Most recent from 130point
I believe gs ray is far above the 8-9 range in psa 9 as recently multiple psa 8’s have sold for close to 8k
I will add that even though im surprised by Zapdos
It was prominently featured early on
Its the only legendary bird in base set
Zapdos from fire-red leaf green is legendary
Rockets zapdos ex is well known and sought after
Zapdos from supreme Victors is crazy
Zapdos from Aquapolis is 
Even today, look at a newer set like 151, zapdos is one of the bigest cards in the set
On top of that, its been consistently the only original legendary thats been competitively viable for the entirety of its existence in the pokemon games and that is further exemplified by how bad moltres and articuno have been and that adds to popularity as well
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Gardevoir is only there due to the weaboos and the Eeveelutions due to the furries (and I’m looking at pfm even tho Lopunny didn’t make it)
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Good.
Gengar and dragonite are where they should be; farther down in the list.
Charmander and moltres look a little high to me though.
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this is a paradoxical list to make because the popularity re:price is not exactly that the most expensive are the people’s favorite mons, but the mons that people think are people’s favorites.
i’d say there is a clear top 3 (pikachu, charizard, umbreon) and the order depends on the release.
after that, it’s kind of more dependent on the release and the market for that release being bullish or not
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Legendary pokemon and mew/mewtwo probably should be excluded from any price = popularity arguments.
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This list should only include Pikachu and Togepi 
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Kinda surprised to see Zapdos so low😛
@BANKS My best guess for why Zapdos is so high would be because it had three early WOTC holos: Base, Fossil, and Team Rocket. So when everyone started sending in every WOTC holo to be graded, that shot up Zapdos’ numbers. Same for Raichu, which also seems surprisingly high: Base, Fossil and Team Rocket holos also.
@nelson Charmander is surprising. Probably because he has a common card in Base set and Team Rocket. So when everyone sent in their WOTC first editions and Unlimited, a lot of those were sent in. I’m surprised Squirtle isn’t closer to Charmander’s numbers, but probably just a boost since Charmander is connected to Charizard. 
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It’s a good guess. I thought the same and looked up the top 5 most popular zapdos pop reports but can’t account for more than a quarter of 211k zapdos cards graded.
Total WotC + 151 Pop: 62,623
The graphic doesn’t show how it’s sourcing it data, so I would be wary to accept it at face value.
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My understanding is those numbers are the total combined: PSA, BGS, and CGC. So it would be 211K between all three of those grading services, based on the bottom corner of the image.
I definitely can’t speak to if their numbers are correct, but the data was sourced from GemRate, which do put out a bunch of breakdowns with sports cards. They seem to be pretty reputable from the ones I’ve seen. They put out weekly and monthly numbers for PSA, BGS, CGC, and SGC. My understanding is they have an API set up to collect the data from the pop reports. They’ll put out data reports like this:
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When talking about promo’s Pikachu does seem more popular. But this is a bit hard to compare because Pikachu has a lot more promo’s and the POP’s are (probably?) much lower.
But right now the average TCG enthusiast likes Umbreon more than Charizard (and I would say Pikachu too).
This has been proven in polls, but can also be seen when comparing the latest Charizard cards to Umbreon cards. Even Gengar seems to have surpassed it for now. Gengar sets outperform Charizard sets and the average semi/modern/modern Gengar card is more popular than the Charizard card. (Compare Phantom Forces to FlashFire and Fusion Strike to Brilliant Stars). Just wait untill we get a SIR Gengar. The community will explode.
Even though they don’t exactly define the list it’s interesting to see how individual popular cards shape that list, for example alone paldean fates shining mew has a psa pop report of almost 20k and obsidian flames etb charmander over 5k. Naturally in big picture more defining factor is the popularity of a whole set, like everything in base set is higher especially considering all its different versions and special interest towards them
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Popularity != value. Also, this thread seems to focus on just the SM era onward, and mostly on individual cards instead of as a whole. And also mostly on the western side of the world, since Greninja and Buzzwole have had a very popular period in Japan where they were more popular than some of the other mentioned Pokémon for halve a year. 
Popularity simply isn’t something that can be measured easy, since there are so many factors to consider, and it also changes day-by-day.
Anyway, to contribute something (do with it what you will), focusing on just value of the highest single card sold for that specific Pokémon, the order would be:
- Charizard (PSA-10 1st ed. Base Set sold for 420k USD in 2022)
- Blastoise (Protostoise sold for 360k USD in 2021)
- Pikachu (SNAP ungraded sold for 270k USD in 2023)
- Umbreon (Japanese PSA-10 Play GS sold for 180k USD in 2024)
- Kangaskhan (PSA-10 sold for 175k USD in 2023)
- Lugia (PSA-10 1st edition Neo Gensis sold for 144.3k USD in 2021)
- Magikarp (SNAP ungraded sold for 136k USD in 2022)
- ?? Gyarados (SNAP ungraded sold for 87.5 USD in 2023)
- ??
- ??
Also, I personally think Eevee is way more popular than Umbreon, even if prices don’t reflect that. Mostly because one is usually released as Common and the other as SR, making focusing on only value a weird way to measure popularity imo. 
Greetz,
Quuador
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I think the word ‘weird’ is a bit too strong here. We have to use some focus point, otherwise the discussion becomes un-focused. Could it have been better? Probably. Yes, it is an imperfect way to measure popularity (another problem is that it does not take into account POP’s). But especially set prices (a Mew/Mewtwo focused set performs well with the Mew/Mewtwo chase card performing better than other sets) is, in my opinion, a good way to tell what people like.
In the end though, it’s just a fun discussion. Discussions like these are always difficult because everyone uses different angles. That is also why they are interesting.
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Feel free to use an alternative word for ‘weird’. And you’re right, it’s mostly to have a discussion. 
Still, I think popularity is a very hard thing to objectively make a top-10 for, since there are so many things to consider: currently value; value increase over time; where in the world it’s popular; by what age-group it’s popular; is the Pokémon itself popular, or a specific artwork; the amount of different releases; the amount of graded cards; what about non-TCG; what about non-collectible aspects like within the games, anime, manga; etc. etc.
One way value could be somewhat used to measure popularity is within the same set, though. Take the Base Set for example, all Holofoil Rares have a similar pull rate, but the Charizard is by far the most expensive, hence the most popular.
Although even then, there are details to consider, like the artwork/pose of Charizard being (imo) cooler than most of the other Base Set artworks. And if it was as hard to grade as the Chansey, its pop might have been a lot lower and therefore price might have been even higher. Would that even higher price make it more popular though? I personally think not. 
Greetz,
Quuador
3 Likes
Whats funny is that there’s no true way to judge what’s the most popular after 3 or 4th place. After that you have to depend on various prices of information. Most people may say just use a google search, but often times flamigo will show up because flamingo is often mistyped. We can’t just do a worldwide survey because it wouldn’t use a wide enough audience, and sometimes there are bad actors.
Quaador also mentioned age-group being a factor, which can also be a huge factor in what Pokemons popular or not. POP reports can be a good way to judge cards, but I’m wondering if price bias affects true popularity (again, quaador Has said this also)
I’m guessing we’re gonna have to use all the information, aggregate all common factors, and use that to judge popularity. POP reports, Google searches, popularity polls, surveys etc. It’ll filter out all irrelevant info and mostly bring up a accurate and consistent list. I may be wrong, so bear with me.
Also I think Rayquaza may drop down this list to at least 7, as prices may not reflect popularity. Maybe we need a favorite pokemon on e4 survey for this.
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You misspelled my username not once, but twice. 
Greetz,
Quuador
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