This week: a CGC pop 0 that is not what it looks like, a Pikachu whose PSA 10s sell for five figures, and a Charizard that really is scarce.
Free Pick: Blastoise EX XY122, a CGC pop 0
Insider: Pikachu EX XY124, a CGC pop 1, and Charizard ex 215 (Italian), a PSA pop 1
Pop-1 Watch: 1,261 pop 1 and pop 2 slabs got company this week
Free Pick: Blastoise EX XY122
Pokémon · XY Black Star Promos · XY122 · 2016 Red & Blue Collection
On the label: CGC pop 0
Across PSA and CGC: 95 tens
Is it really rare? NOT REALLY ■□□□
Grader | Top grades | Tens / graded |
|---|---|---|
PSA | 10: 95 | 95 of 7,045 |
CGC | Perfect 10: 0 | 0 of 896 |
TAG | not found | not found |
Beckett | not found | not found |
Data: PSA and CGC read live on 3 Oct. TAG and Beckett do not have this card linked, which is not the same as zero.
Verdict: NOT REALLY. A ten of this card is hard to make, not hard to find. CGC has never given one in 896 tries. PSA has given 95.
What is possible
If you own the CGC 9.5: it is the only one CGC has graded, which makes it the top CGC copy in existence until someone lands a 10.
If you just want a ten: PSA is the only route, and 95 exist. This is a card you can be patient on.
If you are cracking a CGC 9 to chase a PSA 10: PSA has given a 10 about once in every 74 copies. Treat that as a long shot, not a plan.
Recent sales for Blastoise EX XY122 are in the Insider section below.
Stat of the week
11 of 4,177. That is how many CGC tens exist across the four 2016 Red & Blue Collection promos: Charizard, Blastoise, Venusaur and Pikachu EX.
Charizard has 10 of them. Blastoise and Venusaur have none. Pikachu has one.
This week's Insider picks
Pikachu EX XY124 · XY Black Star Promos
On the label: CGC pop 1. The hardest card in the Red & Blue box to grade a 10, and its PSA 10s just sold for five figures.
Inside: the two-grader count, the verdict, seven recent sales and what the one CGC 10 means.
Charizard ex 215 · Obsidian Flames (Italian)
On the label: PSA pop 1. The other two graders had something to say.
Inside: the three-grader count, the verdict, recent sales and what a crossover would actually take.
Pop-1 Watch: 1,261 pop 1 and pop 2 slabs at CGC and TAG gained a copy between 27 Sep and 3 Oct. One of them is a 1st Edition Base Set card that was the only CGC Pristine 10 until this week.
The verdicts are for Insiders
This week that means:
Is Pikachu EX XY124 really rare, and what its PSA 10s have sold for
The same for the Italian Charizard ex 215
Recent sales for Blastoise EX XY122
The full Pop-1 Watch, plus the archive
$9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. The first 100 founding members lock in $7.99 a month.
Already an Insider? Keep scrolling.
Subscribe to Low Pop Insider to read the rest.
Become a paying subscriber of Low Pop Insider to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.
UpgradeA subscription gets you:
- Every weekly deep dive in full, with the verdict
- Population across PSA, CGC, TAG and Beckett for every pick
- Recent sold comps for each card
- The Pop-1 Watch: pop 1 and pop 2 slabs that just picked up a new copy
- Watchlist of the next low-pop cards to follow
- Full archive and Insider-only comments