Outside for the big 3, which out of the 11 holos are hardest to get a high grade for and does that affect price? Also how does the ranking go for the cards since
- Charizard
- Blastoise
- Venusaur
and so on.
Chansey is the hardest to grade and for a brief moment overtook Blastoise this year. It is probably roughly the same as Venusaur right now.
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You can get a general idea of how hard cards are to grade if you go to the pop report and look at the number of 10s vs 9s. It won’t be perfect because regraded cards will be included in those numbers and some pack fresh cards are 8s but you can assume those will offset if you simply compare the ratio of 9s to 10s. Anyways, chansey is extremely hard to grade (pop 46) and some other lower pop ones (67 and under) are hitmonchan, clefairy, ninetales & magneton. After that I think the pop jumps to 79 or 80 for mewtwo and then goes up from there.
As for price rank after the big 3, I’d say chansey (you could even argue it could go for more than venusaur to the right buyer), hitmonchan (very low pop so could vary greatly depending on buyer), mewtwo, raichu/alakazam/ninetales/clefairy all probably very close nowadays, gyarados, magneton, zapdos/nidoking, machamp? & poliwrath. I’m not too sure about machamp and this is just my general assessment and things can change over time as they already have.
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1-Charizard (sadly)
2-Blastoise (ok I guess)
3-Venusaur (should be higher)
4-Gyarados (should be #1)
5-Who cares
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Price rank IMO 
- Zard
- Blastoise
- Chansey
- Venusaur
- Hitmonchan
- Mewtwo
- Ninetails
- Clefairy
- Raichu
- Alakazam
- Gyarados
- Magneton
- Nidoking
- Machamp
- Zapdos
- Poliwrath
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Pretty sure clefairy isn’t higher than raichu or alakazam.
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Ninetales*
Love the emojis haha. Only thing is I think I’d go with 
for machamp lol. And I think historically clefairy has cost more than those cards but with low pop cards it can vary significantly. Raichu and alakazam are certainly more popular though so I’d imagine prices would be decently close w clefairy but who knows.
I’ve always categorized them into 5 distinct groups (based on actively buying them from 2015-2019 with less weight on 2020 data):
Charizard, Blastoise & Venusaur - Obviously the most popular. High pops, high prices and robust individual markets (i.e. value is almost always accurately known across collectors for each card at any given time). Due to popularity and high pops, the Saur & Stoise have actually for the most part been readily available in this time and can be popular with flippers, you just need to cough up the money. Charizard on the other hand, nobody really wants to let go of.
Hitmonchan & Chansey - Perhaps two of the least popular holos in the set at first glance, but populations drastically lower than any other holos dictate that they will be the most expensive of the rest, more often than not a heftier value than Venusaur and flirting with Blastoise levels of value. You might hear of one changing hands once or twice per year.
Clefairy, Ninetales, Raichu, Magneton - Not extremely low pops relative to the previous 2, but low enough that if you’re buying this set and you spot an opportunity to buy one of these - you absolutely have to take it, or you might end up waiting two years for the same chance. Not really putting any exact values in this post but these will fall under the Chans but above the next tier (at least in tradition).
Alakazam, Mewtwo, Gyarados - Venturing into the high pop categories of holos, the pops for these 3 is not all that different to the cards in the next tier (at least from memory), but what sets these apart from those is popularity of card and essentially the appeal of the Pokemon and artworks in my opinion.
Zapdos, Poliwrath, Nidoking, Machamp - Highest pop & lowest popularity tier. Perhaps not this year but over the years in general these have been very common on the market, the cheapest of all the holos historically and the easiest to buy.
Of course time can shift these ideas, but I think any changes from here on should stay pretty relative. When I very first started for example Alakazam would have been on the bottom tier, and you can make a case for a few changes here and there like moving Zapdos up a tier. Machamp could have its own tier but preferred to keep it as simple as possible.
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@xuzu I generally agree w your tiers except raichu. Raichu is pop 87 while magneton, ninetales and clefairy are all in the 60s, hitmonchan in the 50s and chansey in the 40s. When I was actively buying it was a lot harder to find a mewtwo seller vs raichu and alakazam so I’d have mewtwo above those two and gyarados below them all. But like you said it all varies considering all the cards are below 100 pop except charizard, venusaur and zapdos.
Can’t disagree, much of it is anecdotal as well! When I first started to collect them in 2015 it was actually Alakazam and Zapdos were far more common than any of the rest! I always felt that Raichu seldom appear for sale relative to how much its ‘higher’ pop would suggest, plus I stumbled across a Mewtwo quite easily but I could definitely see a case for Mewtwo being bumped up a notch.
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As always, good analysis. Machamp would be very nice to have the actully pop report on, I think it’s under 100. But that’s just me. It’s an exciting card 
a joker if I may put it that way
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Charizard
Blastoise
Venusaur
Chansey
Raichu
Mewtwo
Alakazam
Ninetales
Hitmonchan
Clefairy
Machamp
Gyarados
Nidoking
Zapdos
Poliwrath
Magneton
Subjective, but this is where I am at. Prices can be tricky due to private and completed (whether or not they paid) public sales.
Pop change since Oct 2018 and percentage of 10s compared to total graded:
Alakazam: 6 (8%)
Blastoise: 7 (6.3%)
Chansey: 1 (4.23%)
Charizard: 2 (4.58%)
Clefairy: 4 (6.5%)
Gyarados: 12 (8.4%)
Hitmonchan: 2 (5.8%)
Magneton: 4 (6.5%)
Mewtwo: 3 (7.8%)
Nidoking: 5 (8.5%)
Ninetales: 7 (7.3%)
Poliwrath: 6 (9.9%)
Raichu: 8 (7.25%)
Venusaur: 15 (9.7%)
Zapdos: 13 (10.8%)
IMO Charizard is the hardest card to grade a 10 overall just based on all factors.
My subjective list for value:
CharizardBlastoiseVenusaurChanseyMewtwoNinetales
Alakazam
HitmonchanRaichu
GyaradosClefairy
NidokingZapdos
Poliwrath
Machamp
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Where can I see the POP change over time. This is great info.
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@jeremypadawer, You can click the Pokemonprice link under the banner! You can view recent sales and there is another tab for population over time. Another magnificent Aussie E4ian @pierce created the site!
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[Edit: This list is SPECIFICALLY FOR PSA 10s.]
Breaking them down into tiers for what I believe their value / price rank to be…
- Charizard
- Blastoise
- Venusaur, Chansey
- Hitmonchan
- Mewtwo, Alakazam, Raichu, Ninetales
- Gyarados, Clefairy, Magneton
- Zapdos, Nidoking, Poliwrath, Machamp
Obviously, where each card is placed is just a function of supply and demand for the card. Cards like Chansey/Hitmonchan/Ninetales punch above their weight because of the low supply for those cards, and Clefairy/Magneton are not in the bottom group for the same reason.
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This aligns with my thinking quite well, except I’d have Charizard in its own tier.
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