Hey all,
It is known that there are many individuals on eBay who purchase “strong” PSA 9 cards in hopes of cracking the card out of its case and getting it regraded. When a PSA 10 example of a charizard sells for >$18,000, I would imagine that this specific strategy is being employed frequently be many collectors. Do you all believe that the population numbers (especially for the holo base set 1st ed. cards) are over-inflated?
The PSA population of the 1st Ed. Base Set zard is currently at 487. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the population of the 1st ed. zard is actually no more than 300. What do you all think? I am curious to hear what you all have to say because PSA 9 1st Ed. Base Set cards may be rarer than we think!
Cheers! 
Yes, it’s heavily over-inflated. By how much? Nobody can say.
As @garyis2000 says, the only population number you can be certain of is the 10s. How many 9s are truly out there will probably never be known. However PSA’s numbers may not be too far off, I think most collectors would really think twice about cracking and possibly damaging a PSA 9 version of the most iconic Pokemon card of all time.
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Honestly I don’t think it is even 10% over inflated at this point. Cracking and regrading is still not a common practice by majority of the hobby, especially on thousand dollar cards. There are certainly more aggressive people that do it, but I don’t think it is a strong majority.
Hopefully, when a 9 gets cracked, that cracker will send the label in to PSA so they can adjust the pop report:)
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