Some Pokemon Grading Stats

Vegemight · 09-17-2022, 05:33 AM

Sometimes it can be interesting to confirm with statistics something that you think is already fairly well known.

In mid-September 2020 I recorded the total number of PSA graded cards for the early English and Japanese sets.

The intention was to update these at some time in the future, to see just how the numbers might change, as we made our way through the boom times.

As 2 years has now passed, and in view of recent reports that PSA has mostly cleared their backlog, I thought the time was right to check the new totals.

That's a total of 754,763 English cards graded in 2 years, and 80,578 Japanese cards graded in 2 years.

Obviously anyone would have predicted that a larger number of English cards would be sent for grading, but I'm not sure that I expected such a significant difference, given the apparent boost in interest in Japanese cards over the last 2-3 years.

Of particular note is the fact that as of September 2020, some 20 years after the initial release of English Pokemon cards, there were a total of 321,872 graded English cards from the above sets.

A mere 2 years later there are now over a million cards from these English sets graded.

If ever a statistic could demonstrate the magnitude of the Pokemon grading boom I think this is it.

grade · 09-17-2022, 02:41 PM

Very interesting. Thank you.

I am heavy into Japanese vintage.

ninjabum87 · 09-22-2022, 05:16 PM

Yeah, honestly it's been really annoying for me personally since newer SRs I enjoy keeping and collecting raw. Trying to find nice raw cards is harder these days than finding graded ones.

09-17-2022, 05:33 AM	#1
Vegemight Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 161	Some Pokemon Grading Stats Sometimes it can be interesting to confirm with statistics something that you think is already fairly well known. In mid-September 2020 I recorded the total number of PSA graded cards for the early English and Japanese sets. The intention was to update these at some time in the future, to see just how the numbers might change, as we made our way through the boom times. As 2 years has now passed, and in view of recent reports that PSA has mostly cleared their backlog, I thought the time was right to check the new totals. That's a total of 754,763 English cards graded in 2 years, and 80,578 Japanese cards graded in 2 years. Obviously anyone would have predicted that a larger number of English cards would be sent for grading, but I'm not sure that I expected such a significant difference, given the apparent boost in interest in Japanese cards over the last 2-3 years. Of particular note is the fact that as of September 2020, some 20 years after the initial release of English Pokemon cards, there were a total of 321,872 graded English cards from the above sets. A mere 2 years later there are now over a million cards from these English sets graded. If ever a statistic could demonstrate the magnitude of the Pokemon grading boom I think this is it.

09-17-2022, 02:41 PM	#2
grade Banned Join Date: Sep 2020 Posts: 3,113	Very interesting. Thank you. I am heavy into Japanese vintage. Last edited by grade; 10-14-2022 at 08:31 AM.

09-22-2022, 05:16 PM	#3
ninjabum87 Member Join Date: Nov 2018 Posts: 2,339	Yeah, honestly it's been really annoying for me personally since newer SRs I enjoy keeping and collecting raw. Trying to find nice raw cards is harder these days than finding graded ones.