Steiff's Pikachu Plushes are Reselling for Over $1,000

Steiff isn’t a toy company that dabbles in collabs for clout. It’s a 143 year old plush maker whose “Button in Ear” trademark is basically the Birkin bag of stuffed animals, and its Pokemon collector’s edition leans hard into that pedigree.

The Pikachu is handcrafted from premium yellow mohair, finished with a gold plated version of that signature button, and comes in a dedicated gift box. Steiff is explicit that this is a collector’s item, not a toy, and the price reflects it. The edition is capped at exactly 1,996 pieces as a nod to the year Pokemon first launched.

The first 350 units, numbered at random rather than in sequence, went up exclusively through Steiff’s website and its Munich store on July 24. The site buckled under demand, went into maintenance mode repeatedly, and left plenty of fans refreshing a broken page while hopelessly small stock had already sold out. Steiff has said the remaining pieces will roll out through select retail partners starting August 3, though which retailers haven’t been confirmed yet.

This isn’t Steiff’s first Pikachu, either. Years ago, the company partnered with Good Smile Company on a Japan exclusive Pikachu limited to somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 pieces, priced similarly at the time. That figure is now considered one of the most sought after Pokemon collectibles in existence, regularly trading for well over $3,000 on the secondary market. Whether the new European release follows that same curve remains to be seen, but the comparison is exactly why resellers took notice this fast.

There’s a real gap between what sellers are asking and what buyers are actually paying. Active listings on eBay are priced anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000, which is the number driving most of the breathless coverage of this launch.

Confirmed sold listings tell a more grounded story: units are actually changing hands for closer to $1,000 to $1,500. That’s still a strong flip on a $410 collectible, just nowhere near as bombastic as the asking prices suggest. On a $1,250 sale near the middle of that range, a seller stand to profit around $650 after fees.

This is a real flip opportunity if you can land one through the August 3 retail wave at the $410 price point. A few hundred dollars in profit per unit is still solid money for a plush toy. There’s also no confirmation yet on which retailers will carry it or in what quantities, so treat the August drop as a lead worth chasing rather than a guarantee.

This is far from the only Pokemon 30th anniversary flip we’ve tracked this year. We’ve covered the Santa Cruz Pokemon skateboard blind bags, the Pokemoan vibrator collection, and Target’s Pokemon display decorations, all part of the same anniversary wave driving unusual crossover demand this year.