As the title suggests… Thoughts on 1st ed base set booster box VS PSA 10 1st ed charizard
in terms of :
Potential growth
Better investment
Holy grail items
Prices
ETC
Obviously this is a hypothetical as both are out of my price range but i love thinking about things like that.
If you could, what would you get and why ?
I would prob get the box and open it lol
I’d prefer to have the PSA 10 1st edition Charizard, because it is the most iconic card in all of Pokémon. Personally, I have never been a fan of collecting sealed product as the desire to open it would be too great for me. Though I do see the great value in collecting sealed product, I feel it would be too much of a strain for me and people wouldn’t be 100% sure it was legit.
Strictly as an investment, I would rather have the box (although I think both are good investments).
Strictly as a collector, I would much rather have the most iconic card in the entire hobby in its PSA 10 glory.
10 PSA Zard ~55k
1st ed box ~ over 100k
As an investment I would go with the box, but if I had about 100k in budget to spend I would go with 10 Zard + Some other wotc items.
Last box sold closer to $90k.
DM me where this 65k base 1st ed booster box is!
I would agree with that ballpark zard pricing. I have been actively looking for the “right” copy of that card for several months. I haven’t posted for it here (yet), but I’ve had the chance to buy 4 different PSA 10s. Got the sellers to $40k, $42k, $46500 and $47500 respectively. Also a BGS 9.5 that had 2x 9.5, 2x 10 subs for $50k. For each of those cards for various reasons related to the specific card, I deemed those prices too high. To my knowledge, three of those cards actually sold. The $40k and the $42k sold. The BGS 9.5 referenced above sold as well but that was not for cash it was cash + trade. I don’t know the price. the last ebay auction in December was for $36k/$37k. TCA gaming (I believe) posted in a video that he paid $40k this year for his copy.
This Charizard sold for $43k recently, according to eBay sold listings / watchcount:
cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=223983650246
It has hovered around this price range for about 18 months now, but I have heard of higher offers north of $50k for particularly strong 10s with thick stamps.
If I recall correctly, the Charizard that sold for $36/37k in auction had a crack in the case (meaning that if it was re-submitted to PSA it would not be guaranteed a PSA when re-holdering it, which many people felt didn’t make it a safe investment.
put me in that camp if someone has a strong 10 with a thick stamp that they want to sell. The best copy I have personally seen available, by far, was the BGS 2x9.5, 2x10 copy. But it was in the wrong case ;-(
I know they’re out there, but if I had one I wouldn’t be selling either
ah, did not know that… good context. I would have probably hesitated on that one too. BTW that one you posted a link to was 43,500 GBP…
Fortunately that buyer posted here, and when he sent it in PSA did re-grade it as a 10 so he got a good deal.
The one in the link sold for 35,000 GBP or a bit over $43,000 USD, according to watchcount.com.
Interesting question. I actually found a DM on Instagram the other day from 2018 with someone offering me a box plus cash for my Charizard. Obviously the box is worth more now. I’m not sure there’s much to conclude from that though. It could be a case that they ‘rubber band’ each other as each new price record for one will drive up the price of the other. Perhaps the availability of Charizard is lagging behind for that of the box and may catch up soon, who knows. In terms of choosing one or the other, flip a coin as they’re both gold dust.
got it
The last box I saw sold, sold for 54k a few months ago to TCA on Huggins and Scott.
There has been a private sale (aka not eBay) where a box was sold for that price in the last month or so.
Fact is both have been poor investments over the last 18-24 months.
The psa 10 charizard has hovered around 40k with price fluctuating +/- 10%. Limited offers of 50k for one with a very subjective criteria doesn’t mean market value as the vast majority won’t fit the criteria and majority of the past and recent sale are at the 40k mark.
The box at its peak, 2 years ago, sold for 78k and dipped down to 50k and only very recently sold at 90k - a 15% increase from its old high. The exception to this is if you bought at the low of 50k and you would have made a killing.
So with this analysis you’re better off being patient and buying a 1st ed base box when markets dip rather than setting new highs.
“The box/card hasn’t been a bad investment over the last 18 months.”
I want you to take a step back and think about that sentence for a second.
It’s such an arbitrary period of time. You could go back go back an actual 24 months and you would have made massive gains on an investment.
Growth isn’t usually linear. Just look at what happened with Charizard from 2016-2018, what’s happened with a bunch of other cards more recently, etc.