Grading is probably the best way to go if you want long-term protection. PSA’s cases are specifically designed to both show off a card and protect it from further damage, and the card will stay in that case unless someone is very determined to get it out. If you don’t expect a good grade and don’t want the card to be assigned one, you can send it in for authentication. PSA will authenticate and encapsulate your card but will not assign it a grade.
What about framing it?
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You can get a psa slab for it with a custom name in it. Without a grade. Just with the caption: “my first”
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I agree with the suggestions made by @xuzu and @aj1.
Having it graded by PSA won’t add any value to the card. All it will do is entrap Charmander inside one of those fugly PSA slabs. 
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I like the personalised PSA label idea that sounds cool; remember to put ‘Juniper’s first card’ and not ‘my’ first card so when you become rich and famous it will look cool in someone’s collection in the future!
Toploader in a nice frame could look cool
I have also been thinking about sending in my first card to PSA just to get it well protected, but I’ve never seen the custom encapsulations before, did anyone here try it? 
There is a video floating around. The custom encapsulations have a green label.
Well sort of. Was @garyis2000 trying to some cards graded and they came back just custom encapsulations?