Vintage Pokémon is Back!

Out of nowhere, a PSA 10 copy of the Base Set Shadowless Charizard just sold for $60,000 on Fanatics Collect.

An enormous price that has not been seen since the last Pokémon boom!

Up until now, the current Pokémon boom has been a modern Pokémon boom. Brand new sets like Surging Sparks and Prismatic Evolutions have been selling out immediately upon release and reselling for much higher prices. And, slightly older sets from the Sword & Shield era, like Evolving Skies have also seen explosive growth in prices.

Meanwhile, the vintage market has been stagnant.

But, this Shadowless Charizard sale is signalling that the prospects are changing for vintage Pokémon cards. This sale means we might be able to finally say that the whole Pokémon market is booming.

A Booming Vintage Pokémon Market Is Important

With modern Pokémon cards fetching all-time high prices, it’s clear that the majority of the market is focused on this one segment.

It's easy to understand why: many collectors have been brought back into the market because of the incredible alt art, illustration rare, and special illustration rare cards. By comparison, vintage Pokémon cards are boring, with their dated card design and simplistic holo treatments.

But, a growing vintage market is actually essential the long-term health of the Pokémon card hobby.

Here's what the legendary collector, Mr. Harry L. Rinker, says in his book How to Make the Most of Your Investments in Antiques and Collectibles about a booming market, which he calls a "run" (emphasis mine):

The most important takeaways are this:

1. All pieces within the collectibles category must be booming together, and

2. The grail pieces should be growing the most in price.

And, until now, these two points imply haven’t been true. The true grail pieces in Pokémon cards tend to be the difficult to acquire vintage cards. And they just haven’t been moving.

But, with this recent sale, I believe this is changing! And if true, according to Mr. Rinker, we will be in a true booming Pokémon market.

Healthy Growth For The Pokémon Market

This is incredible news for Pokémon.

A boom in the vintage market signals that collectors are caring more about the history of Pokémon cards, and not simply chasing the latest shiny release.

This is exactly what you want to see from healthy growth in Pokémon.

It’s amazing what The Pokémon Company has accomplished the past few years with modern cards, and it’s not surprising that there has been so much interest in the hobby because of it.

But where vintage Pokémon cards fall short on flashy designs, they carry enormous historical significance: Pokémon is still here today, at least in part, because of the way that Base Set Charizard captured the imagination of kids around the world back in 1999.

These cards matter.

And, the kinds of collectors who rediscover and value this history, are the kinds of collectors who build a long-term foundation in collecting.

And, beyond that, it's important to recognize the true difficulty of acquiring these kinds of top-tier pieces. The Base Set Shadowless Charizard has more than 10,000 graded examples at PSA alone, but only 58 (about half a percent) have earned the coveted PSA 10 grade.

Compare this to the PSA 10 Moonbreon, with 20,000 total graded cards, and over 14,900 PSA examples: nearly 75% of all graded examples earned the top grade!

This PSA 10 Charizard is truly rare. And a healthy Pokémon market should value that fact.

What's Next

If the trend continues, this should be the first of many new sales announcements around vintage Pokémon. And, if it does, we can truly say we're in a booming market!

And, to me, this suggests the current market boom has more room to go. But, that’s just my guess and only time will tell.

Either way, I’ll be here to share my analysis as we go!

As usual…

Thank you so much for reading the TCG Buyers Club newsletter.

My name’s Grey, I buy cardboard, and I make collecting and investing in Pokémon, simple.

Cheers 🍻

P.S. My next video will go live later today at 1:00 pm EST. It's based on last week's newsletter about when to sell your Pokémon collection or investments, and I'm really proud of how it turned out. Here's your sneak peek!