This week a new PSA 10 1st Edition Base Set Charizard card appeared on PSA’s population report. This is the first new PSA 10 for this card to have been graded by PSA since March 2019, which is probably something to be mildly excited about.
I figured this would be a good excuse to look at how many Charizard cards have been graded in the past 9 months, from just before Covid became a worldwide problem until today.
Totals
Statistic
Feb 25th 2020
Nov 25th 2020
Increase
Charizard cards graded
106,276
137,718
31,442
Unique Charizard card variants
288
306
18
PSA 10 Charizard cards graded
37,388
48,640
11,252
Charizard makes up 10.37% of all Pokémon cards PSA has graded (that is to say, 1 in 10 PSA-graded Pokémon is a Charizard card).
Base Set Charizard Cards
Statistic
Feb 25th 2020
Nov 25th 2020
Increase
1st Edition
2,401
2,753
352
… PSA 10s
120
121
1
Shadowless
2,547
3,448
901
… PSA 10s
53
54
1
Unlimited
11,573
15,826
4,253
… PSA 10s
417
435
18
Japanese No Rarity Symbol
165
193
28
… PSA 10s
6
6
0
Japanese
1,750
2,167
417
… PSA 10s
385
436
51
PSA 10 grades account for 4.4% of 1st Edition, 1.57% of Shadowless and 2.75% of Unlimited Charizard cards graded. For the Japanese sets, PSA 10 grades account for 3.11% of the No Rarity Symbol population and 20.12% of the regular release.
Hidden Fates Charizard Cards
Statistic
Feb 25th 2020
Nov 25th 2020
Increase
Charizard GX (9)
462
1,356
894
… PSA 10s
290
929
639
Charizard GX (SV49)
827
2,556
1,729
… PSA 10s
617
1,705
1,088
Champion’s Path Charizard Cards
Statistic
Feb 25th 2020
Nov 25th 2020
Increase
Charizard Vmax (74)
0
1,635
1,635
… PSA 10s
0
1,207
1,207
Charizard V (79)
0
1,506
1,506
… PSA 10s
0
1,081
1,081
Charizard V (SWSH050)
0
1,078
1,078
… PSA 10s
0
730
730
Despite a massive backlog of cards, PSA has graded a combined 3,871 Charizard cards from Champion’s Path since the set was released exactly 2 months ago. We can assume that these were all the submitted using at minimum PSA’s ‘regular’ $50 plan to beat the backlog, which means PSA will have made at least $193,550 from these 3 cards alone.
Neat data thanks! The most surprising thing to me is only 18 out of 4,253 Base Unlimited Zards graded a 10?!?!? I figured everyone and their mother were sending in copies but expected a few multiples more 10s than that.
@qwachansey, I think you are spot in your ‘everyone and their mother’ assumption. The problem is that ‘everyone and their mother’ is new to grading and blindly sends Charizards thinking they are PSA 10 worthy.
This latest craze with Pokemon is setting up a lot of people for some serious disappointment. I fully expect a lot of anger at PSA once the backlog starts getting resolved and the new wave of ‘investors’ start getting back entire submissions with loads of PSA 6’s. Hopefully I am wrong.
Also, it has only recently become worthwhile to send in random binder copies / lower grade Charizards, so that could be part of why 10s account for such a small percentage of new grades. For example, I included an Unlimited Charizard in my most recent submission which I expect will get something like a PSA 5. A year ago it wouldn’t have been worth sending in, but now it is. It’ll be interesting to see if it still turns out to be worthwhile when it comes back next year.
Nice post.
Now I can see why it’s been so hard to accumulate more shadowless. Though it’s been my main focus for the past 12 months, I’ve only managed 3. I’ve lost more 1st Editions than that:(
I been saying this to friends for months as there are tons of posts/youtube vids/comments scared of a wave of psa 10 s to hit the market over the next few months “once everyone gets their submissions back” .
the facts are mostly everyone is sitting on 7-8s and it will very uncommon to randomly find 10s after being out of the hobby for 20 years.
on pokemonmarketcap, a highly data-driven site, you can clearly see over 50% of submissions are coming back 7-8, mainly 8.
imo this will allow people to build 7-8 collections while the 9-10s remain in constant demand