As I’m sure most people here know, the crystal type pokemon from the E series are some of the most sought after cards, especially right now in the current market. However, it seems that this year alone the prices for these cards have skyrocketed, and the apparent rarity or scarcity of these cards in raw ungraded form is pretty incredible.
My question is, is the actual scarcity we seem to be facing *real* (outside of skyridge, we all know that story) or are people hoarding right now? Whatever the case is here, it’s driving me crazy as I’m trying to get my nidoking and bat for my complete set.
Two points:
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Crystals in particular had a huge increase in the graded 9/10 pop during 2017 and 2018. The prices brought a ton of raw cards out of binders (my own included) and a lot of product opened for grading.
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No one with a hoard of gem mint English set cards has enough to change the pop report to the point it would actually reduce the price. There are people who do this with some promos where they prefer to trickle grade and sell, instead of grading all at once and blow up the pop report, but it is a million times harder with cards from booster packs.
There are some cards that are less scarce than people think based off the pop report if people haven’t bothered to grade them until this year, but that can’t be said anymore for Crystals.
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Thanks for the info! It’s funny, someone just listed a nido psa 8 on ebay for a really decent price so I snagged it, now I just need my bat.
Your information is really interesting and makes sense to me, as it is, I only seem to be able to find these graded as of now, so I really do appreciate your explanation. Might just have to settle for a graded bat.
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No problem. I find it easier to get 8s or 9s for cards like these than to scroll endlessly looking for raw ones. I don’t trust “NM-MINT pack fresh” on eBay anymore and haven’t in years… if someone has a PSA 8+ worthy Crystal, it’s nearly always worth their time now to actually grade it and reap the profits.
Here’s the pop of Crystal Lugia for reference. You can see just how drastic the pop rose in 2018 and has since levelled off.
PSA 10: 46 9/17, 87 12/18
PSA 9: 77 9/17, 176 12/18
PSA 8: 26 9/17, 68 12/18
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Oh wow! I had no idea data like this existed. I’m quite new to psa and my first slab literally just arrived today!
I have 5 raw crystals right now that are probable 8-9’s and 10’s, given this, would you recommend grading them even due to high pop?
Pokemonprice.com is an excellent resource created by an e4 member Pierce! I woudld definitely recommend grading them if you plan to sell, the pop may be higher than it was in 2017 but no one would consider it high pop, and even if it doubled again for all Crystals, people still want these cards in high grades regardless.
I actually do plan on keeping them, however I find the psa label pretty cheap looking and would want them done by beckett, do you think that its a worthy endeavor?
If you’re keeping them and prefer the Beckett label I don’t see why not
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Neat! Thanks for all your insight.