Two Pikachus, two issues, two completely different price shapes. On Monday we looked at a 1999 Base Set Pikachu in PSA 10: a card that is worth a few dollars raw and a few hundred in Gem Mint, with nothing in between. This issue's quiz card is a 2019 Cosmic Eclipse Pikachu #241, the secret-rare full art of Red and Pikachu, in PSA 9, and the value curve looks nothing like Monday's.
The modern shape
On a modern secret rare, three things are true that were not true of the 1999 common. The card itself is valuable regardless of grade, because it is one of the chase cards of its set. The printing is good, so a large share of submitted copies gem, and PSA 10 populations run into the thousands. And the population in 9 is also large, so the 9 is a liquid, well-defined lane rather than an afterthought. The result is a gentle slope: a 9 at roughly 40 to 60 percent of the 10, an 8 at perhaps a third, and raw copies that still carry most of an 8's value. Nothing on the curve is a cliff.
The vintage shape, for contrast
On Monday's Base Set Pikachu the card is a common, the printing was poor, and the gem rate is low. A 9 is a nice copy of a worthless card; a 10 is a scarce object. The 10 carries all the value and the 9 carries almost none. Same label, same Pokemon, opposite economics.
What it means when you buy
If what you want is the card, the modern 9 is the efficient purchase: most of the art and the status, a fraction of the premium, and a lane deep enough that you can sell it in a week. If what you want is the grade, the asset is the vintage 10, because its scarcity is permanent and no new supply arrives. Mixing the two up is the most common way collectors overpay: buying a modern 10 at a large premium over the 9 for a card that gems routinely, or buying a vintage 9 expecting it to carry a meaningful share of the 10's price.
What it means when you grade
Modern cards are worth grading when the 10 is worth several times the fee and your copy is clean; the downside of a 9 is small because the 9 is still a sellable card. Vintage commons are worth grading only when you have screened the copy hard, because a 9 returns almost nothing on the fee. At PSA's current four-month Regular turnaround, that calculus matters more than it did in the spring.
Grade Expectations ran in The Pack Report, September 3, 2026: A $360,000 Lugia, and the Biggest Vintage Week Yet. Published by Rip Station.