Yokohama Grand Gold Exhibition takes place from September 30 to October 5 in the special event area on the 8th floor of the Yokohama Takashimaya, located right outside Yokohama Station. Admission is free, by the way, so if you’re right on the borderline of being able to afford that solid-gold Gholdengo, at least you don’t have to worry about paying for a ticket.

Related: Takashimaya (Yokohama branch), Yokohama Grand Gold Exhibition
Source, images: PR Times
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