This issue's quiz card is a 2003 Skyridge Nidoran #82 reverse holo in PSA 10, loaded in our $500 machine with a mark of $1,066. It is a common, and in any grade below Gem Mint it is a cheap card. The 10 is a four-figure object. Here is why.
The e-Reader sets
Expedition (2002), Aquapolis (2003) and Skyridge (2003) were the last three sets Wizards of the Coast produced before Nintendo took the licence. They were the first English sets with a reverse holo version of every card, they were printed in smaller quantities than the sets before them because the game's first boom was ending, and Skyridge in particular was short-printed. Sealed Skyridge is among the most expensive English product there is.
Why the reverses do not gem
The e-Reader reverse foil is fragile. It scratches, it chips at the edges, it shows print lines, and the cards were cut with the loose tolerances of 2003. A reverse holo that looks fine to the eye will routinely come back a 7 or 8 under PSA's surface standard. The result is that PSA 10 populations on Skyridge reverse holos are tiny, often in the single digits or low teens per card, against thousands for a modern common. This Nidoran's PSA 10 population is in that range.
What the price curve looks like
On August 31 we described the Base Set Pikachu as a cliff: nothing below a 10 carries much value. On an e-Reader reverse holo the cliff is steeper. A PSA 9 of this Nidoran is a two-figure card; a PSA 10 is four figures. The entire value is the certification that a copy survived 2003 printing and twenty-three years of handling without a mark on the foil. Nobody is paying $1,066 for a Nidoran. They are paying for one of a dozen or so perfect copies of a card from a short-printed set that is not coming back.
What to do with it
If you have raw e-Reader reverses, grading is a long shot with a low hit rate and a large prize, and at $80 Regular and a four-month wait it only makes sense for copies you have examined under a loupe for foil scratches and print lines. If you own a Skyridge reverse in a 10, hold it: the population cannot grow meaningfully, and the set's chase cards, the Crystal types and the Gengar that sold for $150,000 two weeks ago, keep pulling attention toward it. Skyridge is up 2.0 percent in this week's Index and has been positive in seven of nine readings.
Grade Expectations ran in The Pack Report, September 10, 2026: PSA Under Ten Million, and a $367,000 Lugia This Morning. Published by Rip Station.