I hadn’t seen a ton of this card floating around, I’ve had a raw copy for years just sitting in my binder. Over the last 3-4 months I’ve seen a lot of action on this card on eBay, IG, and PWCC auctions. What do you guys think the future of this card will be? Mine has a little corner wear that would probably drop it to a 9 if I grade it.
These were awarded to anyone who participated in any of the 241 Beat of the Frontier set launch commemoration events held in participating Gym Challenge locations from 7th to 29th March 2009. Here’s a page detailing all of the locations which held the tournament: web.archive.org/web/20090304230130/http://www.pokemon-card.com/event/schedule/list_event.php?m_event_id=21.
I’d hazard a guess that this card has a distribution figure somewhere in the region of 5,000 to 30,000, but I don’t think there were any event reports published for these to give any idea of turnout to give more of an exact figure.
For every 2 of these exist 1 018/DPt-P Dragonite FB card and I believe that each of the 241 locations hosted 2 separate leagues (one for elementary school age and one without any age restriction), which I believe means that each location would have awarded 6 top 3 award 017/DPt-P Drifblim FB putting that at a distribution of 1,446.
Thanks for the info! Might need to grab a Dragonite to pair with it. If there were a lot given out I wonder why so few are on the open market. The Pop report is less than 50 altogether as well.
Non popular, seemed very available in Japan, raw.
With the value rising do you think that more raw copies will surface and the card will be readily available?
Rising value and availability do have some correlation, but availability can also lead to value decreasing. Cards like this often have value based on supply rather than based on desirability, so as soon as more appear it becomes harder to sell them for the previous high price.
Where this card has no Pokémon on its artwork it’s only going to appeal to a select few collectors. The card’s rarity is on par with some of the Masaki promo cards which are readily available almost all the time but have value due to their desirability (as an example of that, the Masaki Gengar will always sell for more than the Masaki Omanyte, even though almost 2 times as many of that card were printed).