Which sets are genuinely scarce?

General
1

What I mean is, which sets are scarce compared to just not graded because they are lower value?

For example,

www.pokemonprice.com/CardDetails/697259df-dbf5-4b86-81f2-ec097521d447/arcanine-holo
This card is pop 23, and worth not a whole lot. Because it’s a newer set, I assume people have stacks of these at home and just don’t grade them because even though they are a holo, they aren’t worth as much.

Other types of these are Holos from things like Roaring Skies;

www.pokemonprice.com/CardDetails/8ddad82c-5fa6-4d33-b07d-2203c81dfe8f/deoxys-holo

I am sure people have plenty of that Deoxys sitting in their pile that will be graded once the card is worth a fair bit of money.

Then we go a little further back to 2011;

www.pokemonprice.com/CardDetails/1619fbab-2deb-45f0-a3fd-32455808957e/bouffalant-holo

Things like this Bouffalant have 0 pop in PSA 10… but again I am sure people have stacks of these at home that could be graded if the card became worth something.

How far back do I have to go that there are no longer stacks sitting around collectors houses that are ready to be graded?

I will assume that those cards listed about, that if the cards became valuable, their pop would increase a massive amount because of the stockpiles being graded.

My question stems from something like this;

www.pokemonprice.com/CardDetails/34870e8e-6824-40c1-bf93-98e647a636fe/electivire-holo

If I wanted this card, it is 13 years old and has 0 pop. Is it genuinely scarce? Would you think a lot of them are just sitting in collection piles somewhere waiting to be worth grading?

I am trying to pick up some Holos that I really like from 2007 to 2010, but I am not sure if these cards are genuinely scarce or just people don’t find them worth grading.

It’s like how Vivid Voltage Holos won’t be worth grading for many many years.

I hope I explained what I mean well

2

Just a blanket statement but id say no set card is scarce. When speaking on behalf of PSA 10 specifically is when the additional criteria comes into play making it “scarce”.

Id say each card would have a unique set of attributes to consider from print runs, playability, popularity and so on.

Best of luck,

odds

3

Probably that’s not what you’re looking for, but for actual rartiy you should leave English standard sets behind and look into other languages and/or special variants.

Some unlimited Japanese sets are very scarce. Polish and Russian cards are generally on the rarer side, too, I think. etc.

4

In terms of sets which had a full release Japan’s World Champions Pack in unlimited is probably the rarest. I’ve only ever seen one Pichu from this set (and I’m currently offering $250 for a NM copy). Based on what I’ve been reading recently whilst trawling through the Pokémon Japan website it sounds like the unlimited version of the set was available for sale at the 2008 Spring Battle Road tournaments which you may know were cut short due to a bomb threat.

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5

Oh, I don’t want rarity. I just want some Holos from old sets in the late 2000’s, but I’m not sure if ones with really low pops are just super scarce or people havent bothered grading

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6

It’s going to be the latter. I don’t think there are any English main set cards which can be considered scarce. There will definitely be some sets where compared to other sets they are a lot scarcer (set A may have 5 times more cards printed than set B), but even so I don’t think any set has a holo distribution below 6 digits. You may find certain card types like Gold Stars to have a lower distribution, but even those will still be well into 5 digits.

Remember that sets released in English were released not only in the US, but also in Canada, UK and Australia at the very least as well. English and scarce don’t really go hand-in-hand for Pokémon.

Up until this year the vast majority of Pokémon cards including these were not worth sending in to be graded, however that’s only changed very recently. I’m confident we’ll be seeing a massive rise in the number of cards like these on the pop report.

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7

I think there’s a bit of confusion between rarity and scarcity in this thread, so I embrace @muk statement.
Some regular holos from the old sets are somewhat scarce at the moment (they don’t appear for sale that often). I know this because I haven’t been able to acquire some that I wanted.
If you are looking to get holos that were released in lower quantities (or at least have less chance to saturate the market) you are asking which ones are the rarest (were produced in less quantity). As you’ve stated in your first post, the pop report alone isn’t enough information to make a decision: the pop for modern sets holos is low because there’s simply no incentive at all to grade them.

8

Portuguese Jungle

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9

Leaving aside sets you have in English that may be scarcer in other languages, Victory Station is a complete original artwork set that never was printed in English. It is likely the rarest normal sized “set” because of this. There are 151 cards in this set. m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_VS_(TCG)

10

The same could be said about Vending Series and Web Series. The latter is a reprint set, but that doesn’t make it any more or less rare.

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