I have seen a few listings of PSA 10 JPN 1st ed Gym Challenge Trainers (i.e. Erika’s Kindness) for around 500USD, whereas the English counterparts go for 10times less, around 50. The JPN ones are usually in very low pop (Erika’s Kindness is Pop 4 in PSA 10).
Are the JPN cards more valuable because they are from 1998? Should I expect to pay more for them?
Thanks !
Nope, you should absolutely not pay more for them. They most likely have these low pops because the are just not popular, meaning nobody bothers to grade them right now. Adding to that, Japanese cards are easier to grade than English cards (despite their centering issues the cardstock quality makes up for that). If you can’t find these Trainers in PSA 10 for reasonable prices (=less than English), you’re better off buying them raw and grade them yourself. Or, if they come in theme decks, you can buy those sealed which gives you excellent chances on pulling a PSA 10 quality card.
The only exception are banned artworks like Misty’s Tears (Naked Misty), Koga’s Minefield (Swastika) or Sabrina’s Gaze (middlefinger). Those were never released in English and thus are in high demand and priced accordingly.
Thanks for the input. I am aware that JP cards are easier to grade in general but wondered whether the simple fact that the JP cards are older (pre 1999) make them more valuable, but I assume not. Thank you 
It’s indeed true what Scott often says: “the older, rarer, minter; the better”. But this mostly applies on a larger scale. Something from pre-2000 will be worth more than something between 2000-2010, which in turn will be worth more than 2010+ (in general, there are of course loads of exceptions). But for the same set in Japanese vs English, where the release date is usually only a couple of month/years apart, it doesn’t matter too much. Especially for those older sets, the English cards take a premium over other languages, simply because there are more people who understand (and therefore relate / prefer) English cards.
And as @muk indeed mentions as well: Japanese cards are overall in a lot better quality, and easier to grade as a 10. The earlier (pre-2000) Japanese cards usually still had some centering issues, but after that the quality is near perfect, and PSA-10s aren’t too hard.
In addition, the pop report in general is usually not too useful. If someone grades a completely random card, let’s say a non-Holo Caterpie from an XY era set, the chances are pretty high it’s pop-1 and at that time ‘one-of-a-kind’. Does this mean it gets a premium? Not really. I doubt you can get much more than the grading costs back for it. Imo the pop report is mostly useful to see the distribution of grades of a certain card that’s been grading loads of times. By this, we for example know that the Neo Genesis T17 Typhlosion or Prerelease Clefable are very hard to grade as a 10, but they do have a pretty abundant amount of lower grades.
As for the Erika’s Kindness that’s ~50 USD in English and 500 USD in Japanese, those 500 USD prices you’ve seen were advertised prices, not sold prices, right? If yes, it’s probably just a joke price because of the low pop. Everyone can list things for whatever they want, but that doesn’t mean it’s worth it. I see 200+ USD heavy played unlimited edition Base Set Pikachu cards pretty often on eBay for example, even though you can get a NM copy for less than a USD.
In general, English cards are usually more expensive than Japanese (if the same artwork was released in a similar matter!) in the western markets.
Greetz,
Quuador