There’s another element that is missing though, while Unikarp and Tropical wind have totally different distribution, they were also distributed to two totally different audiences who likely had completely differing perspectives on what the card they just received was
University Magikarp was given to kids in elementary school. Just kids in elementary school given a card that honestly, looks a lot like a normal card. What do you think most of the kids did with that card?
Tropical Wind on the other hand, was given to “professional” TCG players, who were flown out to Hawaii, and won. I’m sure there was some precedent or understanding set from previous tournaments that a winner’s card would be awarded, and that the winners should hold onto and keep those cards close.
== This is all a Scientific Wild Ass Guess now ==
While it’s hard to quantify, my gut tells me that it’s likely true that the vast majority of people (80-90%) of winners of Tropical wind really took care of the card from the start (read: didn’t throw it away) and knew it was a meaningful card.
Total Tropical Wind Pop: 61 / 180
On the other hand, I would say I think there’s a significant minority of people (<30% maybe?) of winners of University Magikarp that knew the significance of the card they had in hand and thus took proper precautions to take care of it. and not lose it!
Total Unikarp Pop: 75 / 1000
I think this is reflected in the pops already. & thus I argue they have similar rarity.
Of course, someone from the tournament could be sitting on 100 minty Unikarps that we don’t know about that were never distributed / extra copies. and that would make my math a house of cards. and there is much less likely a chance of that being true about Tropical Wind
@serpintaxt my comment was purely on their rarity rather than their condition or value.
A big difference between the two also is that people who have Tropical Wind definitely know the value of the card whereas people with the Magikarp often don’t - there was a seller on Mercari in February selling 2 possibly mint Unikarps for just over $1k whilst the PSA 10 copy at PWCC was selling for over $60k with the seller claiming “I am not familiar with the card, so I set it to a high price after the assessment.” - I don’t think they were expecting them to sell almost instantly.
Focussing specifically on rarity, I think in the long run grade will always be an important factor in the value of the Unikarp whereas grade likely wouldn’t matter as much for the Tropical Wind.
You’re forgetting that we really don’t really know much about the Tamamushi University event. The number 1000 that we’ve seen quoted in translations don’t mean anything as we don’t even know how many people showed up. Rarity is not based on quoted numbers, it’s about the amount currently in circulation or copies we see. Tropical Wind is clearly not 5x or even 2x as rare as Unikarp just by looking at the market history. Even PSA pops show this with 75 graded for Unikarp & 61 for Wind & aside from PSA 10s individual grades are pretty close in pop for both cards.
Sure holders are far more likely to underestimate Unikarps value & maybe there’s 100s of copies hidden out there but at that point we’re just speculating. Those hidden copies mean nothing if they never come to light. You can also compare Unikarp to other cards that have >1000 copies like the lottery promos which are pretty common. As far as I’m concerned they’re in the same tier & the quote of 1000 copies holds no weight in the same way that there’s 15 & 20 copies quoted for Snap Magikarp.
If it’s published that 1,000 copies were to be distributed that at the very least means 1,000 copies were printed. I’m only aware of around at most 10 of each of the 2009 Design Contest cards having surfaced, that doesn’t mean the published number of 100 copies weren’t printed and distributed. To assume that more or less than that number have been printed is itself speculation. I’m not going to go around and claim that these are rarer cards than the likes of Champion’s League (which has a similar ratio to Unikarp vs Tropical Wind) purely because fewer copies have surfaced.
I get what you’re saying about rarity being based on what’s in circulation and I think that’s absolutely perfect logic to apply to very old collectibles, but I think Pokémon is far too young to assume 60%+ of any printed card no longer exists.
I’m of the belief that if something official around the time of a card being distributed was printed with a distribution number that number should be believed until proven wrong. In this case the 1,000 number hasn’t been proven wrong.
You call the lottery promos pretty common, but fewer than 50 copies of each of the cards from Japan’s L-P set have been graded by PSA and a similar number of the 2012 Giratina and Rayquaza Super Rare Card Set Get! campaign cards have been graded as well. Those like you say are other examples of cards with a distribution of 1,000 which you claim are more common, yet despite being a lot newer than the University Magikarp they have had fewer copies graded than the Magikarp in the past 3 and a half years. Should we use this data to say that those are rarer than the University Magikarp? No, of course not. Should we be saying the opposite that the University Magikarp is rarer than those? I don’t think we should until that 1,000 number is proven and not just speculated to be inaccurate.
Notice that the psa pops for the lottery promos are mostly PSA 10? The reason the pop is so low is because people only grade mint copies for the most part. Not many people are interested in grading a damage lottery suicune. Meanwhile higher tier cards like Unikarp are sought after in all grades & get premiums for the added authenticity. The lottery cards also appear far more often than Unikarp. You can get these cards fairly easy if you want them, just looking across Japanese sites you see many more sales and listings. I don’t think it’s really debatable that Unikarp is far more rare than the lottery promos currently.
At the end of the day I choose not to put too much stake on these numbers. We have different opinions on what rarity is & that’s fine.
I’ve got to think there were hundreds of thousands of neo premium files printed. I remember getting the Japanese version in the US as a kid.
I recently saw on YHJ some people selling displays of these with I think 20+ ea files per display. I think that dude sold like 40 of them over 4 weeks lol. Thanks for sharing, super cool. I’ve been chasing similar things but for Japanese Video games and it’s fun to see cases like these pop up
For the first Neo Premium File, you’re almost certainly correct. The market was flooded with them. When they were released, I shipped 100 cartons to a wholesale customer in the States. A few months later, they were begging me to buy them back. (I didn’t.)
The second and third Premium Files, though, were a lot harder to come by – probably because resellers were still stuck with so many of the originals, and didn’t want to invest in the newer ones.
Oh my. @japanime, if I could take a peek in that Neo Intro box, I would be at bliss for that moment. So awesome, just wanted to thank you as well for sharing such a treat.
All you would see would be four sealed white inner cartons. Haha.
The white cartons themselves have no markings on them. Each contains 10 of the Intro Packs, plus a printed piece of paper explaining the contents. I saved a few of those slips of paper over the years. I’ll dig one up and post a picture here.
Here’s the letter that came with each inner carton containing 10 of the Intro Packs. I’ve redacted a couple of parts of it because it contains identifying information. That, plus redactions look cool.
This is the kind of stuff I love to see - the weird nuances of collecting that most people don’t even get a peak of! Always appreciate what you bring to the table, Glenn! I remember those files well. Second generation has a huge place in my heart as it was the most hyped up thing in Pokemon history for my sister and I as kids. Our Newbury Comics store was flooded with stuff from Japan.
IIRC these neo files came out in the US _before_ gen 2 video games came out? or maybe that was tropical islands
I definitely remember learning about new gen 2 pokemon via the TCG way back in the day. but I want to say it was Marill, togepi that we saw in the TCG.
I just looked it up
Southern Islands: July 17 99
Pokemon Silver/Gold JP: Nov 21 99
Neo Premium File 1: Dec 10 99
Pokemon Silver/Gold US: Oct 15 00
wow, nostalgia is a hell of a drug. taking me back big time
seeing those are just beautiful in my view I love seeing vintage boxes like that in japanese. thanks for sharing. I did notice NEO 1 files were everywhere but NEO 2 & 3 were more or less not seen as much. I remember many places just carrying NEO 1 more
Looking for some general advice on purchasing vintage Japanese sets, which is a gear shift I am considering sometime in the next couple of years. I’d be interested in Base through Neo Destiny (using their English names for ease here).
What is the ease of acquisition for complete Japanese sets?
What kind of search criteria would turn up complete sets on Yahoo Japan? Do they use the same language (ex. “complete set” in Japanese) as we do to describe these?
Are these sets easier to buy from western collectors (how is supply?) or import from Japan?
I’d also be interested in any broad pointers you might have to someone who has spent most of their career in English cards.
