Look at yanma 1st edition neo discovery PSA 10. Carries a 10x+ premium over other holos in the same set because of low pop/difficulty to grade. You could expect something similar in your situation.
The difference is if PSA were to shut down, people would gravitate somewhere else and PSA cards as a whole would lose value since it would no longer be possible to make sets.
Edit: lmao he deleted his post
You’ve got so many hypotheticals upon hypotheticals that your question is frankly impossible to answer.
In terms of card value, population count is not a good metric. In research methodology the term is validity, population count usually does not measure what people think it measures. For some cards, a low population count reflects that the set or card has serious quality issues and the cards are very hard to grade in a 10 (1st ed. Neo Genesis, BW Full Arts come to mind). Low population count could also reflect the actual distribution of cards: fewer cards printed, fewer available to grade (e.g. trophy cards). For other cards or sets, a low pop count simply reflects that people are not interested in grading the card or it is not worth it to do so. Sure, there may be only one PSA 10 Guardians Rising Trubbish common card, but that’s not because it’s hard to grade or has low print numbers.
Nobody is going to be able to answer how this affects an imaginary card you’ve thought up. But I can tell you how it affects actual cards. For hard to grade cards, the price is very high for the high-grade copies because people want them for their sets. This is why a solid PSA 10 Typhlosion #17 would go for $10k or more. For trophies, the grade matters a lot less because the value is much more with the card itself and not the grade. For cards with low interest, it has little to no effect on the price because people just aren’t interested and you need to have two people to make a sale. Chances are if someone wants a PSA 10 copy of a low-interest card, they’ll just go out and grade one themselves.
Some Population reports reflect the rarity & difficulty to grade. Some reflect the lack of interest. Some a mix of both.
The grade of a trophy cards matters a lot. If we’re talking PSA 8-4 grades not so much, but there’s still way more demand for a PSA 10 trophy instead of a lower graded PSA trophy card. It doesn’t matter how rare the trophy card is either.
It’s just the reality of the situation that a lot of the big spenders don’t want a card that’s not the best grade, despite the fact that many of them will never get the card at all with that attitude.
i thought it would be better if i did not name the card to prevent confusion because it’s hard for some english-collecting people to understand the value of other language cards, so i thought it would be easier if i gave an english equivalent example - did not work so well lol.
let me put a light in the dark and give you the card i mean:
PSA 10 Rayquaza Goldstar #107 (German)
Bought it from jeremy recently, now I wonder what it could be worth. Beautiful piece in my collection but I’m still going for that trophy kangaskhan, so if I can sell, I sell. if not, i keep it.
It’s a pop1 because PSA does not grade german goldstars. it was a mistake by psa back then, got mistaken as an english ray and also got a GEM MINT grading. It’s in the PSA registry as an english ray, I contacted PSA days ago to correct this.
So long story short: theoretically with its grade, it’s rarer than the pikachu illustrator, although the card value of the illustrator is X-times higher obviously, but it’s rarer together with the grade, it’s one of one, most likely forever. Plus it’s not just a random common pokemon card (there are many pop1 cards out there that are worth nothing), it is one of the most sought-after german cards, THE most popular goldstar card.
i think for the right german collector, it could be worth a fortune. but i wanted to ask what you guys think, maybe imagine the english ray in pop1 and reduce the value by 2/3.
now, any thoughts on that?
@pokaholic This is even more hypothetical lol! It’s not even a pop 1 because it’s a fluke of the grading company. So you can’t even know if it’s a low population or if more have slipped through because there’s no record of it, and you’re reliant on the secondary market to see if any more have slipped through PSA.
+1
At that instant it was worth what you paid. It is probably worth close to that, or if I had to guess, slightly more likely less than what you paid now.
what are the odds that someone accidentally sends in a german ray (although germans know psa doesn’t grade those kind of cards), psa does not see it and grades it gem mint? you want to tell me there will be another one of those? i eat the card if this happens.
forget what i said there and imagine an english pop1 psa 10 ray goldstar. give me a number what you think.
@pokaholic, The point is population report data requires context. In your case, PSA mistakenly graded a card they usually don’t grade. That is why its pop 1. That Pop data doesn’t reflect its rarity or difficulty to grade.
@pokaholic , I’ve seen your Rayquaza on Ebay. I think it would be best to focus less on the POP1 aspect and more on the other factors: It’s Ray Star, it’s German, it’s a PSA 10. Your best bet would be to look at other cards with those parameters and evaluate how they fare compared to their English counterparts. For example, how much is German Base Set Charizard 1st Ed PSA 10 worth compared to its English counterpart? 30%? 50%? 70%?
Now I don’t know the market as well as others on this website, but my gut feeling tells me that you could realistically expect the card to sell for 5000-6000€. At that point there might be a Rayquaza collector that would spend that amount of money to add the card to their collection. Or you could lock the card away for 10 years and sell it for 50%-70% of what English Ray is worth in 10 years. But personally I can’t see the German Ray sell for more than the English one.
exactly. i refer the value to this incredible luck that this happened, and that it is indeed a pop one (hopefully forever as psa has already enough trouble grading the insane amount of english ones, atleast that’s what i heard in your videos;)), maybe a even better pop1 than just a card that’s hard to grade and could get more pop over time. this is what makes it so difficult, I already got 5 digit-number offers i turned down, but I have no idea, that’s why i’m asking you guys. and it’s a german goldstar, so it’s a though one to grade anyways, but that’s not my point.
All it takes is for PSA to grade German GS’ and you’re, politely put, humped.
And no, it’s not rarer than the Illustrator. It has a lower population because it’s a mistake, not because less exist.
yeah sounds reasonable, but how can i compare when there is no equivalent in terms of this “special” rarity? the german cards are usually worth 30-50% of the english equivalents, sometimes even the same value and more in some really rare cases.
no, the german ray card alone is maybe worth half of what an english is worth, although in BGS9 they want 2000$ for the german one, isn’t that near the english psa9 price? but i already knew that, i wonder what impact the “pop1 forever” aspect has on the card. it’s like a painting, one of one, no second one available. if not, i will refund the buyer, that’s how sure i am!
i think they rather stop grading japanese cards before starting to grade german goldstar cards again.it is indeed rarer than the illustrator with its grade, there is only one of them. obviously it is not anywhere near the illustrator’s value though, but i already said that before.
The comparison of the Rayquaza to an Illustrator or a 1st ed Charizord is surreal.
An illustrator is valuable because there are only a handful of copies and it is recognized and established as the most expensive Pokemon card which of course will attract the highest end of the market.
The 1st ed Charizord is valuable because it’s basically most iconic Pokemon card in existence which even attracts people from outside of the Pokemon card collecting hobby. Compound that with a bit of rarity and difficulty to grade and you have an expensive card.
The value you’re attributing to Rayquaza is all in the fact that PSA made a mistake they [might] not make again. Yes it’s a one-of-a-kind card with a bit of a novelty behind it. Yes it’s a PSA 10 so it’s probably a great looking card. But that’s it. I can buy a German Rayquaza and put it in a one touch or send it to BGS or send it to that French grading company. The only additional value added is the PSA label. So in an ironic way, a buyer of this card would have to 1) value PSA’s opinion extremely highly to want this card just because of the PSA label and 2) also recognize they are literally buying a mistake PSA made.
Yes, people like this exist though and yes, if you find the one right person maybe they will pay quite a lot. But unlike an Illustrator or a Charizord, the value is not actually inherent in the card itself. Your thought experiment is extremely flawed because of this.
It’s only “rarer than an illustrator” in the same way my PSA 8 reverse holo Vanillite is “rarer than an illustrator”
you got me wrong. first, i did not compare it to the charizard 1st ed, it was an example. i said it’s worth somewhere between a normal and a 1st ed charizard. second, the card is rarer than the illustrator together with its grade. the card alone is obviously way more common and way less expensive.
there are some issues to be taken into account as far as i’m concerned:
1- the card is POP 1 due to a mistake, there could be dozens of german gem mint copies out there, so the card will be worth more than those since it’s a certified gem mint card, but not that much more.
2- PSA doesn’t grade german cards…yet, you don’t know if in 1-2-5 years PSA will start grading other languages other than japanese, english and base set since the continuous spike in demand for graded cards.
3- it’s a mistake that has noething to do with the card itself, it’s the case that it’s “special” in this context, the card is simply a german ray, it’s not rarer that the other rays and it doesn’t differ in anything from them, it simply has a wrong cover. it’s not a misprint or a miscut, the card itself is normal, the case is not but then it’s just a case. there are a lot of this kind of errors, i could name at least 5 italian jungle graded by mistake, they don’t go for a premium.
4- recognizing that this “error” is valued more could lead to people intentionally sending foreing cards to have a “special card” which i hope won’t ever happen.