Pokémon-shaped Cheeto sells for $88K at auction

A 3-inch Flamin’ Hot Cheeto shaped like Charizard sold for $87,840 at auction on Sunday. There were a total of 60 bids — the winning one was $72,000, upped to $87,840 with the auction house’s buyer’s premium. That’s a lot of dollars per inch!

The Pokémon-shaped Cheeto went up for auction on Feb. 10 for $250 after being discovered by a Georgia-based collectibles store, 1st and Goal Collectibles, sometime between 2018 and 2022. A Goldin representative told Polygon the Cheeto was not modified to look like Charizard; it was found to be naturally occurring. It was revived — and went viral — on social media in 2024 after the store’s workers were digging through a safe. Then, the company started to upgrade its enclosure to preserve the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto and add a custom Pokémon card-inspired nameplate. Eventually, it made its way to the Golin auction block. And now it’s got a new home, where it will live in infamy and hopefully not rot.

Unfortunately for the Pokémon-shaped Cheeto itself, it’s not the top-selling Cheeto to exist. A Flamin’ Hot Cheeto in the shape of late gorilla Harambe sold in 2017 for $99,900. The Flamin’ Hot Harambe Cheeto was about 1.5 inches long, per USA Today, meaning the price per inch beats out Charizard, too. However, it’s unclear if anyone actually bought the Harambe Cheeto — in 2017, the seller said the winning bidder ended up backing out of the deal.

There may not be many Cheeto connoisseurs out there, but there’s obviously some. Frito Lay itself used to run a Cheetos Museum for uniquely shaped snacks, but seems to have abandoned the idea; it apparently gave award $150,000 in prize money to the people who submitted the top 10 best Cheeto shapes. Now, the Cheeto inspectors among us must take to eBay or the auction house for out Flamin’ Hot payday.