Graded Modern Pokemon Card Prices/Quantities/Questions

I’ve never graded or bought graded before, but was wondering if anyone could share knowledge and experience regarding the price points for modern chase cards.

I want to collect the alt arts from SM and SWSH raw, but the raw price for the Lati@s and some of the VMAX alt arts (Umbreon) are ridiculous. Obviously graded will be even more expensive, but at least if it’s already certified as a 10 and encased, then it should be protected with the only value change coming from demand/supply as opposed to environmental, accidental, packaging etc. damage.

Given that they are still in print and therefore the supply continues to increase, should the price continue to drop over time? When will it flatten or reverse and start to go up? Referring to pokedata.io the Umbreon price has continued to decrease (makes sense) but the raw card continues to increase (though a lot of price manipulation is happening on TCGPlayer).

OTOH, the tag team alt arts were just before the boom, so even though the backlog is still being worked through (Champion’s Path ETB Charizard still going up and up every week even though it is the most graded card ever already and has the most 10s ever) it goes up much slower and other alts from SWSH Battle Styles onward aren’t seeing the supply increase that the first year of SWSH sets had/still have since PSA halted/delayed orders throughout the pandemic.

Is there a common or rough guide of what to expect to pay on top of raw? 2x? 3x? Anything below 10 for modern seems to either equal or be below raw prices.

Also what would you say is considered a lot in terms of quantity?

For reference (24th August):

  • Charizard V SWSH50 has 34,475 PSA 10s out of 61,250 graded. (56.29%)
  • Charizard Illustration Grand Prix JP S 143 has 14,387 PSA 10s out of 17,138 graded. (83.95%)
  • Moltres & Zapdos & Articuno GX SM 210 has 7,714 PSA 10s out of 12,283 graded. (62.80%)
  • Umbreon VMAX AA has 1,804 PSA 10s out of 2,180 graded. (82.75%)
  • Latias & Latios GX AA has 601 PSA 10s out of 942 graded. (63.80%)
  • Charizard Base Unlimited has 450 PSA 10s out of 36,093 graded. (1.25%)
  • Charizard Base 1e has 121 PSA 10s out of 3,667 graded. (3.30%)

Even though Charizard V is the most all time, it’s still ‘only’ 34,475 or am I severely overestimating the demand for graded cards? Are most graded card collectors vintage collectors? (I know it may not be a good example because it’s a widely available, overproduced promo.)

Reference (13th August):

  • Charizard VMAX Champion’s Path RR has 9,651 PSA 10s out of 13,050 graded. (73.95%)
  • Charizard V Champion’s Path FA has 8,664 PSA 10s out of 12,607 graded. (68.72%)
  • Charizard VMAX Shining Fates has 5,443 PSA 10s out of 6,385 graded. (85.25%)

I guess the lack of graded cards for most modern sets (with the exception of the pandemic fuelled ones) is because of perceived/actual supply in good condition and low raw prices making it less attractive to grade, so it might be hard to say what an oversupply or lack of supply actually is, but would like to hear from people with actual experience in the market.

Thanks!

2 Likes

With modern cards the supply in good condition is very high for many reasons. First of all, almost no one is handling the cards at all. Many of them are going straight from a pack off to grading. This was not the case for almost any vintage cards, except for when people began buying sealed packs/boxes many years later and actually were grading pack fresh vintage. The other thing is, many vintage cards have manufacturing issues that prevent them from getting high grades due to the blades cutting the edges rough and other issues like centering and surface issues like print lines on top of being played/handled/stored improperly, etc. So a lot of factors separate vintage & modern cards when it comes to graded population and demand in good condition, depending on the set/card.

As far as price goes, that all comes down to supply/demand factors as well mainly. As you mention, many of the SWSH era cards are still in print or could be re-printed at almost any point. On top of that, people have been buying up tons of sealed products the past couple years. So for many years to come, there could be potentially tons of sealed boxes available compared to prior eras. Of course it will depend on the set. Stuff prior to 2020 is lower pop usually. For comparison sakes, Base Set Unlimited in vintage was also printed to oblivion much like a modern set but also saw far more wear/attrition than just about any modern set has.

The other factor is the pull rates. The pull rates on many modern sets is absolutely abysmal, so that keeps the prices on the Alt Art cards for example much higher than all the other bulk. Not only are they beautiful cards, but they have a strong demand and hard to pull. That is why even NM copies continue to sell for big prices. I wouldn’t count on getting a good deal on these right away, but over time depending on how things play out they may become more affordable at some point. It will take time to see how it all plays out though as the market is constantly changing.

For raw vs graded price multipliers, that also varies a lot. Many factors can cause price swings. It really depends on each specific card. I feel 3x-4x the price of the raw NM on a PSA 10 Gem is pretty standard, but with modern you also have people seeking out Pristine or Black Label or Perfect grades as that puts them into an upper tier chase. These can go even higher prices than your typical multiplier.

Anyway, due to the massive raw supply of many modern cards a lot of people won’t grade them. Only so many of the cards in modern get a real premium for grading them at this point in time and seems unlikely to change at any point. I would not hesitate to build a complete raw NM set of the Alt Art cards. Down the road, that will always be attractive to collectors if you had an entire binder of Alt Art cards, graded or not. You don’t have to spend a fortune collecting 10s, it’s totally optional. You could also collect a mix of graded & raw cards, you have so many ways to collect now.

Hope this helps some.

5 Likes

From my experience, the raw market and the graded market are quite separated, if we simply look at the graded cards only, many cards have over 1000 psa 10s.

But the number of collectors is increasing as well, it’s very hard to say lack of supply or over supply, at least the number of sales is increasing.