I was checking the pop reports of the Topsun cards, and was astounded by how few have been slabbed. Even ostensibly the most popular and likely to be graded cards have fewer than 150 examples graded in total. For many of the non-holos, fewer than 50 copies have been graded in total. I was digging around for some information about whether this means that the print run of this set (or sets, if blue and green back are to considered distinct) was minuscule, or whether only a small fraction of the total existing print run has been sent for grading. For example, is it at all possible that there are binders and binders of these cards in Japanese attics sitting ungraded? Is it possible that there is a substantial quantity of sealed product still out there?
Reading through some earlier threads on Topsun, it seems that some collectors donât grade the non-holos; if this is the case, then I suppose the non-holo pop reports will not be reflective of the true supply of these cards on the market. If anyone has any insight as to the print size of this set, or an idea about estimating it, or any other information that might shed light on whether the extremely sparse PSA pops are reflective of extreme scarcity overall or only a lack of graded copies, I would be very interested to learn more. To be fully transparent with my motives, I would really like to collect these cards, as I think many of them are stunning cards, but the quantity of graded copies on the market at any given time seems small, such that the price being asked for them is enough that I would like to know more about the total quantity of ungraded cards are out there before I spend too much of my collecting budget on them.
Not knowing much about Japan in general, Iâve heard that generally speaking, Japanese families donât tend to keep things stored away like this, especially relative to families in the US/âWestâ. But Iâd love to know if thatâs true or not from someone who grew up in Japan.
Iâm also curious to learn more about Topsun cards. I have a few in blue & green back, and a few blue back with no Pokedex number (first print, error). You donât see many on eBay in general, or to be honest, even on Japanese marketplaces theyâre less common than the Base Set or subsequent old back sets. But similar to you, Iâd love to know if thatâs more a product of interest and awareness, or actual scarcity. Theyâre obviously more niche, but the numbers still seem surprisingly low to me. Iâm also in my own little Ken Sugimori interest bubble.
Yeah, as niche as they are, the numbers are so incredibly small that I am really curious about it. I mean, there are 26 total PSA graded blue back Charmanders. One would think that that card would be among the most frequently graded non-holos in the set. Yet 26 is astoundingly few. Again, this could be due to the fact that people just donât grade non-holo Topsun cards much at the moment, and there are hundreds or thousands more out there raw and in gradable quality, but I really donât know! Would really love some insight.
I am a topsun collector of sorts. Well I look at the listings on japanese mercari/yahoo every day at least, and have bought many hundreds of these cards, so I guess I have some reasonable amount of experience. I think you can get a feel for available product based on amount of listings available over time. Availability of raw product in my experience has decreased since the beginning of the year. January-April there were full sets of topsun and carddass being listed quite often. I would speculate that it was perhaps even becoming more available at that time than throughout 2019 because Covid-19 has been a house cleaning period for a lot of people. A time to clean out the attic and get rid of stuff, because weâre not at work and are bored and at some point have nothing better to do but go through our old stuff. But now I have observed the full sets are being posted less often. The only full or close to full sets that have stayed listed on Mercari for a long time are because there is a lot of damage apparent in photos; brown stains are common on the backs of the holos, and anyone who has bought these before is going to know that condition is a huge gamble on these, so if the price isnât right youâre taking a huge risk unless there are enough detailed photos of the charizard to make up for it. The rest of the listings are all left over singles that no one overseas necessarily wants because you have the proxy service fee on every order and you donât know if the card is going to have a hidden crease; because in all honesty it is more likely that your card will show up with creases and/or significant scratches hidden under the gloss than not. The gloss of these cards hides damage very well in straight forward photos. That is why I usually avoid paying premium high grade prices on raw topsun singles, and probably why a lot of singles are left unsold on japanese mercari. The fact is even if there was plentiful supply out there and it isnât diminishing as much as I am imagining, the cards are so difficult to find in mint condition that it doesnât matter. The populations are so low because the supply of gradable cards is so low. There isnât a single PSA 10 numberless Charizard. This is Charizard weâre talking about; if it hasnât been graded yet it probably doesnât exist, and we are dealing with a set that has such a rarity and difficulty to grade that the most popular card that would have the most value as the more rare unnumbered version, probably well over 10k in value, doesnât exist. Also look at the populations for the regular blue/green back charizards. 43 and 21 PSA 10s respectively. âPeople only grade the holosâ is simply not a factor, they would have graded the non holo charizards if they had more of them in any decent shape. But as it stands we have a grand total of 64 blues/greens in 2020. I donât think you have anything to worry about; aside from actually attaining the cards you want in good condition for a decent price. Buying slabs off ebay is starting to become the more affordable option than trying to actually grade something good and coming up short more often than not. There are also raw copies on ebay too, but less prevalent and affordable than you may find on the japanese sites. And the fact of the matter is you have to be concerned that these non japanese seller raw lots have been âpicked throughâ and you are simply buying cards the seller didnât deem worthy of grading themselves. But in terms of supply the ebay supply has probably actually gone up as of late, as the cards have indeed gone up in value and received a lot more attention than they used to just like everything else. Anyways how you obtain them will be a strategy entirely up to you. I wish you luck! Itâs a really cool set. I prefer the '97 carddass over everything else because of the dynamic violent artwork, but topsun is such a charming vintage set all the same.
As a side note I would say there is a lot of uncertainty about release dates on this set and even the company that produced it has stated they unfortunately did not save that information so it is a mystery. Anyone who claims to know when it was released seems to be merely speculating without the proper amount of evidence. But there is strong information to support the idea that the set was released after japanese base, Iâm just not onboard with the idea that we should jump to conclusions and write history without any actual history. And I also think people need to stop marketing it as âfirst pokemon cards ever printedâ on their ebay listings, because that may or may not be truthful. âOldest copywrite pokemon cardsâ would be more accurate but wouldnât sound very good. Anyways, there is my 2 cents on topsun, hope it was helpful, but sorry for the essay I do enjoy rambling.
Thanks @pizzachu for that, the detail is very much appreciated. It was very helpful for me to understand whether it would be worth trying my hand at buying a handful of raw copies to grade myself or to just pay a premium for an already graded card. Looking at the raw copies available on Ebay, it seems many if not most of them have moderate to heavy wear. I guess it would be a decent idea to just hunt around and wait for opportunities to purchase already graded cards at prices I think are reasonable. The set is so scarce that a couple of the cards Iâm interested in have zero available copies on the market in slabs in any grade, which is both exciting and intimidating.
Getting Topsun in high grade is a risk. A lot of cards are off center and itâs very common for them to have dents. Off center you can an least get an idea of, but the dents can be really hard to see on Japanese listings.
I agree buying PSA 10 is almost always going to be cheaper than trying to buy raw for it. Honestly, Topsun is a crap shoot. You buy lots and most are ok or total dumper fire and sometimes you get gem cards.
I think the population report is very wrong for blue back and NN blue back. I think the NN cards I submitted were as blue back and I am sure many others have done the same.
Also, never assume there are zero copies of cards in grade. I also have a nice stack of cards that if centering wasnât the issue some of them would grade 10, including a nice stack (for Topsun, so itâs not huge) from the 10âs posted lot. Might be able to get a couple more to add to my collection when I submit them. I am sure I wasnât the only one to get or who will get a nice collection like that, so I would expect a few 10âs at least for all cards in the future.
@mulder , when you say that you think the no number population report is wrong, do you mean that some of the no number cards you submitted were cataloged by PSA as being plain (numbered) blue back rather than no number? Also, thank you very much for the insight! And wow, that is a beautiful NN set you have in the photo.
PSA does categorise no numbers, as you can see the top right of your label is blank. Regular blue backs will show a #? on the top right, for example #3 for the Venusaur.
You will need to scroll down on the pop report to find the NN pop. They put âN/Aâ for the number section.
I hope no one asks this again, not the first its been brought up.
Though, there are cases where it has been wrongly labelled, for example TCAâs NN Charmander. Yours are correctly labelled.
Absolutely concur about the surface & centering issues on these old TopSuns. Very few Iâve brought in from Japan will land an 8+ from PSA. At some point, Iâm wondering if it will be worth slabbing more of the lower grades, due to low overall pops. Many of these cards, especially no #s, could gain 10x the population increase and still be incredibly rare.
@quinlan - How wild has Mercari Japan been lately for these? If any Topsun no number cards, Pikachus or Zards pop up, theyâre often sold within minutes (seconds?)! As a Buyee proxy user, Iâll sometimes make the purchase in time, but my agent canât complete it fast enough to beat the locals in Japan. Same issue with any unscratched 1997 Tomy Scratch card holos. Iâm looking into a new proxy agent or possibly just hiring an individual.
Gary had quite a lengthy post on this (and discussion w/ Bulb) on where it seems the conclusion is that itâs extremely likely to be the first printed set for pokemon (although potentially NOT the first distributed set for pokemon). Has anything new surfaced since that conversation?
Thereâs so much conflicting stuff with the distribution of these cards. According to documents they were distributed in '97, we know for sure the holo stickers were distributed at that date. There are accounts of them being around since '95. The copyright dates are printed as '95. Thereâs no mew in the set, relevant because mew wasnât introduced in '95.
Thereâs no conclusion just speculation. Some believe most of the set was produced in '95 but not released until '97 while some believe it was produced and released in '95. Overall it doesnât matter. People are going to collect what they want, believe what they want, and this set is pretty established for those that collect the cards.
As for the rest of the discussion. Be careful with this set, I know I have a bunch of these cards in storage because I never thought to grade the cards (itâs too much of a risk to get a few low grades even though most of my cards would be PSA 9-10) I know Iâm not the only one. I have started pulling out a bunch of my holo cards and no numbers as they have less risk to them, but Iâm not sure if Iâll go through with numbered blue/green backs.
So thereâs quite a bit of these cards out there. Donât let the PSA pop influence your perception.
@cullers, this perspective is very helpful. Iâve noticed that on Ebay, many or even most of the blue back set (even the numbered ones) have zero graded copies available. Rusty seems to be the only one with graded holos from the set posted, and graded versions of more popular Pokemon, and he is asking a lot for them generally (which of course makes perfect sense). I would be really curious to know exactly how many potential 9s or 10s are in collections raw right now. I guess the Charizards in the set would be the bellwethers for this, as someone stated earlier, as they are the cards most likely to be graded, but none of them have more than 150 pop in total. Do you see collectors leaving Topsun Zards ungraded? Is the current prevailing sentiment with this set among its collectors that only 9 and 10 candidates should be graded?
Rusty is the only one with them listed because Topsun got hot and collectors/investors bought out a lot of the supply that others had. I got almost completely wiped out and youâll see an entire holo 10 set on PWCC shortly.
I obviously canât speak for others, but hereâs what I have planned on sending to PSA.
This is what I feel comfortable sending and will be absorbed by the market with ease. This is all of each individual card I have and only the holos have any cards I feel are less than 8 condition. I couldnât tell you how many.
Wow, I admit I am pretty jealous of those cards . The more I see these cards and learn about them, the more fascinated I become. They have a sort of primordial characteristic that is very appealing to me.
To clarify, is the middle row blue/green back and the bottom row green/blue back? And is the row perpendicular to the others no number? Also I canât help but notice that youâve singled out the starters and most popular Pokemon. Did you buy these mostly in lots, and if so, does this mean that you have copies of the others you arenât considering sending for grading? (I know you say that these are all of the individual cards you have, and I guess this would imply that you singled out these Pokemon when picking up raw copies, or else most lots only included these Pokemon if you did go for lots?)
In any case this is all immensely helpful, thanks so much!
. The more I see these cards and learn about them, the more fascinated I become. They have a sort of primordial characteristic that is very appealing to me.