▲ 43 r/PokeInvesting
PSA 9 & 10: Van Gogh Pikachu Now Worth More Than 1st Ed Base Set
On market cap basis using current pops as constant historical denominator
u/SnorlaxCap — 2 days ago
u/SnorlaxCap
r/PokeInvesting r/PokemonEmerald r/PokemonTCGCollectors r/VintagePokemonCards r/dataisbeautiful r/PokemonInvestor
Pokémon Card Primer: How Money is Made
TLDR: There is significant dispersion of returns within vintage, we think a renewed focus on the classics is worthwhile. Combined PSA 9/10 cap of Van Gogh Pikachu is now greater than the entire base set...
How Cards Are Valued
Individual card prices are determined by pure supply and demand with no underlying valuation anchor.
Demand is influenced by some combination of species premium, set premium, grade premium, scarcity premium, & art style / holography:
- Species premium: Charizard vs Pikachu. Essentially species popularity. The most popular tend to be the “starter” Pokémon & the Legendaries from each game mentioned in the first section, but there are also ordinary Pokémon that have earned popularity through the television show (Pikachu) or general “coolness” (Snorlax, Gengar). Note that there are multiple cards of each species across sets
- Set premium: Base Set vs Jungle Set. Some sets are universally beloved. The Base Set was the first set released and commands a price premium beyond its scarcity. This is true for every card in the set
- Grade premium: PSA 9 vs PSA 10. A perfect PSA 10 is valued much higher than a PSA 9, the 9s are valued much higher than the 8s, etc.
- Scarcity premium: certain cards have much smaller PSA 9/10 populations than other cards, which gets reflected in the aggregate value of their population beyond what the inverse relationship between price & population would suggest. This can occur because of imperfection tolerance (holographic cards with uniform backgrounds show all imperfections, while busier backgrounds hide them) or genuine rarity (the Pikachu Illustrator card only has ~40 copies in existence, the only PSA 10 sold at auction this year for ~$16mm)
- Art style / holography: “Coolness” factor. Charizard cards from different sets are valued differently partially due to the different art displayed on each card. A card with uninspiring art is worth much less than a masterpiece
Price is essentially a multiplicative formula of these factors, but species premium has the largest magnitude – the PSA 9 Blaine’s Charizard (the 5^(th) most valuable vintage Charizard) population is worth more than the PSA 10 Base Set Gyarados population, despite the fact that Gyarados is still very popular.
Aggregate supply is driven by ungraded supply and the conversion of that into graded supply. The supply picture varies significantly between vintage and modern cards for reasons previously discussed – the vintage sets were out of print for ~20 years before the COVID Pokémon bull market. However, Pokémon’s initial popularity was immense AND the first few sets were printed during the Beanie Baby mania – more sealed sets & cards were kept in mint condition than they otherwise would have been. This combined with the financial incentive to grade earlier cards has created a PSA 9/10 population chart with a “scooped mid”. The scarcest population actually resides in the sets printed after the initial Pokémania faded
- PSA is the most widely used grading company. July 2026 non-sport TCG grading volume of ~2.7mm cards was ~68% PSA, ~26% CGC, ~4% Beckett, & ~2% TAG
- Grading is strict. “Gem rate” means the percentage of cards submitted for grading that receive PSA 10. Only ~5% of submitted vintage cards receive a PSA 10 grade across the holographic cards we track, but the gem rate is much higher for modern cards (can be 50%+ for certain cards) because cards are handled more carefully and printing quality has improved
- Other grading companies have high-grades ~equivalent to PSA 10 (CGC Pristine 10 & BGS Black Label 10), but PSA 10 sets the price upon which the others’ value is derived
- The PSA 9 / PSA 10 count for each set is displayed by release date in the below charts. We only counted 1^(st) edition 9s & 10s for the applicable sets. The change in supply dynamics from vintage to modern is clearly visible, however this is partially price-driven. Astronomical PSA 10 prices for the vintage sets have led to an increase in grading submissions and opening of what little sealed product remains (although sealed packs and boxes now fetch prices higher than the cards inside can justify).
How Money is Made
There are multiple types of moneymaking trades:
- Asset class animal spirits: broadly speaking, the entire space trades as the same factor. Aggregate market cap of the vintage sets increased ~5x from 01/2020 to 12/2021, followed by 3 years of gradual downward chop, then a ~2x increase in 2025 and another 1.8x increase YTD. That said, these performance numbers massively understate the best performers
- Relative value trading: there is significant dispersion within each set driven by the variables that drive individual card value. Cards of the same species / family / set tend to trade together, so outperformance of one card is typically a leading indicator for the others
- Moonshot prediction: this is the highest return strategy, but is more binary and increasingly difficult as more and more eyes are on the sector
- Type A (vintage): finding “undiscovered” vintage cards or sets (the 2001 Japanese VS set has significantly outperformed this year due to this discovery catalyst)
- Type B (modern): predicting which cards from modern sets will be most desirable a few years from now
- Bid sniping: it’s possible to “snipe” eBay auctions below prior marks because of thin coverage / listings from smaller accounts. Entry points matter, and this can be a meaningful driver of returns. That said, not every snipe is a good buy – this can also be an indicator of falling prices broadly…
- Scalping: buying modern packs at MSRP retail prices & reselling for more online
- Pack / grade gambling: buying & opening sealed packs in the hopes of pulling a high-value card, or buying ungraded cards & hoping to make money upon receipt of a high grade from PSA
- Crack & regrade: “cracking” graded cards & resubmitting to grading houses in the hopes of receiving a higher grade. Because grading is done manually, there is wiggle room on grading – an upper quartile PSA 9 and a bottom quartile PSA 10 aren’t THAT far apart, and if you catch a grader on a good day, it’s possible to receive a better grade. However, regrading can also cut the other direction…
Our View on Moneymaking Trades: Vintage vs Modern
As we’ve established, asset class animal spirits are difficult to predict – returns are uncorrelated with other assets like equities, crypto, and even other collectibles (although correlations are higher with other TCGs). Scalping is too time intensive (and also lame… let the kids play). Despite the allure of potentially high payoffs, pack and grade gambling are negative EV (on the latter, it’s unrealistic to expect experienced sellers to leave free money on the table). Because Pokémon cards have performed so well post-COVID, type B moonshots have gotten crowded. A much higher percentage of modern sets are purchased to grade, which inflates the PSA 9/10 population. Therefore, we think RV trading & type A moonshot prediction will be the most consistent strategies moving forward.
The amount of money sloshing around in modern cards makes us nervous. There are individual modern cards with combined PSA 9/10 market caps greater than entire WOTC PSA sets… If there’s a bubble in Pokémon cards, things like the 2023 “Van Gogh” Pikachu exemplify it. This is the modern card with the highest market cap we found in our scrape. PSA 9s sell for $900-1,000 and PSA 10s sell for $2,500-3,000, but the combined PSA 9/10 population is >100,000 cards… The combined 9/10 cap is larger than the entire 1^(st) edition Base Set holos including Charizard, which is the grail of vintage cards, despite the fact that VG Pikachu’s 9/10 population is more than 6x the size of the Base Set. Because the population is so large, even if the price of this card fell ~45%, it would still be only ~equal in cap terms to the Base Set Charizard. The card is cool, but it’s not the single card that captures the nostalgia of every kid who played Pokémon during its first 5-10 years. It’s just one of many modern cards with inspiring art, and unfortunately, it will likely suffer due to attention redirection in favor of every new “chase card” that comes out with a desirable Pokémon & cool art.
The broad market analogy for vintage vs modern is blue chip vs growth stock. However, because even vintage cards are still a speculative asset, the blue chip analogy understates return potential in modern cards. There is a common refrain that “today’s modern is tomorrow’s vintage,” but given that part of our bullish thesis on the asset class depends on the entrance of a new class of investor, we think it’s more likely that “yesterday’s vintage is tomorrow’s vintage”. Despite having outperformed in the most recent bull market, the vintage market is more mature. We think the slower-moving nature of that corner of the market will be a source of comfort for less familiar investors who are just getting started.
Last week we wrote that “since January 2019, the best-performing English PSA 9 vintage sets are up >2,000% per our index data; the most famous one is up <1,000%” (only looking at holographic cards from each set). We think this level of dispersion is more than enough to justify a renewed focus on the vintage sets. The charts below show our index of vintage set returns since January 2019 & 2024. The real driver behind this dispersion has been what we’re calling “maturation of the bid”. The base set has been a collector’s item for a long time, but the level of interest in the other vintage sets is expanding beyond hardcore collectors as the asset class matures. The spread between Base and the other sets is narrowing. Notably, the best performing vintage sets since 2024 have been the newest of the WOTC sets. That said, set-level comparisons aren’t perfect – the sets are mismatched due to differences in their constituent species, and the bulk of value in each set tends to be concentrated in a handful of cards.
Interestingly, the like-for-like difference between same set 10-vs-9 performance has also been hundreds of percentage points since 2024. In every set except Base Set, PSA 10s have significantly outperformed PSA 9s, which strikes us as odd. PSA 10s are less liquid, so if anything, we would have expected the 10s to UNDERPERFORM during the resumption of the bull market due to fewer bear market trades resulting in an elevated stale mark dynamic…
Next week we plan to begin a multi-part series disaggregating each set and its returns: set history & print context (1^(st) edition vs unlimited), supply, value structure / concentration, and drivers of returns by card. We publish every Sunday.
u/SnorlaxCap — 2 days ago
The Thesis for Investing in Pokémon Cards from Here - A Professional Investor's POV
“From 2004 to 2020, Pokémon card prices rose 282%, according to an index compiled by Collectors, which owns card grading agency Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA). Since 2020, prices have risen by an incredible 1,350%, per the index. Prices have surged and even outperformed traditional asset classes, attracting the attention of people looking to make a quick buck and ultra-high net worth individuals seeking investment assets to protect or grow their wealth.” - 5/22/26 CNBC article
Virtually every market participant is aware of the Pokémon card bull market of 2020/2021. COVID lockdowns and government stimulus created an “everything bubble” of people spending money online with no option to spend in traditional consumption channels. This caused enormous growth for eCommerce sites and created speculative booms in equity options trading, cryptocurrencies, and Pokémon cards, among other things. Most investors chalked the prior Pokémon boom up to a liquidity-driven mania and moved on. However, after ~3 years of post-COVID chop, the market quietly began outperforming again in 2025 and exploded higher YTD in 2026. Pokémon cards are back, and we argue they are here to stay.
Brief Pokémon Card Primer
- Pokémon cards have been consistently printed in English since ~1999. There are ~130 English sets excluding promotional releases; the first 13 sets (excluding reprints) are known as the “vintage” sets (published by WOTC)
- Because conditions vary widely, grading companies grade cards on an ascending 1-10 scale. This collapses individual cards into an asset class, enables price standardization, & ensures authenticity. Note that while industry purists will insist that no two graded cards are the same, we would argue that no two barrels of oil are the same, but that pricing for the same grade collapses toward the lowest common denominator over time as trading volume increases
- PSA is the most widely used grading company – because a single grading house improves standardization & liquidity, the market has converged on PSA. PSA 10 and PSA 9 are the highest possible grades within the PSA complex. The valuation gap between a PSA 10 and a PSA 9 Pokémon card is typically 5-10x (although this varies widely per card based on the population of each). Similarly, there are typically 3-7x more PSA 9s than PSA 10s because of stricter grading requirements
- Ungraded supply of new cards in the market is driven by new print volume & financialization of personal collections as asset prices continue to rise, but graded supply is constrained by PSA’s labor (cards are graded manually). Graded vintage cards have extremely low volume growth because they have been out of print for ~20 years & most were played with, not kept in mint condition
Defense of Pokémon Cards as an Asset Class
Pokémon cards are near-zero utility assets. They have no underlying cash flow, and unlike traditional commodities, they have no usage-based demand beyond the small population of buyers who actually play the Trading Card Game. Because price is determined solely by supply and demand with no underlying valuation anchor, some might dismiss this market as one of valueless “Greater Fool Theory.” We offer two fundamental rebuttals and two idiosyncratic ones:
- Fundamental:
- There are many other assets (art, coins, sports cards, etc.) which have withstood the test of time without usage-based demand
- Consumers frequently display their willingness to spend more on an item than its underlying utility would fetch alone. A Birkin bag functions the same as a Whole Foods bag, and a Ferrari drives the same as a Toyota on highways with speed limits. These items obviously have “display clout” utility, but publicly posting investment returns and rare holdings performs a similar function
- Idiosyncratic:
- Beanie Babies, Labubus, and even NFTs were point-in-time manias that came and went. Art and coin collection tends to be portrayed as an aged hobby because there is a narrow demand funnel and the price tag discourages participation from younger age cohorts. Pokémon cards are different from other collectibles because there is an always-on demand funnel. Pokémon has been a consistent American childhood staple since 1999. Nostalgia is a drug – children eventually grow up and have disposable income to spend. Even if Pokémon’s popularity with children dropped to zero in 2027, the percentage of adults that were exposed to Pokémon as children would continue rising from the current ~43% to a ~62% peak in 2041. Assuming the IP remains relevant and everyone dies at age 79, every adult in America will have been exposed to Pokémon as a child by 2064
- Speculative ability (leverage) and liquidity also have inherent value. Cryptocurrency market capitalization continues to increase because there is money to be made and the broad desire to participate has led to institutionalization despite volatility. Total U.S. online sports betting handle grew to ~$167bn in 2025 despite negative expected value for the median participant, partially due to how easy the apps have made betting
Thesis for Investing in Pokémon Cards from Here
Pokémon card returns have trounced the stock market over the last decade per CNBC, & after returning for a second act in 2025/26, the “one-time COVID phenomenon” bear case has been disproven. This is now a legitimate asset class – the combined English PSA 9/10 market capitalization of the first 6 sets is ~$350mm with >$25mm of annual online sales volume. Including the subsequent 7 WOTC sets to encompass the entire vintage umbrella increases the total cap / volume to >$650mm / >$50mm respectively. These numbers are much larger if you include the entire graded Pokémon card category. Returns are uncorrelated vs other assets and there is significant dispersion within.
Note: Market capitalization = latest online marks * current PSA populations across the flagship cards we track. Reported populations are not adjusted for certs that remain in the report after slabs are cracked for regrading (modest overstatement), while untracked commons/uncommons and non-PSA slabs are excluded (larger understatement). Trading volume reflects single-card online sales only and excludes private and other non-major marketplace sales
Behind the headlines of scalpers waiting in line for hours at Costco & Logan Paul paying millions for one-of-a-kind cards, the market has been maturing & is now primed for more sophisticated capital participation because of the rise of vaulted storage and eBay’s partnership with PSA:
- When you purchase cards >$250 on eBay that are not already in PSA’s Vault, you can ship them to the Delaware-based Vault for free authentication & storage. This prevents fraud and avoids sales tax at purchase (taxes may apply if you opt to take physical delivery)
- When you buy cards already in the Vault, ownership transfers instantly. This prevents fraud, avoids sales tax, and eliminates shipping fees
- When you resell your cards, they’re sold via consignment on the official PSA eBay page, maximizing auction eyeballs & eliminating personal shipping/insurance involvement. PSA charges a 10% fee for cards $1,000-$2,499, 9% for cards $2,500-$4,999, & a 7% fee for cards above $5,000
Pokémon cards have been standardized into a tradeable commodity within each grade; there is now guaranteed authenticity & minimized friction. It’s not quite as easy as trading stocks, but that is the direction this is headed. Buying and selling no longer requires handling a physical item and P&L vs last mark can be viewed instantly on many different apps. Trading fee compression will naturally occur over time as this market transitions from legacy eCommerce toward a true market (even if grading fees continue to increase). This asset class is now ripe for trading – inflows of sophisticated capital will further improve liquidity & push prices higher as there is a fixed supply of non-modern cards.
Planning to write more going forward, would appreciate any feedback from the domain experts on this sub. - SC
u/SnorlaxCap — 10 days ago
Percent of American Adults Exposed to Pokemon as Children [OC]
Assuming everyone dies at age 79 & the capture begins at age 8. Waterfall chart built in Excel using historical birth data (where available) from CDC & assumptions where N/A.
u/SnorlaxCap — 10 days ago