I’ve been looking over prices on Neo Genesis 1st Edition PSA 10 cards and just want to know, is Kingdra just not very popular of a pokemon?
The most recent eBay auction ended at $466 and the previous 2 public sales were 510 and 500. Kingdra has a pop of only 65 which is relatively low compared to other WOTC sets. Even compared to some other Neo Genesis cards below.
Steelix POP 154 - Est. Value = $450
Togetic POP 98 - Est. Value = $600
Ampharos POP 159 - Est. Value = $325
Bellossom POP 106 - Est. Value = $400
Kingdra is clearly one tier higher on the difficulty scale to grade in PSA 10 yet is right there in this price range. It’s closest cards in this mid-tier difficulty for Neo Genesis happen to be the starters (all slightly easier to grade actually) but of course are much more popular.
Gatr #4 = 64/425 total pop
Meg #11 = 57/412 total pop
T18 = 85/485 total pop
Kingdra = 65/495 total pop
Is Kingdra just caught in this weird middle zone next to the starters or maybe people just don’t like it very much? Maybe it is just slept on for now or the Steelix of the world are just overpriced?
Any thoughts? I love Kingdra, the ruler of the sea.
I’m a big fan of Kingdra, especially some of the later artworks it got in the Neo series and EX cards. I’ve noticed the Neo Genesis version always sells for less, and have never known why?
Its crazy because i remember kingdra and ampharos listed on ebay for around 100 each 1st edition psa 10 and no one would buy them. This was only a couple months ago too
pokemon price shows that a psa 10 1st edition ampharos sold for 105 back in october! Not sure if there were any listed after that because the next one that it shows sold was for 320 in april.
you are probably right. same goes for nidoking and skarmory it seems. i always thought nidoking was cool, since giovanni had it in the anime. skarmory is a badass chick, but most of its variants don’t sell for as much. somehow, slowking is more of a popular pokemon for being derpy?!
The Kingdra is just not as highly desired compared to the starters. I personally would not consider a Pop 65 that few people have bothered to grade to command a low pop premium. The T17 is POP 11 IIRC, so there are only 11 potential complete PSA 10 sets; people don’t really have to fight over Kingdra to complete a set. If it was Pop <30 I would expect a price increase, but when it’s 6x the “low pop” card of the set it doesn’t matter that much.
Bought my kingdra this year for $200 (April); i was following yesterday auction ($466) and was expecting it to go higher considering last sales were already over $500; guess not.
In the other hand i bought togetic for $450 a couple weeks ago and the card is still on the raise, with sold listings over $550.
Feels like people arent really ‘‘attached’’ to it, same happens with Poliwrath, not sure why but Poliwrath ends up being the cheaper holo card in any set its included, or one of the cheapers (Base, Discovery, Skyridge…)
Right and that totally makes sense, the starters should be in a higher price tier because of their popularity (and they are at 1k+ for each of them).
Neo Genesis is a fascinating set to analyze. With so many cards with low pops under 20 (T17, Slowking, Meg 10, Heracross, Gatr 5) it basically holds back these middle tier cards like Kingdra. Basically nobody cares to collect a PSA 10 set since it is near impossible at this point so they turn to 9s, naturally. This leaves these 10s like Kingdra in a weird middle zone.
Take Kingdra out of Neo Genesis and put it into any other set and it would be one of the toughest 10s to get.
Also I disagree that people are simply not choosing to grade Kingdra cause it is not worth it. It has a total pop of 495 cards at PSA. That is more than Blaine’s Arcanine, Gio Persian, Gio Gyarados, etc. I’d think mint copies get graded frequently, they just don’t get 10s.
Neo Genesis is incredibly difficult to grade where even these mid-tier cards nobody cares about are more difficult than chase cards in the other sets. T17 and Slowking explode while holding the rest back and overshadow their difficulty to grade.
If you assume all 9 and 10 are pack fresh, that’s 18% chance at PSA 10. Difficult for sure but presently not hard enough to increase price ; like you said the mid range pops for Neo Gen struggle. There are certainly some pack fresh that graded 8, but fewer than the the amount of 8s with low pop cards like Slowking and Typhlosion, which have about a 5% chance at a 10.
It’s just not hard enough to grade relative to the rest of the set to command a price premium unless you’re a fan of the card. If there are only 9 T17 psa 10 (I was wrong about 11), people don’t really have to fight over Kingdra to complete their set whether it’s pop 40 or pop 70; anyone with a full set got Kingdra long ago.
Poliwrath, Nidoking, and Magneton are all harder to grade 10s than most of Base but still cheaper. Unfortunately some cards just aren’t that popular. Even with super hard to grade 10s, I haven’t seen any offers for cards like Slowking, Yanma, Blissey, Metal Energy come close to T17 10 popularity… Difficulty to grade can’t always overcome lack of popularity (sorry, I think it’s a great card as well).!
The problem is, a PSA 10 of an unpopular card is unlikely to surpass the price of a heavy pack unless insanely low pop. So as pack prices grow, the lower PSA 10’s should follow slowly.
There has to be a gambling element sustained in the heavy packs and if the reward gets too high, prices correct.
PSA 9 holo set is pretty close at around 9k-10k, but I’d put the complete PSA 10 holo set closer to 60k now…
The 18% number I used was from @qwachansey and referring specifically to Kingdra, not all the cards in general. But according to Z and G Empormium website, it averages to about 19% across the whole set. It is likely much lower than that imo as pack fresh cards from Neo Gen do get 8s and this number just sort of ignores that.
Yeah but those are super premiums for extremely hard cards to grade.
5k+ on each of those examples. I’m not saying Kingdra should be even 1k but maybe in the 750-800 range. Just noting that a 466 sale seems low.
I guess it is all or nothing then with these “unpopular” pokemon. Either it is the lowest pop chase cards for 5000 or it’s down there with the lowest priced cards?