Rarity and population of certain ‘rarer’ promos

Hi all.

Quite a novice here when it comes to promo cards.
I’ve primarily used bulbapedia for information and then Pokecollector to browse cards.

I started off probably like most typical collectors: set cards and then ventured into promos.
I started just buying raw and then also dabble in graded cards - and have a lot to grade.

My question is related to ‘rarer’ promos and primarily Japanese. I’m not talking trophies but I’m also not talking ‘standard’ promos such Shop Friendly promos or the gym packs.

The type of cards I mean are Battle Festas, Mega battles etc as often (but not always) are Unumbered promo’s.

Looking at the PSA pop reports - quite a lot of these I would consider low.
For example: XY-P Greninja Charizard Mega Battle has a total population of 24, Mew Carnival 220/BW-p has a total PSA of 84 and then some of the Pikachus such as Pitch Pikachu are only pushing 100.

Question:
What is the reason for the low populations of these?
Is it they were not deemed rare at the time and thus people have damaged them? Or do people not deem them to be gradeworthy cards (not a trophy or charizard) so there is just thousands of mint raw copies in binders?

I only really got back into collecting nearly a year ago now - and it seems every promo that comes out gets graded straight away and expect high population reports. My impression is we are in a very grade heavy era? (I’m one of them).

I ask as on eBay there is minimal of the aforementioned promos so it makes it hard to know value and rarity. And sales reports are low

Thank you I’m advance.

I didn’t want to add this to the ‘full the void’ thread as that solely looks at sub-1000 total population cards which I’m unsure if these are

The first reason that came to mind as well as I think the most significant one would be lack of exposure and knowledge. A lot of these cards are from inbetween eras like HGSS, BW and early XY where most likely not every single new promo was talked about and discussed like it is today, but they’re also not of the so called “golden era” around 2000 where many people agree the most value lies. I still stumble upon new cards that I didn’t know had a release as prize cards in Japan or weren’t even released at all in the west. When I know that if I grade these somewhat niche promos now and put them up for sale, they’ll likely sit for ages until someone who knows them is willing to pay a price I find appropriate, I’d rather just sit on them because I can always grade them later. Also there’s little incentive to put them for sale as a Japanese collector because they’re not in high demand.

As soon as a specific card gets attention through some catalyst of sorts, the ball can start rolling in that more copies are likely being put up for sale, more of them get bought, that activity might make the few graded cards that are for sale disappear which then incentivizes grading the raw copies, etc. Imo it’s really hard to estimate actual rarity with these cards if you don’t monitor them over a long time.

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Thank you for the response and matches some of my thoughts.

I’ve only stumbled across these as I was looking at every promo card and noting down what I liked the look of (primarily my a cool stamp that has a pikachu in it!). Then I just look online and notice not many are available.

As you alluded to - it seems very supply and demand based and the ‘average’ collector is after the newest set, not these ‘older’ promos.

I’ll continue to buy when I can and hope one day if I need to sell, there is also a buyer like myself who has just stumbled across these and fancies buying!

Finding raw mint is difficult and seem to need to know people who might have them. I’ll hopefully post my buy list on here soon :blush: