News & methodology
How each price and screen is built, and dated market notes written from the catalog's own reads. Signals, not tips.
30th Celebration, five weeks in: three Mew hold 95% of the set, PSA has graded 711 copies, and the art behind it
The follow-up to the nine-days-in note. Independent opening counts agree with TCGplayer's odds on the main tiers and still cannot pin down the RGB Mew; PSA's count went from 125 in BetterPop's 8 October build to 711, 261 of them RGB Mew, which come back PSA 10 far less often than the rest; a pack's contents are worth 57% of its $10.83 price. Plus what The Pokémon Company chose for the art, and the stories of the first five weeks.
CardGameInsight Desk · Oct 21, 2026 · 10 min read
Grading ratio: what a PSA 8, 9 or 10 sells for against a raw copy, and what the multiple leaves out
Screen 7 divides each card's eBay PSA 8, 9 and 10 sales by its raw near-mint price. On 19 October 2026, over cards at $10 or more raw, the median PSA 10 sold for 6.5 times raw (867 cards), and a PSA 8 averaged below raw on 261 of 728.
30th Celebration, a month on: the set gave back 42%, the RGB Mew found a price, and PSA has graded 125 copies
The same 158 cards that cost $1,267.51 for one of each on 25 September cost $731.96 on the latest reads, with the middle tiers down most. The three RGB Mew, unpriced then, now read $3,739 to $6,000 on 8 to 16 listings each. A pack's contents are worth 49% of its $13.37 price, down from 60%.
Ascended Heroes: every tracked card got cheaper in a month, and every PSA 10 count grew
Between the 9 September and 8 October population builds, the twelve Ascended Heroes cards this site tracks fell a median 18.4% at TCGplayer market while their PSA 10 counts rose a median 18.4%. Across all 302 tracked cards the median count grew 0.9%, and the ten sets released before 2012 did not move at all.
Two Classic Collections: the 25th's reprints five years on, the 30th's nine days in
The 30th Celebration's 30 reprints price at $1,089.53 for one of each after nine days, led by Lugia at $278.90; the 25th's 25 reprints sit at $502.21 after five years, with five under a dollar. The same Charizard, three times: $869 original, $165 in the 25th's, $185 in the 30th's.
30th Celebration, nine days in: the friendliest pull rates of the era, and what a pack holds
TCGplayer's 3,000-pack study puts a Special Illustration Rare at 1 in 21 packs and an Illustration Rare at 1 in 5, against 1 in 80 and 1 in 9 for the rest of the era. On the catalog's first read the expected value of a pack is $10.87 against an $18 pack, 60%, where the three other studied sets sit at 7% to 36%.
What is in a master set? Pitch Black, all 120 cards by type
A complete set is one of every numbered card; a master set is every printing of every card. Pitch Black has 120 cards in eight rarity tiers and 74 reverse holofoils, so a master set is 194 cards. Every card pictured, grouped by type, with what one of each costs on 18 September 2026.
Before Delta Reign: what the Mega Evolution era looks like in the data
Mega Evolution: Delta Reign arrives on 6 November as the era's final main set. Across the era's 31 tracked cards, PSA 10 population explains nothing of PSA 10 price yet, and the month to mid-September was the softest of any era.
Thirty days across 291 tracked cards: a flat market with a soft newest era
Between 16 August and mid-September the median tracked card moved −1.3% at raw market; 111 rose, 172 fell, 172 stayed within five percent. The Mega Evolution era was the exception, down a median 10%.
Crown Zenith's Galarian Gallery, three years on: the most graded modern set in the catalog
BetterPop's September build counts 705,845 PSA-graded Crown Zenith cards, more than any set except Base Set and 151. The Galarian Gallery carries the value: Giratina VSTAR at $316 raw with 24,194 PSA 10s.
Destined Rivals: the Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex figures, and its Ascended Heroes sequel
The most valuable Scarlet & Violet card added to the catalog this week is Destined Rivals' Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex at $452 raw with 16,371 PSA 10s. Its Ascended Heroes namesake sits 20% below where it was a month ago.
Phantasmal Flames: three cards, one Pokémon, 84% of the set
The concentration screen's most lopsided set is the newest one in it. Mega Charizard X ex in three rarities carries 84% of Phantasmal Flames' raw value, and the rarest of the three sells graded for more than the most expensive.
The 30th Celebration launches tomorrow. Here is what the 25th's Classic Collection is worth today
A 30-card Classic Collection of gold-bordered reprints arrives on 16 September 2026. The 25th anniversary did the same in 2021; five years on, its reprints trade at a fraction of the originals and carry far larger PSA 10 populations.
Box EV: what a box is worth opened, from published pull rates and today's prices
Screen 6 sums each card's pull probability times its observed value into an expected value per pack, then compares it with sealed prices. Three sets have a published sample; opened value covers 7 to 36% of the sealed price.
Discontinued watch: out-of-print sealed product against the price it cost at retail
Screen 5 ranks out-of-print sealed products by how far above MSRP they trade, lowest first. Only six products have a retail price we can cite; here is why the other 78 are listed unranked rather than guessed.
Region spread: the same card in Sweden and the US, and what the gap does and does not include
Screen 4 puts the Tradera asking median next to the US market for 1,364 cards. The method, the two biases it states, the printing rule, and why nothing is subtracted for postage or tax.
Chase concentration: how much of a set is really three cards
Screen 3 measures the share of a set's total raw value held by its top three cards, plus a Herfindahl index. Black & White is the most concentrated seeded set at 73%; here is the method and the first results.
Drawdown vs population: a price fall is only a supply story if the supply actually grew
Screen 2 lists cards 30% or more below their window high, then asks whether the PSA 10 count rose in the meantime. With one population read the second column waits; here is why it is built that way.
Pop-adjusted value: what a PSA 10 costs per copy in existence, and why the slope flips by era
Screen 1 regresses PSA 10 price on PSA 10 population within each era. In the vintage era scarcity barely predicts price. In the modern eras the slope is positive, which changes what 'below the curve' means.
How CardGameInsight prices a card, and why one live read beats four estimates
Every price on the site is either an observed read from a named source or an estimate badged as such. Here is the rule that keeps the two apart, the day it mattered, and the printing mistake it caught.