How Much Did They Pay For This Pokémon Card??

A new record sale just dropped: $238,500.

It wasn't that long ago that prices like this were only achieved by 1st Edition Base Set Charizards. And beaten only by Illustrator Pikachus and other rare trophy cards. Cards that had earned their place in the history of the hobby, after decades of playground rumors, discussions, and exposure, achieved prices like these.

So surely a price like this must have been for the sale of a Trophy Kangaskhan, right? Or maybe a Gold Star?

Nope.

This was a PSA 10 Rayquaza SL10 from the 2011 set, Call of Legends, reported as a private sale on PriceCharting.com.

As someone who was not collecting back in 2011, I was not familiar with this card. In fact, I suspect most collectors aren't. Here's what I've learned since:

This Rayquaza was a chase card from the Call of Legends set - one of the 11 "Shiny Legendary" secret rare cards. These SL cards were seeded about 2 per booster box and, with 11 SL cards in total, that meant the odds of pulling any specific SL card, like the Rayquaza, was about 1 in 6 booster boxes.

Compared to modern chase cards, like the Moonbreon, where any alt art VMAX card was seeded about 1 in every 10 booster boxes, and the odds of pulling the Umbreon VMAX alt art specifically was about 1 in 55 booster boxes...

The Rayquaza SL was not hard to pull.

So how the hell did it achieve this kind of price?

Well... There are only 23 PSA 10 examples of the Rayquaza SL10. Out of only 1,473 ever graded by PSA.

That's a phenomenally low 2% PSA 10 rate for a card that was already rare. Even the 1st Edition Base Set Charizard has 123 PSA 10 examples.

This Rayquaza is not alone: Several low pop PSA 10 cards have seen a surge in price at auction. Cards that were ignored for years are achieving prices previously only reserved for trophy cards.

Cards like the Snorlax Lv. X from 2009's Platinum Rising Rivals, which sold for $253,680.

Or, this holo Lugia promo from 2010, which sold for $144,000 in PSA 10.

Or, this Japanese Piplup promo from 2007 which reportedly sold for $36 in PSA 10 back in 2019, near almost $26,000 today.

These cards all have extremely low numbers of PSA 10 examples:

This is condition rarity: Cards that are rare not because a small number were printed, but because a small number of the printed copies have survived in high condition grades.

Clearly, someone (with deep pockets) is betting that collectors will chase these cards because of their condition rarity.

Condition rarity has always been important for trading cards. It's the "minter" in the saying "Older, rarer, minter: Better." The PSA 10 1st Edition Base Set Charizard has always been, at least partly, valuable because of condition rarity: Only 123 copies exist in PSA 10.

Similarly, the Gold Star cards, which have surged in price over the course of this boom, also have high condition rarity. The PSA 10 Torchic that just sold for $2,700,000 achieved that price off the back of a PSA 10 population of just 19.

But Gold Star cards have been building in popularity over years, gradually achieving higher and higher sale prices that coincided with a growing consensus across the Pokémon hobby that these were important cards. Gold Star cards were, after all, the first special chase card variant after Pokémon took over the TCG from Wizards of the Coast.

Gold Star cards have earned their place among the legendary cards in the Pokémon hobby and their prices reflect that.

These recent sales are skipping the significance part. To me, condition rarity alone doesn't justify these kinds of prices.

Instead, I would have expected sale prices to grow more slowly, and for the collecting community to share the news, discuss, and learn more about these cards over time, like what happened with the Gold Star cards. This is the kind of organic growth you tend to see for collectibles.

The collectors buying these cards obviously feel differently, and are betting the significance will come off the back of these record sales.

I wouldn't be making that bet with my money.

What do you think? Reply and let me know - I read them all.

As usual,

Thanks so much for reading the TCG Buyers Club newsletter. My name's Grey, I buy cardboard, and I'm on a mission to make collecting and investing in Pokémon simple.

Cheers 🍻

P.S. Tomorrow is the release day for the 30th Celebration set! Good luck to anyone who will be looking for product (I know I will!)