How does the math work out on that? Is it really that hard to pull one PSA 10 Charizard from 12 boxes?
EDIT: To make it more interesting lets look at Flashfire for comparison…
Flashfire: Printed in 2014.
in 2017, a box was $385 and the Ultra Rare Charizard PSA 10 was $400
Now Flashfire is $2000 a box, and the Charizard is $1500
Charizard PSA 10 pop report (~150)
Evolutions: Printed in 2016
In 2017 box is worth $90 and Charizard PSA 10 is $400
Now the box is worth $120 and Charizard PSA 10 is $1500…
Charizard PSA 10 pop report (~150)
All figures are approx.
**Title edit 9/12/20: Boxes are now around $150 and the last three PSA 10 Charizards sold for $2,000.
Title edit 10/13/20: Boxes are now around $260 and the last PSA 10 Charizard sold for $3,000.
Title edit 10/19/20: Boxes: $450-500, last PSA 10 Charizard: $3,000. (4) PSA 9 sales between $700-$800. PSA 8 sale @ $500
Title edit 1/21/21: Boxes: ~$1,000, last PSA 10 Charizard: $3k-3.3k.**
Yup, I just took the amount of 10’s and divided by the total. I’m not sure I buy the fact that later print runs are higher quality as the amount of 10’s graded over time looks pretty steady according to this: www.pokemonprice.com/CardDetails/533e7b34-b730-4c05-80dc-108a518c3766/charizard-holo. If there was a higher quality run, I would expect there to be a noticeable increase in slope.
So looking at the Flashfire set (printed 2 years prior in 2014) When it was $350 a box, the Ultra Rare Charizard was selling for $400. The Charizard It’s now selling for $1000-1500 while the box is going for $2000.
Feels like a huge price discrepancy between Evolutions $120 box and the $1500 chase card. Granted Evolutions just went off print, but still it came out in 2016 just two years after Flashfire.
There was another thread made recently that was very similar to this topic. I will post the link if I can find it. But basically a lot of people bought evolutions as an “investment” and there is also still a ton of it available via distributors and Pokemon themselves (putting evolutions in promo boxes 4 years after the initial release makes me think they have to much). And as others said, the chance of getting the Charizard in psa 10 is very low and pretty much all the cards that are not Charizard in the set are worth very little.
Youre right! It is selling for $1,500. People are saying “but its tough to grade” its still a modern set. As for the statistics, they really mean nothing atm. Not only because its still modern but because there are 4 kinds of charizards that make you a great profit in the set not just that one charizard, that arent that difficult to grade. x4. And on top of that, the PSA 9 Charizard holo makes you a profit as little as it may be which is nuts lol and thats not including all the other charizards and blastoises and full arts in the set. So if you pull the holo zard, it can even get a PSA 9 and you would still make your money back and more off just a single card, thats not even in gem mint condition. Ive been making straight profit off grading the cards that come out of this box every time without fail. Its just a fact. x4 the chances of getting a zard (and multiple zards at that) is a better statistic. There are booster boxes with tough to grade cards that people still buy regardless and still have gone way up in value, in all of the history of Pokemon for that matter. Like not once in Pokemon history, has the value of a booster box not skyrocketed all because there was a hard to grade card in it. Hard to grade or not, just one single card can get you $1,500 in a $100 box set, people are buying that. Period. For your question, I think the reason the boxes are low in price because there are still so many of them on the market and still on store shelves (at least in my neighborhood although I believe they just stopped printing). As time goes by youll see them steadily increase and adjust like the just started doing recently. And investment wise, its literally and actually the definition of a steal in all aspects of the word. So in general I dont mind that theyre selling still at around $100 thats free money and what I call, again, a win win situation!
It seems distributors are nearing the end of their stock FYI. I picked up several cases at $80 each a couple weeks ago and then several more this week. This week I had to talk them down from $85 to $82.50.
When even the 9’s have a healthy profit it’s easy money. Too easy. Current modern (some sets) is as easy to crack, grade, and profit as wotc 1st was a few years back.
