Is there/Should there be any price difference between the 1st ed Base Charizard Thin, Thick, and grey stamp? Are any of them more desirable than others?
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To some people, like myself, I don’t care if the stamp is thick, thick or purple. I’m just happy and proud to own a 1st ed Charizard. Some people are extra fussy and only buy a certain type of stamp. Good for them to have the patience and money to buy those cards.
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Ultimately buyer preference. Some people go for the differences, most don’t.
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I’m in the same boat. I’m looking to buy one (my first one) after having adequately saved for a couple of years and worked up to this point. I plan on holding onto it…so while I’m at it, I wanted to make sure I left all my options open to investing and adding the card to my collection with the most potential value. I personally don’t care which stamp it is but I wasn’t sure if for investment purposes, I should look for a certain stamp. On the flipside, I don’t want to buy a certain stamp that isn’t as liquid. (not really sure if you could ever say a 1st ed Charizard isn’t liquid).Basically, I’m just trying to do my full homework assignment before dropping cash.Thanks!
Thick’s are most certainly rarer but that won’t translate to more value for everyone. I chased the thick’s from the very beginning but my first 5 PSA 10 Holo sets ended up being 4 thin and 1 thick.
I would recommend not paying attention to the difference. It complicates things and adds to the frustration.
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I prefer the thick stamp, but wouldn’t expect a significant premium when buying or selling.
Generally it goes like this: grey > thick > thin
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Well,
To me grey stamp is just the ink running out so not a different label just someone didn’t change the ink.
Where as thick and thin are different labels as wotc actively had to change the label so as a completionist I am going for both thick and thin sets but grey stamps just dont do it for me 
.
I have heard that thick most harder to find but not enough people look or can tell the difference much so value does not really change much.
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Value wise Grey will most likely be worth more, but Thin and Thick would be somewhat comparable.
People that care about the stamps and consistent in a full set would go with Thick stamps, since non-Holo Thin stamps are close to non-existent.
But in reality, most collectors don’t even know about the differences in stamps, and if they know, most don’t care about them.
Personally I like the look of the Thin stamps more, and in my Pikachu collection I try to get every possible 1st ed. stamp and even distinguish 2D, 3D, and back-imprinted stamps.
But for a 1st edition Charizard I think most people would be glad to own one regardless of the stamp, so I don’t think Thin/Thick stamps will have any difference in value, even though the Thick stamps are harder to find.
Greetz,
Quuador
Charizards are like women: they can be thick or thin. They’re beautiful none the less 
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That’s true of Pokémon collectors too hihi.
I was happy to exclusively collect only the thick stamps over the course of years and not have the price be all that different (it just took far longer to collect because of the rarity of thick stamps). Overall, I did pay a slight premium to get the thick stamps, but generally nothing too crazy (probably less than 10% more than what it would have cost to get thin stamps).
I prefer thick stamps for several reasons:
1 - the thick stamp is rarer than the thin stamp (approximately 20-25% of 1st edition holos are thicks and 75-80% are thins)
2 - the thick stamp came *first*. WOTC made the decision to change the pressure of the stamp at some point, but the first cards to be stamped were the thick stamps.
3 - the thick stamp holos match the non-holos in the set (which were stamped before the holos and therefore are almost all thick stamps)
4 - the thick stamp is completely unique to the base set, giving it yet another distinction from every other WOTC set.
5 - I personally think the thick stamp looks nicer with the more pronounced 1, although I know that people disagree on this.
If you want my honest opinion, the reason people don’t push the thick / thin stamp thing more is that (for obvious reasons) most people do have far more thin stamps in their collection and they don’t want to think of these cards as less valuable than another variant.
But look, all of these things are completely subjective.
For example, some people value grey stamps the most because of the rarity, but I don’t give two hoots about grey stamps because to me there’s nothing appealing about a stamp that is the result of low ink.
Other people may tell you all the cards were sold at the same time anyway… yeah, but so were the shadowless, non-1st edition cards. Again, it’s all subjective.
But I’ve explained my reasons for preferring thick stamps. At the end of the day, all I can really say is that I *personally* value my thick stamp collection much more than a thin stamp or mixed stamp collection.
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@hyruleguardian,
Man…very well said and really well written.
Totally accurate.
If I pushed back on anything it’s the interest in grey stamps. I only liked them which is why I sold nearly all mine to members here who loved them.
Like I said, to each their own. I’ve just never been an “error” collector, it’s not my thing (and I consider the grey stamps to be an “error” of sorts because they are the result of low ink).
But obviously many people do love them! And I certainly respect that for the completionist who wants every possible variant of Base Set, grey stamps are going to be the hardest to find.
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