The future of CoroCoro Ichiban! insert cards

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Hey everyone, I’ve been doing some research today into Japanese magazine circulation figures. To preface this, a lot of old promo cards were distributed through the main CoroCoro magazine, but all of the newer ones are distributed through CoroCoro Ichiban! instead. Something which has immediately stood out is how many fewer copies of CoroCoro Ichiban! are produced compared to the main CoroCoro magazine.

As an example, the average monthly circulation for CoroCoro magazines in 2003 was 1,350,000 (Wikipedia, and backed up by the Japanese Magazine Publishers Association). This means that cards like 001/ADV-P Kyogre ex, 014/ADV-P Jirachi and 001/PCG-P Blastoise technically have 1,350,000 copies in circulation.

CoroCoro Ichiban! on the other hand has a significantly lower monthly circulation. Excluding the recent 361/SM-P Jirachi card (as figures for this time period haven’t been finalised yet), on average the circulation of all of the current CoroCoro Ichiban! issues which feature SM-P promo card inserts is 68,566, with the highest being 79,333 (087/SM-P Bewear and 123/SM-P Marshadow) and the lowest being 58,333 (319/SM-P Sudowoodo).

This means that a possibly naive assumption is that for every 319/SM-P Sudowoodo there are 23.14 014/ADV-P Jirachi cards (~7:162).

Obviously not all of these cards have a 1:1 collectability ratio; I’m sure the 001/PCG-P Blastoise will be a lot more desirable than 212/SM-P Carbink. For cards that are more collectable, like the 361/SM-P Celebi, would it be foolish to assume that if interest in Pokémon is still the same these SM-P CoroCoro Ichiban! promo inserts will be significantly more scarce and thus more valuable than their older CoroCoro promo insert counterparts?

I appreciate that a lot of this will come down to opinion and there are a lot more factors in play than what I’ve discussed above, but I feel it may be an interesting discussion to start, especially where magazine interest in Japan is a lot lower now than it was back in 2003.

Edit: I should note that my CoroCoro Ichiban! circulation figures also come from the Japaneze Magazine Publishers Association.

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In my opinion the distribution figures are still frighteningly high. Even for rarities with a playable element, 10,000-20,000 copies is difficult to absorb. I would say purely for a collectible, especially for a card printed in the past 10± years, 1000 copies is a good threshhold for rarity to play a factor in the collectible (unless the is something extraordinary about the card art/meaning of the card). This is just my humble opinion as a rare collectible collector in both pokemon and magic. (An example is the fact that top 32, 16, quarterfinalist worlds cards are all still quite readily available and not fully absorbed.)