Bulk 
I’d just have fun sorting 
that would be better than a single card anyday
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I’d go for the zard. If the market cools off those cards could very well not be profitable to grade. I bought around 140 wotc non-holo for 6-15$ with most being 8$ in PSA 9 for set registry. Now these were unlimited versions but PSA 9 unlimited on non-holo cards could very well be more than its 1st edition counterpart in PSA 7-8. Holo 1st ed vs holo unl. is a different story but non-holo not so much.
You could get a premium putting together full non-holo sets. Buying individual PSA cards for set registry is a huge hassle and I’m sure some will pay a bit extra per card if you’re patient. However, PSA 7-8 will put off a lot of buyers for set registry. For the short term I have seen people grading bulk through CGC and even GMA and still getting profitable prices. So that is something to look at should you want to sell during the current hype.
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Don’t be too harsh on yourself. The consensus here is mostly determined by how much people value their time at, how much effort they are willing to put into it, and their personal interest in a particular set/pokemon which are all quite subjective metrics.
Based on your comment above, it seems like you made the correct decision as it pertains to your own objectives. Let’s see:
- You wanted a project, so you don’t necessarily need to value your time and effort at $40 per hour if this is giving you personal satisfaction.
- You wanted to diversify your store so, the addition of these cards to your inventory will widen your customer base and make your cards appear on broader search term results. This diverse lot will increase your store’s visibility both on ebay and google searches. The added value of this marketing proposition is not to be dismissed.
- Since you’re going with CGC and will hopefully get the cards quicker than you would with PSA, your oportunity cost is also reduced.
Personally, I’d go for the Charizard if I liked it as a Pokemon and didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to my collection. If on the other hand my availability already allowed me to spend a huge amount of time trading, sorting, selling and collecting I would go for the bundle.
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You are right. I did my math quickly and flipped the numbers
If it wasn’t for the fact that unlimited Base Set Charizard has been one of the most frequently graded Pokémon cards every week for the past 6 months I’d have sided with the Charizard.
Out of 8,034 of these unlimited Base Set Charizard cards graded in the past 12 months, 995 received a PSA 9 grade. 198 (~20%) of which have been graded in the past 5 weeks. Considering I’ve still yet to get my May submission back from PSA which was submitted at a time when PSA 9 copies of this card were only $700 I would not at all be surprised if there are close to 10,000 of these cards in PSA’s backlog.
With that in mind, I’d probably be more inclined to take the 1st edition near mint bulk, however if it were an option I think the estimated $2,200 price tag is probably what I’d want out of the card instead.
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I would go with the Charizard.
You have to value the money, the time and the work you will put into selling and grading all that bulk. It’s not an easy task, and sounds more fun than it actually is.
I strongly suggest you watch this:
The bulk is not even good bulk.
It’s not base set, jungle and fossil.
It’s not starters.
It’s not pikachu.
It’s low-tier pokemon, trainers and energies.
It will take you ages to sell PSA 10s of them. I do not even want to think of how long it would take to sell lower grades and raws.
Hard pass on the bulk.
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Gym and Neo bulk >>> Base Set/Jungle/Fossil bulk. It’s not even particularly close, either. More rare, more scarce, more expensive (obviously 1st Ed. Base and Shadowless Base are excluded from this argument).
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How much is your time worth, $/hr? In addition to the actual costs of grading, you need to factor that in. 1400 eBay listings and the headache that comes from that.
Add on the fact that this guy has a store and over time can get at least an average of $2.50/card, this was probably a good, beneficial deal for both parties.
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I also think people are exaggerating how much time it takes to list these cards lol. I also don’t think some people realize how much some of those cards go for even in raw NM condition (especially the Neo Destiny bulk). It’s not like Base Set Unlimited where just about every card is worth under $5 (and $5 is actually the high end for Base Unlimited lol).
If you gave me the choice, I would have taken the Charizard, because it is obviously more liquid and (probably) still has room to grow, but some of the reactions in this thread are a little over the top.
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I’ve mulled it over and gone through the cards to some degree, and I stand by my decision. People are saying that I’d need to “grade every single card and tie up $15,000” or “make 1400 listings”, and while either of those scenarios would indeed be a headache, there’s some pretty obvious middle ground.
I’m only going to grade the cards that have a strong shot at a 9 or higher, and have sold for over $50 in a PSA 9. For what I’ve gone through so far, which is just about half of the Neo Destiny, I’ve come up with 68 cards that meet that criteria, but it’ll probably be over 100 cards when all is said and done. That’s a $5k minimum, assuming no 9.5’s/10’s and the bottom line figure of $50/card, with an additional ~$800 investment. So at a minimum, that’s a $2k ROI on a few hours of work, enough to recoup my investment, make a small profit, and still have ~1300 cards to play around with. Now this doesn’t take into account where the market will be when I get the cards back, probably in 4-5 months from now via CGC, but we also don’t know where the market would be for the Base Zard. It’s just penny stonks vs a big stonker, no one can predict the market, either one could experience higher proportional losses/gains over that time.
As for the “1400 listings”, nearly all of the raw cards have duplicates in comparable condition, so in reality it would probably be around 80-150 listings with the appropriate quantities, and with the new eBay standard envelope, selling lower value singles ($5 is my cutoff) really isn’t that much of a headache.
Yeah, it’ll definitely be more work than just selling the charizard, but I think there’s good money to be made, and I feel like a lot of you are overestimating the amount of work/capital needed to make a profit.
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I missed that you are a store. Good luck on this project!
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Even if you can squeeze out 3-4 dollars net sales a card after all said and done your doubling up on the investment.
Best of luck with the sales!!
Seeing as i sell bulk 1st ed wotc quickly for $4-$10 and sometimes more i see better value in the bulk. I would take the bulk personally for a financial reason and for a collection reason. Its like buying into an index fund with regular dividends, where zard is like a lump sum severance payment. I also think you can grade the 9 quality stuff and really profit
Six of em? Well want some more identical bulk? Haha 
I’d take the zard.