Base Set 1st Edition Venusaur undervalued?

Anybody has a good understanding/reason as to why the price of Venusaur can remain relatively stagnant/grows so slowly as compared to the rest of the species from this set, especially the other 2 kanto starters evolution? And do you see potential in this card?

Lot of potential…

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Plenty of potential. Its crazy seeing the low prices you can get em for. Theres a thick stamp psa 8 on ebay right now for 470. Damn thats tempting

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I’ll be a contrarian and say that it’s due to two things.

  1. It might be easier to get a psa 10 given the smaller holo surface area. E.g. Look at shadowless pop for venusaur

  2. It simply wasn’t picked as much as a starter hence less desirability for the kids that have grown up. 1st ed still costs well above regular holos, just not blastoise level

In my view I think it’s more or less fairly valued. FYI I’m excluding the most recent deal, that card looks trimmed at the bottom? Based on the back. I was looking at it and wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. Bet the price ended lower because of that

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I wouldn’t say that growth has stagnated per se, as that implies that there’s something undesirable about the card and that is not the case. Venusaur has always been a fan favorite, just not as much as Charizard or Blastoise. The same could be said for Mewtwo, as he was undervalued for a brief period.

Psa 8 Blastoise sell for a similar price differential from Psa 9 as Venusaur. I would agree that $470 sounds like a good deal, though.

@sgbased yes that one has been around in postings for awhile. I beleive it can from the same person as a couple others which looked highly suspect.

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There’s a big difference between being undervalued and a popular card just rising naturally due to time, scarcity and demand.

1st Ed. Base cards aren’t undervalued at all, everyone knows what they are and the collector demand is high.

Most people can’t see the distinction.

Something like Plasma Storm Charizard was an undervalued card for the longest time, nobody wanted it and it exploded in price. Now it’s not undervalued anymore, it will be worth more in the future of course but it’s not “undervalued”.

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Thanks guys!! Really insightful :grin:!

I do think it’s weird to have such a low price in PSA 10 compared to other Base holos. Obviously the other starters and Mewtwo are fan favorites, but there are plenty of people who love Venusaur more than, say, Hitmonchan or Chansey.

Chansey and Hitmonchan have higher prices due to their difficulty to grade. Both were playable back in the day.

In relation to venusaur, the hierarchy has always been: Charizard, Blastoise, and then venusaur. This is in line with the popularity from the original games.

Then again there are people that think Venusaur and Blastoise should be an even 10k each if charizard is 20k.

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Ah yes I remember the Chansey/Alakazam damage counter swap decks. But did people really play with the 1st Ed. versions instead of Unlimited? Genuinely curious on this since it seems 1st Ed. had known higher established value pretty early on.

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Where 1st ed was available majority of product was opened. Most people didn’t have the foresight to preserve the cards. Also since 1st ed was so limited, even if unlimited were played 3-5 times as much, that would still leave more mint unlimited than 1st ed.

Basically unlimited would had to have 10 times the play of 1st ed which wasn’t the case. Oh and you had the dreaded binder indent for Hitmonchan as well. Rip to all the otherwise mint cards that have binder indents. :sweat:

There is a reason the U.S. (and the rest of the world for that matter outside Japan) never got a Green Version of the original games…something about green not being as popular? However, could it be that since it was never released back in the day; Venusaur wasn’t able to gain the popularity of Blastoise and charizard that were featured on the covers?:face_with_spiral_eyes:

Either way, Venusaur just isn’t as popular or in demand. As far as potential…I mean it is 1st edition base set, that pretty much answers itself :blush:

I wouldn’t say it has “stagnated,” per se. There has still been growth for Venusaur. As for why it isn’t on the same level as Charizard or Blastoise? Same reason why Bulbasaur was generally bypassed as the starter (by most) in the game. It generally went Charmander/Squirtle/Bulbasaur in terms of popularity.

Venusaur will never approach Charizard’s value and will also always be a step below Blastoise, but it is still, unquestionably, the third most popular species in the Base Set. I’d say Mewtwo and Raichu would follow.