Four stories from the week that each deserved more than a line: Goldin's Trophy Pikachu, Collector Crypt's Q3, the Santa Cruz x Pokemon skateboards, and Fossil's 27th birthday.
Read itA 2010 contest-winner promo drawn by a six-year-old sold for $156,000 in PSA 10. The same card in the same grade brought $8,700 in 2023. The lesson is about population, not art.
Read itOur two-basket index of the most-traded graded Pokemon cards: vintage up 4.1% on the week, modern up 0.8%, while market volume fell 15%. The full tables, the method, and the movers.
Read itPSA has cut its grading queue by a third since July. The Value tiers are still closed, and that is quietly working in favor of anyone already holding graded cards.
Read itFanatics Weekly's October 4 close put five Pokemon cards at the top of the trading card market, and the headline act was a Cresselia.
Read itA $960,000 Cresselia led a $3 million weekend, PSA's queue is finally shrinking, and a kindergartener's Zorua just sold for $156,000.
Read itPSA's backlog fell to 8.2 million on Tuesday; Pokemon TCG Pocket's October expansion starts a new series with dual-type cards and basic Pokemon ex; TCG Live updated Tuesday; and Goldin's anniversary auction has a Pristine Skyridge Gengar and a sealed EX Deoxys box underneath the Pikachu.
Read itThis issue's quiz card is the 2025 Korean Project Ditto QR Stamp Rally promo in PSA 10, loaded in the $250 machine with a mark of $246. Regional promos are priced by how hard they were to get, and on an event handout the 10 is doing more work than usual.
Read itThe first clean week-over-week reading since the pause: vintage +2.7% with Legendary Collection +9.2%, Expedition +7.3% and Team Rocket Returns +6.6%; modern -1.6% with Japanese 151 -5.1% and Classic Collection -4.5% against Evolutions +8.3%. Full tables.
Read itPSA's October 6 update: 8.2 million cards, down 800,000 in two weeks and 4.2 million from the July peak. The $59.99 Standard tier's first full fortnight of inflow did not bend the line. At 400,000 a week the 5 million threshold arrives in early December.
Read itGoldin opened its 2026 Pokemon 30th Anniversary auction this week, closing October 25. The headliner is the 1997 Gold First Place First Tournament Trophy Pikachu in PSA 8, the only copy in PSA's census, awarded at the first official Pokemon TCG tournament; pre-bidding passed $1 million on day one.
Read itGoldin's Pokemon 30th Anniversary auction opens with the only PSA-graded 1997 Gold First Place Trophy Pikachu already past $1 million in pre-bidding, PSA's backlog falls to 8.2 million, and 30th Celebration's second wave is on shelves.
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