This Pokémon-shaped Cheeto just sold for the price of a luxury car

That $5 bag of Cheetos you have may be worth a lot of money — if one of the Cheetos looks like a Pokémon.

Recently, a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto shaped like the Pokémon Charizard, nicknamed “Cheetozard,” sold at an auction for an astounding $87,840. Yes, you did read that correctly. The Goldin auction house made the sale and posted a picture of the 3-inch-long (7cm) Cheeto on social media.

Pokémon is one of the most popular franchises in the world, known for its trading card game, TV shows, video games. Recently, the Pokémon company released a new mobile game called Pokémon TCG Pocket, a new app that lets players collect and battle cards digitally. The digital version of Charizard is nowhere near worth the same amount of money as Cheetozard though. You can check out Goldin’s original post on Instagram about the rare Cheeto below.

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Where did Cheetozard come from?

The cheeto has been preserved for a number of years

According to Goldin’s website, Cheetozard was discovered and preserved sometime between 2018 and 2022 by a sports memorabilia company called 1st & Goal Collectibles. The auction for the Charizard-shaped Cheeto received 60 bids and ended March 2, selling for $72,000 plus a buyer’s premium, which made the total transaction worth $87,840.

If you’re not familiar with Charizard, it’s a large, dragon-like Pokémon that is orange and has turquoise wings, with a flame on its tail. Charizard has a special place in the hearts of many Pokémon fans since it is one of the franchise’s original Pokémon. Charizard first appeared in Pokémon Red and Blue in 1996 for the Game Boy.

When I first read this news, I had to do a double-take because I couldn’t believe that a Cheeto could ever sell for that much money. One user on Instagram summed it up best: “The world had peaked.” In other Pokémon news, the stop-motion animation company behind Wallace & Gromit, Aardman, is working on a Pokémon project due out in 2027, and Pokémon TCG Pocket is making bucket loads of money, more than the box office of some movies.

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