I have received many queries on how can we check pokemon card price, and decide to write an article here. Scroll down to read further.
There is a useful pokemon card site which shows historical pokemon price: https://www.pokemonprice.com
You can simply type in any pokemon card into the search box, and there will be the relevant versions of that pokemon card. Say you type in Mewtwo, it will show lists of versions of Mewtwo starting from Mewtwo holo, Mewtwo Shadowless holo, and other versions such as promo.
Upon clicking to that specific choice, you will be shown a chart of historical price say from 2018 or 2019, and so you can see the trending of the pokemon price. The points on the graphs are based on actual ebay sales of PSA graded slabs of such card, and so results of PSA 1 – 10 will be plot on the graph.
According to general trend, pokemon card was crazy in price in late 2020, but has been slowing down and dropping since start of 2021. Recently in early 2022, it has been picking up in momentum, perhaps due to Logan Paul again?
Reason for Pokemon card price’s skyrocket
For Logan Paul, this is really an influencer of the pokemon industry. Being a youtuber and also a boxing player, he would make big moves in such as buying Gem Mint 10 1st edition charizard, wearing a BGS 10 necklace on a fighting, buying 1st edition boxes left in the world, and recently opening a fake 1st edition box, driving all the shadowless and 1st edition cards up.
Because of the scarcity of vintage Pokemon cards in the market, there is very limited supply of them, and Pokemon company only re-prints them in other forms, such as 25th celebration, which have been flooding in the market. The original ones (such as base set, jungle and fossil) are NOT printed again. One special note is that the company previously printing pokemon cards in the 1999-2000 era, Wizard of the Coasts (WOTC), have not printed Pokemon cards since early versions perhaps in 2002 or 2003, making those versions of Pokemon cards simply extinct.
There are perhaps some sealed boxes which are not opened, like those owned by Logan Paul. However, we simply see those out the youtube channels, because if there are any, it would probably worth hundreds of thousands a single box and nowadays youtubers would make a profit by just posting a video on those boxes, because it will attract tons of views now. The Pokemon community is very large in facebook, instagram and other social media, thanks to the wide-spread effect of Pokemon Go.
Unless Pokemon is not famous anymore, which would be very unlikely, the demand will only go up and up. Or because of recent inflation, those fixed assets may skyrocket just like the stock market and real estate market or virtual market such as bitcoin. There is so far no reason why Pokemon card price shall go back down to 2010s.
Pokemon card price now as compared to buying fresh packs in the 1999s
When you buy, say, a base set pack, it costed like HK$20 back then (approx US$2.5?). The chance of getting a holo ranges from 1/2 – 1/4? (I have no data, and relies on just pure guessing) So the cost of getting a holo is about HK$20 – 80 (or US$5 – 20), assuming you don’t give value to non-holos. The condition would vary from PSA 7 to 10? (according to online sources, the card may not be mint even in the pack due to printing errors or deterioration or off-centering) This is not to take into account the grading fees nowadays. PSA only has regular service at US$100 now, and had value service (cheapest) at US$20, but suspended since last March.
Nowadays, you may well buy a PSA 7 hitmonchan at a cheap price say US$30 – 50 (excluding shipping which may be a few bucks) from ebay? So actually, the available purchase price now is very undervalued.
You may also check my own auction listings to see the price people are willing to bid on cards. Those listings are updated regularly and would conclude every end of months. Say, now it’s January 2022 auction and next month will be February 2022 auction.
See a very rare and famous collection of shadowless charizard, whose price is solely after 1st edition charizard and 1st edition blastoise as far as base set is concerned.
