Its such a rare card that prices aren’t going to be binary. If I had to guess, it most likely went higher because of the chance for a 10. You’d basically get it half price if it earned a 10. Although I’ve graded sealed copies that earned 8’s. 
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I would recommend buying smaller items with the intent of selling them when you go to acquire your big card. If you do this right you can buy items that increase in value and accelerate your savings goal. Then when it comes to buying your unique/rare item, sell the smaller items you’ve been purchasing.
It’s easy to complete a collection goal that costs $1,000 and contains 10 cards ready available on eBay. You are reassured of your progress as you buy each card and know you’ll eventually complete the goal. It’s a lot more stressful to complete a collection goal that costs $10,000+ and contains 1 card rarely seen on eBay. It can take months - years of saving, no progress to track and there’s uncertainty around it being available for sale. For me, acquiring 1 unique/rare card has always been the most satisfying in the end so that’s where I focus my effort.
Although unique/rare cards are satisfying to collect, the cost of capital is the downside. I would imagine you have to hold for years to see any sizeable return, whereas that money could be invested in other ways.
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That’s also what I suspected. and to smpratte point, it’s a pretty nice gamble of
psa 9 - make no money
psa 10 - double your money
for 50/50 odds and not really much downside (besides the capital being locked up) I know there are plenty of people that would take that any day. Go to vegas right now and scream “DOUBLE OR KEEP YOUR MONEY” and you’ll have people lined up for days.
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buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/p838070505
secret super battle number 2 on YHJ
4 day auction ends on a tuesday… weird. Recent grade too.
seller has never sold on YHJ before either hmm
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This card was part of a large old back trophy submission that was graded last year, if you use the PSA cert lookup tool you can see the other cards that were graded along with it. Some of the other cards in the submission have been sold by other Yahoo Auction accounts, most recently the 7.5 TMB no.3 (cert number 53457180**).**
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This one is part of a set of extra trophies graded by one of the usual extra copy sellers a while back. I don’t think this is the first time they’ve tried to sell this particular card, not sure why it didn’t sell the first time.
The PSA 9 SSB No. 3 Trainer was part of PWCC’s last auction block, but it has yet to be paid for: www.ebay.com/itm/224467892187.
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@pichufan AFAIK this is the first time they have listed the SSB No. 2. Regarding the PSA 9 No. 3 Boy Trainer, unfortunately PWCC doesn’t keep an auction archive for vault flash auctions the same way they do for the monthly blocks. The seller had timed it to end around the same time as the main block, maybe intentionally to get more eyeballs, but it was not part of the May 2021 Auction series. So it will not appear there if paid / it is the same as a typical eBay auction where would need to know someone involved to confirm.
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@qwachansey oh interesting, I wasn’t aware of that. I wonder if it would have performed better being part of the main auction block instead.
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Here is the original listing for that no.3 trainer: page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/g499276837
The account that the seller used for the card seems to have been banned or deleted.
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My guess is yes, since the PSA 7 no-name No. 2 has been paid for at $19.1k. But who knows. I’m going off my anecdotal experience of my own vault flash auctions getting much fewer views/favorites than similar cards in main PWCC blocks, and that people like to browse through blocks and add stuff to watch list. But, you also have to prepare monthly submissions further in advance than a flash auction, and there is the risk of cards getting overlooked in big monthly blocks. And, the No. 3 has twice the distribution (even though these copies in question are not officially distributed, lol) of No. 2 / No. 1, and of course does not have the main selling point of of No. 2 (unique Chansey art).
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Thank you so much for your perspective on the topic! I definitely understand what you are saying in that you can slowly benefit from having an asset rather than immediate liquidity, especially if you are planning on selling the item anyways. I agree with that unique/rare cards are difficult to acquire but definitely a cool goal to finally acquire.
Thank you for taking the time to respond! I really appreciate it!
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Doing a lot of research on Japanese promos for a personal collection I’m starting. After so long with English 1st editions, I’m really relieved and pleased with the comparably low prices for the majority of the promos I’m reviewing. You can pick up an awful lot of cards for not an awful lot of money.
However, it’s very funny to recognize art from popular cards like Family Kangaskhan and University Magikarp and think “oh yeah, I know this card, I wonder what this is actually worth?” and then it’s $30,000. There’s definitely a lot of whiplash between seeing 20+ cards on a row that are less than $20 a piece then quietly remove one from your list because it costs as much as three Corollas.
This is a totally different market that’s been really cool to immerse in. I like learning lots of new things.
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I just picked up on a trend I see a lot on YHJ, I think they often have “anonymous” type IDs that are mostly gibberish.
This one is vjljh92841 which for a second I thought was vzisj86231 (known scammer) and then I looked thru my scammer db and noticed lots of them with 5 letters, 5 numbers. yoxnc31556, tlekz49301, dyxtd68524
Anyways, clearly it doesn’t mean they are always a scammer, and I’m not suggesting the super secret battle is sold by a scammer. just a random observation. Maybe someone like @japanime has some more insight into this
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Yes, if you don’t select a name they give you an auto-generated one.
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This specific seller wants to stay anonymous it seems as the packages they shipped did not have any return / from address on. Very likely that they are a well known figure high up in the ranks at pokemon… at least that‘s my thought
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That’s my thought as well, each time they pop up, make a new account, and delete it after the items sell. They also usually end the auction early, presumably after it reaches a certain threshold. They likely still have a relationship with Pokemon because they also have had extra copies of Ishihara GX and Masked Royal.
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They are not scamming. Their PSA 7.5 TMB was delivered without issue.
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It’s so refreshing reading others have the same experience as myself! Japanese promos are so diverse. They encapsulate what collecting Pokémon is all about!
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Wasn’t really implying that but how could you definitely say that? It’s a totally different seller. With 0 feedback or sales history…
I also am doubtful it’s a scam but this ain’t no pwcc auction. this is like bidding on a random anonymous ebay account that’s never sold anything before. I highly doubt anyone that’s interested in this is going to use some public facing middleman to purchase, but it’s worth noting there’s quite a bit of risk here 
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It’s a different account but not a different seller. They have already sold many high end cards without issue.
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