The buyer who bid and retracted was completely illegitimate. I believe it was an attempt to “expose” the highest bid. The person has 86 bid retractions in 6 months. I believe 9/12 items they’ve bid on in the last month were retracted. That’s a huge red flag. I’m surprised eBay doesn’t have ways to block those types of buyers.
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damn a PSA10 1st Charizard is more expensive than 1 kg of gold
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I’m glad to see the hobby is healthy.
I wonder what this will mean for PSA 9 or cards like Blastoise. Surprised they aren’t near 5 figures yet.
I’m not actually surprised it went for 40k, back in April/May when one was up for auction I was absolutely sure it was gonna end around 35k. It didn’t, it ended up at 25k however less than 6 months later my prediction came true and then some. The only thing I regret is not buying it then… not that I have the money to do so but still 
Mjisaacs
Honestly probably nothing for the 9s for the reasons I stated in my previous comments why 10s go up you don’t have that with 9s especially since they saturate the market so easily by so many flippers. Haven’t seen any excitement from 9s for a long time now and probably won’t.
As far as this meaning the hobby is healthy yes the hobby is healthy but I don’t feel just cause a psa 10 1st charizard keeps going up that really means much for the rest of the hobby. If we look at charizard in a 10 and saying it’s “40k” that means it has doubled in a year. Every other set card has either gone down or stayed the same pretty much besides maybe shadowless charizard in a 10. Pretty much if you got a charizard in a 10 a year ago your golden if you bought random cards 1st ed base a year ago or anything else in a set besides charizard you pretty much have been stagnant at best. I would like to see more diversity happening in this hobby as far as growth besides just charizard. Again I’m talking about a year time frame. If we go back 3 years everything has gone up but looking over a year for set cards in most cases just charizard specifically in a 10 has been “healthy” just my thoughts I’m sharing.
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The reason PSA 10 1st base Charizard has gone up while other set cards have been stagnant, is because there’s a consistent availability for most other cards. Charizard usually has zero copies on ebay, so that’s why it continues to grow, since there’s so few available for all the people interested. Also, as you pointed out, most cards have increased a lot compared to 3 years ago.
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Yes availability is true I have stated that in my previous comments you are correct and also I said high end card prices can change overnight depending on who comes into this hobby. But yes I also said I’m just talking about the past year if you look back 2-3 years ago everything has gone up.
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In the famous words of @garyis2000, nobody fights for a PSA 9 
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@chris350dx Hit it on the head! The rarest/scarcest cards have the most growth. Typically everyone looks at a price increase for the health in the hobby, but a better metric is volume of sales. There is more activity today than ever. Even if prices are the same for most set cards, they are still selling.
My favorite example is the PSA 10 M charizard from evolutions. Has it dropped in price, absolutely! But there are 1,878 PSA 10 examples, and it still sells! That is the sign of a healthy market.
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I’d like to point out that there is no auction where the second highest bidder DOESN’T determine the price.
There’s a lot of negativity around the idea that “If one person hadn’t bid $40K it wouldn’t have sold for $40,100.”
If the card sold for $4.10, it wouldn’t have sold for that if the second place bidder hadn’t bid $4.00. The definition of an auction is the highest incremental bidder wins over the second highest incremental bidder. That’s how this works. Lol
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There’s also the chance that someone could have bid 40k but couldn’t because the bid was already over that amount. Someone couldn’t participate. Auctions end and you’re expected to pay, so, someone with more time might have been willing to bid more if they had time to gather funds. There’s no telling how much a seller is willing to part with the card for the next time one appears outside of auction. If they want more than 40k it’ll only sell for more than 40k.
There’s so many factors, all we know is there’s now two data points that say this card sold for 40k. Take it for what it’s worth.
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Is there such a concept as auction price stability? For example, if the top three bids were as follows: 1.) $41,000, 2.) $40,000 and 3.) $39,000 versus 1.) $41,000, 2.) $40,000 and 3.) $20,000 would you consider both auctions to have the same price stability?
@cullers has a good point that a last second bid may have gone unknown if it was lower than $40k.
As I said don’t go looking to the auctions to determine what you have to pay for this card if you want one. Just ask Gary lol he controls the market for it. He was going to bid 40k so next time one comes up as long as it’s a good 10 I’m sure he will bid atleast 40k if not more unless he decides to let someone else win like in this case or someone else with deep pockets bids higher. As long as he’s buying I don’t see how the card could fall in value. It just won’t.
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just my 2c as someone who’s interested in the charizard - i think the 40k price is current market price but it is a flimsy one that’s more likely to drop than increase in the near term (~3-4 months)
1st, i think the market price is undoubtedly 40k usd today because (1) we already have a willing buyer i.e. the second bidder and (2) gary will put a floor too at 40k
2nd, i think this is the the most flimsy market price thus far for zard and quite prone to falling. why? first, there are more than a hundred zards and i suspect more will come into market after the 40k price appeared, so the question is how many zards will gary pay for at 40k usd vs incoming supply (there will be, i’m pretty sure, always have after a card with a decent pool of psa 10s makes a distinctly record price), and how much of that supply is true psa 10 quality which Gary will pay for, and others that aren’t (e.g. malin’s) that will too pull down the price once the two buyers are satiated or pass on the card
note that i cant think of an instance where a 1st ed base set holo almost doubles overnight and doesn’t retract at least a bit
for cards that doubled overnight pretty much all i recall have retracted - including zards like crystal zards
you could say psa 10 1st ed base zard is exempted, but i don’t think so, yes the true float is much smaller than it appears as more zard holders will continue holding onto it then flip, but hey - everyone needs to make a call
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Just because the Pop report says there’s 118 Charizards doesn’t mean there’s 118 10 worthy ones out there. Sadly, I can personally rule out about 3 dozen that were at very best weak 10s and at worst, had 1 inch dents.
There’s about a dozen I have my eye on, hoping they’ll eventually pop up. Then there’s about 20 I know to ignore.
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@sgbased Retraces occur when supply increases or is consistent enough to overcome peak demand. Comparing this card to any other constantly available and less popular set cards is a mistake. I don’t have a dog in the fight, but there is never enough supply with the 10 zard, that is why it is always rising or sustaining.
The 118 pop fallacy reminds me of people who quote release numbers for trophy cards; it does nothing to change availability.
Also the previous buyer at 40k didn’t bid on this auction. I simply wouldn’t be surprised if this holds. I wasn’t surprised in the slightest by the final price. If anything the outcome that would personally benefit me would be if the card declined. I would love to buy more of the rarest cards. That has yet to happen, as 0-2 copies have been the max range of availability for the past 2 years.
With the charizard reaching $40k does this mean the 1st ed box has risen? Surely the box will always remain higher ?
Availability changes when price changes, kinda like a supply curve. Higher prices will encourage sellers. All things held constant (including time), supply will be higher at 40k than 25k, and will be even higher at 60k, 80k, 100k and so on. If the next zard sold for 100k tomorrow I’m pretty sure we will see more sellers and less buyers. I’m very aware that 118 is not the float and mentioned that point already - the curve is more inelastic for a highly desirable card like zard but the relationship is still there
at some price point it will retrace, it could be 40k or 60k or 100k.But let’s see, maybe 40k is still too low but I doubt it based on the bidder ‘bookbuild’
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The box is already higher than $40k. The market usually adjusts, but it’s also not guaranteed to rise at the same rate as Charizard.
Charizard is in a league of its own. Shadowless is near $20k yet it would be a struggle earning much more for a box.
Then you have opposite situations like Base Unlimited where Zard dropped 30% yet the boxes nearly doubled in the last year.
There’s just no direct correlation… As others have stated, most other set cards don’t seem to be affected. That might change long term.
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