Hi all,
I’ve been away for a while! But lately I’ve been wondering what’s going on with the no rarity cards. A few years ago these were very popular! Is this still the case? Or has the demand for these cards changed (for better or worse)?
I’d love to hear your opinions/experiences.
Best,
Dave
I’m currently collecting them, and I’d say it’s still a big niche. Holos can be found pretty regularly and aren’t super expensive aside from Charizard. Rares fetch a premium because they aren’t listed often at all, and then commons/uncommons either come in relatively inexpensive lots or in individual listings that range from like $5 to $10, give or take. That’s my take on the atmosphere of them!
I bought a PSA 10 no rarity Magnemite for $58 in auction. That’s more than the 1st edition would go for, but it’s still niche. I’m not sure how that auction price would sustain if multiple were sold. 1st edition base on the other hand is very stable.
I’m also very interested in this topic! I believe that once I complete my 1st edition base, fossil, and jungle collection, I want to collect the no rarities. 
It’s like dead. I haven’t had a message about them in months.
Hey Dave,
They are pretty much the same if not a bit lower from when you were buying.
I would say the high end holos psa 9/10 have gone up in price a bit but the lower end stuff is pretty much the same price or cheaper than a few years ago some rares go for quite high value purely because the holos are easier to get than some of the non holos on this set if your going for a psa 9 set but yeah its always been a niche set ( they really should of put the 1st edition symbol on these would of made them more valuable straight away but yeah its a nice set to complete for the fact that its old rare dont see them too often and psa puts no rarity on the label its like 4th print its a nice set but its very niche
I’m pretty sure demand is higher now. The psa 10 holos are above shadowless at this point in general, only second to base set 1st edition
Besides charizard or maybe the big 3, the holos are still less than what they were a few years ago. Some significantly less.
NR was super hyped a few years back, and majority of the cards still have not exceeded those prices.
Besides charizard, base set 1st edition and shadowless have not met their highs a year or so ago during the hype too. Blastoise and venusaur for base set 1st and shadowless are down too so in a way, they’ve underperformed NR
Since you weren’t here for the actual No Rarity bubble I will explain the difference.
No rarity was hyped up mostly by a few flippers around 2014-15. No one touched the cards until the sudden hype, prices ballooned, and have yet to recover. Where 1st Ed Base was purchased and organically interesting from the beginning.
1st Edition base has the deepest interest and buyer pool. The pop report speaks for itself. Even with 100 times the pop report for some cards, the prices today are consistently higher for 1st base than 2015. The price chart is the definition of sustained growth over 2 decades. Where NR was flat lined, then a spike, then decay (classic bubble).
During the bubble, some NR cards were hitting 4k. Chansey dropped below 1k recently. All this activity occurred with the same availability, which further emphasizes the inorganic demand. Also, there are many more buyers and money in the market today, yet NR cards still haven’t recovered. Where 1st Edition Base was the opposite. The fluctuation in price was due to a significant increase in supply. Even with that increase in supply, prices didn’t drop anywhere near NR.
Honestly I can’t think of 2 sets that are further apart. Ironically they are both Base; one couldn’t be anymore niche, the other is the most established in the hobby.
Thanks for adding color and for providing a fuller picture. Appreciate it and agree. You’re right, when I joined NR was about 600 a holo so I never saw the bubble and since then it seemed to be have performed well, relative to shadowless especially
@sgbased, No problem! I am pretty outspoken about NR because it was the most concentrated bubble I have ever experienced. The selling point for some cards was, “Pop 1”. I remember thinking, it might be a red flag if the first 10 occurred 20 years after the release. But people interpreted that as “super rare”, when in reality no one consciously graded them for almost 2 decades. The pop report was essentially empty for most of them.
I remember our discussions here on e4 a few years ago about these no rarities. That I recall there were four of us telling everybody to be careful. We were just trying to protect our co members from over-reacting to the new fad.
Who were the four of us? Scott, Ketchum, japanime and me. All of us voiced our educated concerns. There may have been others that I don’t recall.
This is one of the great things about E4. You get a lot of information and experienced opinions to help guide you on your journey.
In 2015 everyone was afraid/cautious that there was going to be a huge cache of mint/gem mint NR holos coming out of the wood work and flooding the pop taking advantage of the new high prices. Now in 2019 we know that mint NR cards are truly scarce there is no denying that.
NR I sense is stabilizing somewhat now, PSA 9 and PSA 10 NR seem to be priced a little higher than shadowless at the moment which is interesting. You will never see NR holos in 9/10 reaching the same pop numbers as WOTC sets so it will be interesting seeing what the future holds for the good old no raritans.
One question I ask myself is: but when we talk about Japanese card prices we are sure that we are leaving the price that is sold a non-graduated gem mint no rarity in Japan for example? The Japanese are known not to be interested in grading cards so I do not think it’s easy to set a price in the Japanese market for these. Of course, the market on graded charts is soon said but the Japanese do not graduate the cards though. What do you think?
PSA has opened up in Japan now.
Yes I know it. We’ll see what happens. Also how sales on Yahoo will develop. For example, will the trophy be sold as a graduate or always undergraduate? Who knows.
I had the same thought haha
Price check on no rarity charizard in lp or like psa 5 or 6?