​Sign Up​

September 15th - September 21st, 2025

25th Anniversary Creatures Deck Box Sells $150k 👹, PSA 10 Error Ancient Mew Sells Over $3k ⚠️, 2018 Lucario Collection Box Contains 2008 Stormfront Packs 🙈, Summer Promo Vaporeon Sells Over $5k 🌊

Note: sold listing links sometimes redirect to active listings after some time but should still be discoverable by searching for the listings manually.

​

📋 TLDR

📦 Sealed Product Market Highlights: A mispacked 2018 Lucario GX box with two DP Stormfront packs sold for $2k, an XY Double Crisis blister hit $1.8k, and a Japanese XY Break (CP4) booster box moved at $2k.

💎 Singles & Graded Cards Highlights: PSA 10 Ash-Greninja XY-P realized ~$2.36k, a raw Magikarp & Wailord GX outlier reached ~$2.05k, and the Japanese Summer Promo Vaporeon VMAX PSA 10 fetched ~$5.48k while the English PSA 10 sits near ~$1k.

🕰️ Vintage & Niche Market Highlights: A PSA 10 “Nintedo” Ancient Mew achieved ~$3.79k, Base Set 1st Edition Shadowless Squirtle PSA 10 hit ~$1.84k, and a sealed Creatures 25th Anniversary Deck commanded ~$150k with an estimated 250–400 decks existing.

😴 Potential Sleepers: Detective Pikachu’s Charizard-GX looks undervalued at ~$200 in PSA 10 (pop 2,991/5,742 total) and ~$65 raw given unique card art appeal and relatively low total graded population.

-

📦 Sealed Product Market Highlights

🔵 Sealed Lucario GX box sells for $2k

​Listing​

This collection box (released in 2018) normally contains a total of four XY or Sun and Moon eras like Ultra Prism or Burning Shadows. Recent sales from the past couple of months put this box in the $150-$250 range. However this particular box is a bit unique in that it contains two packs of Stormfront which is a set from the Diamond & Pearl era released in 2008 with the top chases being Charizard 103 going for $10k plus in a PSA 10 (or around $300 ungraded and in a decent condition).

According to the seller, this box was bought as a factory sealed product with packs from 2008 being included in the bundle in error (although it is possible to see older packs included in newer products but the gap here is substantial). Packs of Stormfront sell for around $200 on average in the past month so while even the inclusion of these packs wouldn’t necessarily put the value at the sale price of $2k, it's more about the rarity of the error sealed product combined with very rare “modern vintage” packs.

​
​🔵 Sealed Double Crisis blister pack sells for $1.8k

​Listing​

Double Crisis is a 34-card XY-era mini set themed around the Hoenn villains Team Magma and Team Aqua, released in January 2015 in Japan and March 2015 in English. Unlike regular expansions, it was distributed only through special blister packs with each blister containing four 7-card boosters, a Team Magma or Team Aqua pin and coin, and a code card. This set primarily highlights Groudon and Kyogre as the top chases. In English, Groudon has PSA 10 pop of 20 and Kyogre at 11. Price data is very scarce but the last sales put these two at $9k plus.

​
Sub $2k is definitely not sleeper territory for a sealed product but it’s not a bad price for a set with a more unique product distribution method with desirable chase cards. There was one sale from this week as well at $1.5k so there are still opportunities to purchase in this range but it will take a bit of patience.

​
​🔵 Japanese XY Break booster box sells for $2k

​Listing​

Premium Champion Pack (CP4) is a Japanese XY BREAK–era subset released on April 16, 2016 that spotlights the era’s three headliners including Pokémon-EX, Mega Evolution, and BREAK. This set essentially mixes key reprints with a handful of new cards. The top chase cards of this set include M Gengar EX 49 going for around $620 in a PSA 10 and M Mewtwo EX 52 going for $450 in a PSA 10 from recent sales.

​
​
​💎 Singles & Graded Cards Highlights

🔵 PSA 10 Ash Greninja sells for $2.36k

​Listing
​
​There are several variations of this card. This version is a 2016 XY-P promo bundled exclusively with the anime CD “Pokémon XY&Z Character Song Project Vol.2 Compilation” First Press Limited Edition B, released on October 26, 2016. This edition included a special holo card bearing Ash’s logo, aligning with the Ash-Greninja form featured in the XY&Z anime.

The PSA 10 pop of this card is 155. Most recent sales put this card in the $2.3k-$2.6k. Although several variations of this card exist in Japanese and English, the inclusion of the Ash logo and the channel of distribution still gives this card significant upside in my opinion.

​
​🔵 Raw Magikarp & Wailord sells for $2.05k

​Listing​

Magikarp & Wailord GX 161 is one of the top three chase cards from the Team Up set alongside Latias & Latios GX 170 and Gengar & Mimikyu GX 165. Since April, the value of this card in a PSA 10 was stable around $1.3k to $1.5k before spiking to the $2.6k range in July and beyond. The most recent PSA 10 sales put this card in the $2.5k to $3k range. Naturally the ungraded version of this card has also spiked in the same time frame at a lower range from about $220 to $500 (in decent condition, usually moderately played or near mint in some cases).

The most recent sales put this card in the $500 to $800 range so there’s quite a bit of variance. This $2k+ sale was heavily an outlier but nevertheless I thought it would be interesting to highlight. Other sold listings did come up with “pack fresh” in the title selling at a similar amount but the sold listing highlighted here was the only one I was able to confirm went through as paid.

​
​🔵 PSA 10 Japanese Summer Promo Vaporeon sells for $5.48k

​Listing​

Vaporeon VMAX 187/S-P is the Japanese “Summer Pokémon Card Campaign” lottery promo from 2021: 3,000 winners received a three-card set (Flareon VMAX 186/S-P, Vaporeon VMAX 187/S-P, Jolteon VMAX 188/S-P) by submitting a play log via the Pokémon Card Game Players Club between July 21 and September 30. The sets were mailed to winners that autumn. In English, the analogous special-art Vaporeon VMAX released broadly in the Vaporeon VMAX Premium Collection in December 2021, as Black Star Promo SWSH182 (with the companion V as SWSH181), bundled with a jumbo card, pin, coin, and booster packs.

The PSA 10 English counterpart currently sells at the $1k mark in the past couple weeks (PSA 10 pop of 3890). With that being said, the more exclusive it is (in this case channel of distribution) the more valuable it will be so in this case the Japanese counterpart far exceeds in value. This also goes for the Flareon and Jolteon as well. A PSA 10 copy of the Jolteon recently sold for $4.1k

​
.

🕰️ Vintage & Niche Market Highlights

🔵 PSA 10 “Nintedo” error Ancient Mew Promo sells $3.79k

​Listing​

Ancient Mew has several distinct prints spanning Japan and the West. The original Japanese card was sold inside the Revelation Lugia/The Power of One theater pamphlet starting July 17, 1999. Its first print famously misspelled “Nintendo” as “Nintedo,” and a brief corrected Japanese print followed with the same speckled holofoil. In the West, an English-language version was handed out to moviegoers during Pokémon The Movie 2000 and uses the familiar Wizards copyright line and cosmos-style holo.

For comparison, the standard Japanese version of this card goes for about $1.5k in a PSA 10. There are several other variations to this card but the main distinction is generally the copyright information at the bottom. This card was a pretty significant movie promo that had one consistent design but nevertheless some variations inevitably go for more than others. One thing to note about this card is that unsurprisingly it's harder to get a pristine grade because of the foil effect being more pronounced compared to other cards.

​
​🔵 PSA 10 Base Set 1st Edition Shadowless Squirtles sells for $1.84k

​Listing​

Generally speaking almost all the cards from 1st edition featuring popular Pokemon and regardless of greater rarity start at around several hundred dollars. Squirtle has hovered around a $60 ungraded average. This card has a PSA 10 pop of 947 and was stable at the $1.3k before spiking to the $2k mark starting in July.

​

🔵 Pokémon 25th Anniversary Creatures Deck sealed box sells for $150k

​Listing​

The Pokémon 25th Anniversary Creatures Deck is an employee-only “Corporate History” half deck created by Creatures Inc. in 2021 and gifted (not sold) to select TCG staff, illustrators, and partners as a holiday present. The presentation comes as a sealed wooden gift box containing a 30-card deck that chronicles 1995–2021 (including a replica of Kouichi Ooyama’s playtest Chansey), plus commemorative materials; no retail booster or public release exists. Sealed boxes surface only via private sales or auction houses and are treated as modern grails in the hobby. While the exact number hasn’t been disclosed, some estimates based on the number of employees / graded cards could roughly place the estimate at 250–400 decks worldwide.

As you can imagine, price data is extremely limited for this set given its grail status. According to one Reddit thread from 6 months ago, an open set was sold for about $53k after taxes. Another sealed box is currently listed for $400k (obviously a moonshot listing price but it's no stretch to think that some buyer might eventually purchase it). Unsurprisingly the cards can be nearly as valuable. The aforementioned playtest Chansey sold for a little over $41k.

​
​

😴 Potential Sleepers

Detective Pikachu Promo - Charizard GX SM195

PSA 10 - 2991 pop / 5742 total - $200 average

Ungraded - $65 average for near mint condition

Charizard-GX (SM195) is the English Black Star Promo tied to the Detective Pikachu product line included in the Charizard-GX Case File and Special Case File (both with a jumbo version), and later in the Detective Pikachu tins. The Case File launched April 5, 2019, bundling the SM195 foil plus Detective Pikachu booster packs. In Japan, the equivalent Charizard appeared as 007/024 (RR) inside the Movie Special Pack: Great Detective Pikachu.

Now let’s have a look at the numbers. Back in April this card (in a PSA 10) climbed from the $100 mark up to around $150 before dropping back down to $100 and coming up to a bit more stable $200 mark which is still a solid price to pick up at if not just ungraded for around $65 in near mint condition. Normally I talk about PSA 10 gem rate as a factor in determining a card's potential. The total graded population is relatively quite low at 5742 with a PSA 10 pop of 2991 so I would actually focus on the total population being low for a wide release promo as a factor.

I really wanted to highlight a Detective Pikachu card because I think this set is incredibly underrated. It gets a lot of flak and is generally unpopular because of the “real-life” depictions of Pokemon from the Detective Pikachu movie. But I think if fans are willing to suspend disbelief, many of the cards in this set are very unique for that very reason (real-life depiction) and have a lot of potential to grow.

​

​

📚 Educational Commentary – Collector’s Corner

How do you build a focused collection without blowing past your budget?

Keep in mind this is not exactly an original approach but if you’re working with a budget, having some structure can help you stick to it and hopefully help you get what you want out of it. Start by writing a one-page plan: pick 1–3 themes that truly matter to you (a character, an era, an artist) and make a “3-tier target list.” Tier A is grails you would be proud to hold for years, Tier B is core cards that define the theme, Tier C is fun fillers you can rotate. Set a monthly cap and pre-split it across tiers, for example 60% core, 30% grails, 10% fillers. Before you buy, note a realistic price range using a few recent sales and pick a personal ceiling. If a listing is above your ceiling, pass or set an alert and move on. Keep a simple tracker with three columns: target, max price you are willing to pay, and status. This turns impulse into a checklist.

Add a few practical guardrails. Use a 24-hour “cooling off” rule for anything over your filler budget. Try a “sell to upgrade” habit where Tier C funds Tier B, and Tier B trades up into Tier A, so your collection gets better without new cash. Compare each potential purchase to a benchmark card on your list: if buying this means delaying the benchmark, is it still worth it? Budget for the full cost of ownership, not just the sticker price, including shipping, grading, and supplies. Finally, schedule a monthly review to prune off-theme items and refill the war chest. Focus plus a few simple rules lets you enjoy the hunt, build something you love, and still feel good about your budget.

​
​

🫐 Berries For Thought

💭 What do you think about the Detective Pikachu set which depicts real-life Pokemon?

💭 What is your favorite promo card?

​

Share your thoughts on the above questions by replying to this email! (I read all of them 🙂)