I’ve been wondering how to determine the price of lower population high grade Psa cards. Im finding it hard to pin point a decent price. Some cards aren’t being sold or they get sold on instagram facebook and card shops. Card shops I figure price high and take what they can get so I’m not sure how reliable they are for pricing cards. I know instagram is a good bit more fare but it’s full of ppl looking for low priced cards. So I’d think most of the prices I’d find there are low end. Facebooks crazy it seems everyone is there honest sellers and scammers alike. It could be I’m looking in the wrong places though so I figured I’d try here.
Sounds like you are listing all the places NOT to look. You didn’t mention eBay once, that is where I would look. If there are no sales on eBay use your best judgement. See what other cards from that set are selling for with similar POP numbers, how popular is the character on the card is it charizard, venusaur, or blastoise. These usually will have a slight premium on them, also several other popular characters.
Or you could ask here and that would probably be your best bet. Also doesn’t hurt to list on eBay with a high buy it now price with the best offer option and see what kind of offers come in.
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Well 2 good examples are I have are Mightyena psa 9 from Ex ruby & sapphire. I think I paid $15 for it on eBay but it has a population of 4 with 3 graded higher. That seemed insanely low priced to me. And I got a Japanese brocks rhydon gem mint 10 for $25 a year or so ago. It has a population of 11 right now I saw one sell for about $35 on ebay not to long ago. Am I wrong for thinking that they could/should be worth more?
I would say the Mightyena PSA 9 from Ex Ruby & Sapphire would be worth $15-$20. There is not a strong demand for 9s from the Ex series sets. Being the pop is so low also tells me that this set is not that desirable. Most serious PSA collectors have PSA memberships so if they wanted cards from this set they would be grading cards from this set and the population would be a lot higher. I could be wrong but these are just my opinions, as you mentioned there is no sales history of the card to really determine what it is worth.
As for the Japanese someone else will have to chime in. I am strictly an English collector.
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It’s hard to say, you would think they would be valuable but everything is about supply and demand. Some low pop cards may be less desired, especially PSA 9s in undesired sets. Sounds to me like people just don’t want to grade them.
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I never thought about population equaling demand. I was thinking about lack of decent cards to grade in older sets. It made sense to me that most of the Psa members would try to finish a set of cards to sell if they could. Especially if some of the cards have a low population.
I would say more people grading collect rather than grade to just sell. At least there is a lot more cards in collections than for sale. Only about 17,000 PSA cards on eBay currently and easily over 20,000 graded alone in just Base 1st Edition. I know not all cards for sale are on eBay but still doesn’t come close to how many are in collections. As for the people just grading to sell they are probably going after cards that have a proven value that sell on eBay often or for high dollar.
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I have like a dozen spare copies of the Japanese Brock’s Rhydon from only a couple of lots. Seems like everyone and their mother has a Japanese Brock’s Rhydon so I don’t think that card is in high demand. I guess part of the reason nobody really cares about this one is because it also came in the theme deck (albeit without a rarity symbol) and Japanese cards tend to stay in better shape so no one is worried about the psa 10 well for this card drying up anytime soon.
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When you look at population numbers, many times its because the card isn’t desired therefore not graded. Low population numbers usually only matter on high end items because it gives a sense of how many there actually are. This whole POP Xamount! gets out of hand, it has almost no affect on the value depending on the cards. As for pricing, look for similar cards from the set and base pricing on that. Chances are if there aren’t many graded copies sold or for sale on ebay, its not that it is rare, its just not worth grading to sell.
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Gotta agree with you on the POP factor - it’s just there as an indicator, a little piece of information for the COLLECTORS. However, sellers who do not collect and are grading to cash in on Pokemon cards are using it as a sort of rarity. People know what a rare card is if they are collectors. If they don’t, then this is who the flippers and non-collectors sellers are aiming at.
People need to be aware, POPULATION of cards worldwide is NOT a rarity indicator. For example - Lets say you grade a base zard…you are one in 10 people who got that psa 10…then I come along with a send off of 25 mint charizards…lets say 20 get psa 10…you’re now apart of a much higher population of card owners with PSA 10 charizards. So you can see how this has zero affect on the cards value.
The value of the card is determined on how rare the card is, how it was obtained, and the condition its in. Not the Population.
The population just lets you know how many PSA have graded of that particular GRADE…just think how many others have the exact same card in a different grade…so you see, it’s not rare, because you have a good grade when 1 bazillion other people still own the same card in a different grade, which was someone OWN OPINION.
Just really annoys me when people base a price off the population 
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Scarcity/quality/quantity(POP), is the easiest indicator to tell what is “Rare” IMO
i’ve sold a few pop 1 and 2 cards recently on my store from 99cents no reserve auctions on ebay. This is risky, but it helps to establish some awareness and pricing for low pop cards. But even if you run 99 cent auctions on ebay, and they fall for whatever they fall for, this can sometimes just mean that it goes under the radar.
auctions will tend to fall cheaper than buy it now prices.
I think if pricing for buy it now’s, i would try and find the aggregate average of the card selling raw, and then compare to unsold psa 9, or psa 10 values. Then compare to sold raw / psa 9 / psa 10 values, and come up with a price based of these 3 searches.
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OK so my next question would be. How much can a grade help the price of a card? For example the Japanese brocks rhydon goes for $2.50 to $5 that’s average gain of 10x the original price. If the Psa 10 Sells for $35. On the other hand cards like the CD promo Charizard sell ungraded for $25 to $35 but the Psa 10 only sells for $100 to $150. That’s only a gain of 6x the original price tops. Wouldnt that be because there’s 1000s of graded CD promo Charizards? I even see cards like base set unlimited charmander graded at a psa 10 or 9 sell for $15 to $25. Charmander is only a ¢10 to ¢25 card I suppose some one might pay $1 for a mint one but that’s still an insane increase in price.
remember you have to factor in the time and money down for individual pieces. Cards don’t always sell overnight, and buyers are smart now, they always want the best deals, cheaper than other sellers.
Every card has different prices, and it’s not just the cost of the card vs grading, there is postage (from and to psa, and to buyers) and taxes, credit card and bank money transfer fees (for international customers to psa), ebay and paypal fees, Import taxes (for international customers) and extremely long periods of alot of money just sitting there doing nothing going unsold.
There is no single answer for how much you will make on the rhydons or other cards, prices fluctuate always, and many things go unsold for a long time.
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I see what you’re thinking, but it doesn’t work that way. Many cards that aren’t in high demand and can be bought raw pretty much all day, will just sit graded, PSA 10 or not.
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Thanks all the info really helps. It Kind of sucks that a grade doesn’t add a definite value to a card. I can buy smarter now though and that’s all that matters. I really didn’t know if I was just getting lucky or if I was seeing value in cards that don’t really have any. It seems like a bit of both now since the rhydon has at least gained $10 in a year
what i usually do to determine a cards value at PSA10 is to compare the pop of its 9 and 10. Say the 1st edition charizard. There are 485 PSA9s and only 107 PSA10s as of today. For every single PSA10 copy, there are approximately 4.5 PSA9s out there. So the value of one single PSA10 should correspond to 4.5 PSA9 copies. A PSA9 goes for $2000 conservatively, multiplying that by 4.5 we get the approximate value of the PSA10 copy, which is arund $9000. This value does not hold true because of past sales of $8000-$16000 in the last 3 months but this is due to real demand. The $9000 value is just the approximate demand of this card. Some goes higher, some goes lower. If this method was applied to the shadowless charizard, the value of a PSA10 would be approximated to be $3600 given a PSA9 value is $450 but again that is not true because of real world demand. I would say this method is good at approximating cards that have not yet seen the market because we can always get a PSA9 value but not the PSA10.
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Sports cards seem to average around 10 times. Many newer Pokemon are around there too because 9s are so low.
Another piece of advice based on what you’ve said: Collectors pay high on the hardest card to get, but it’s not always lucrative for a reseller to do the same. In sports, as often as sets sell as a whole they are broken up into pieces. Auctions often run for “Set Breaks” which is an opportunity for people completing the set to snag what they need specifically.
The idea of set completion, especially for expensive and high graded cards, is often more relevant to collectors because of the intrinsic value of goal completion than it is to a seller with a strictly profit motive.
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