Cardboard Terminal

I just found one Pokémon pack with mathematically better returns than a lottery ticket. Most Pokémon packs return less than $0.50 per dollar spent on average. • Scarlet and Violet Base: $0.48 • Prismatic Evolutions: $0.29 • Paldean Fates: $0.22 But one set is different: Fates Collide. Today, a pack costs about $44. Its contents are worth $36.47 on average if you sell or grade each hit based on whichever has the higher expected value. That’s an 83% expected return. Still a losing bet. But better than a typical lottery ticket. So where does all that EV come from? Take Umbreon EX Full Art #119. It’s worth about $141 raw, but around $4,450 in a PSA 10. Obviously, I’m not assuming every copy gets a 10. According to PSA population data, 13.5% of graded copies actually gem. I use this data to weight every possible outcome: • PSA 10: 13.5% at ~$4,450 • PSA 9: 32.8% at ~$430 • PSA 8: 23.6% at ~$155 • and so on That gives Umbreon a graded EV of about $819. Subtract an $80 grading fee and the calculated value of pulling one is about $739. But you only pull it around 1 in 153 packs. So Umbreon alone contributes about $4.83 of EV to every Fates Collide pack. I repeat that process for every hit using measured pull rates, real PSA grade distributions, and recent sale prices. The final math: Pack price: $43.95 Grade optimally: $36.47 EV Expected return: 83.0% So no, opening Fates Collide is not profitable. But the fact that the expected return is better than a typical lottery ticket is kind of awesome. Keep an eye out for my full analysis on all pack EVs later this week! All the data + methodology is here: cardboardterminal.app/pack-e…

Before you rip another Pokémon pack, I've done the math. The Pack Expected Value (EV) tool I built calculates the expected value of every modern set using: • Measured pull rates • Real PSA gem rates • Recent PSA + raw sales • Bulk/non-hit value • Your actual grading fee And it doesn’t just give you one EV. For every single hit, it tells you the mathematically optimal move: Grade or Sell Raw. Yes, every single pack has a negative EV... But that is normal! Some packs have better returns than others. Some current numbers: • Pokémon 151: $16.24 optimal EV on a $29.69 pack • Pitch Black: $5.43 EV on a $5.64 pack → 96% expected return For 151 specifically: • Sell everything raw: $12.43 • Grade every hit: $13.36 • Optimize each card individually: $16.24 So now, before you rip, you can know what to expect on average and exactly what the math says to do with every hit you pull. I thought this could be important for everyone. So I've made this completely free on Cardboard Terminal: cardboardterminal.app

This is one of the coolest Pokémon pricing patterns I’ve seen in a while. Same card. Same grader. Completely different gem behavior. For Pokémon Center promos, the harder the stamped version is to gem relative to the regular card, the larger the price premium tends to be. A few examples: • N’s Zekrom: 2.6x harder to gem with PC stamp, 10.1x price • Charcadet: 4.1x harder to gem with PC stamp, 8.5x price • Magneton: actually easier to gem with PC stamp, but still trades at 2x That suggests something pretty clean: The stamp creates the floor. Gem scarcity drives the upside. This is why looking at price alone misses half the story.

The Rayquaza hype was already priced into the market since April. But maybe with such sick art I hope we see another Ray surge! Mega EX (my fav) is already starting to show signs of a comback!

The crazy part isn’t that Night costs $126 more. It’s that the Umbreon tax is only 31%. Across matched Espeon/Umbreon products, Umbreon has historically commanded a 1.5x–4.7x premium. At $531 vs $405, this is the cheapest Umbreon premium in our data. By historical standards, Night actually looks cheap.

Everyone is talking about Delta Reign today. But the Rayquaza trade started months ago. When rumors of a Rayquaza-led set picked up in April, several PSA 10 Rayquazas ripped relative to the broader Pokémon market. Most of that first wave has cooled, but Mega Rayquaza EX #98 is already waking back up, now +11% vs. the market. And with artwork like this officially out in the wild, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rayquaza gets another leg up. The first surge may not have been the last.

Not a bad investment either! Data shows that the Rowlet market is BOOMING

Nice - comparing the PSA 6 1st edition trio, its a interesting race! Of course the Zard is in the lead, but cooling off lately. Venusaur might take the lead?

Going by order of appearance is clean. Going by PSA price action gets wild. Over the last 10 months, all three Pokemon starter regions went triple digits, but on different clocks: Johto first, Galar next, then Unova flipped from flat to +150% and took the lead.

The Pokémon market is up. Vintage is leaving it in the dust. Since Feb 2025, after stripping out the market’s overall move: • Triumphant: +210% • Undaunted: +106% • Expedition: +74% • Skyridge: +51% This isn’t a hobby-wide pump. Money is rotating into older sets.

context for how big this is: Mew was already one of the hottest names in the hobby before this news. every liquid graded Mew is up between +39% and +460% in the last 12 months, and the secret Dragon Frontiers Mew now trades at $16,500 in PSA 9. a 1 in 20,000 print rate enters as the scarcest modern Mew ever made, into a market that has spent a year repricing the entire lineage upward.

The hottest Pokemon card in the TCG right now is a baby trio from 2019. And the move is cleaner than it looks. Togepi & Cleffa & Igglybuff GX (Cosmic Eclipse), PSA 10: This week: $1,110 to $1,500 (+35%) Volume: 56 sales in 14 days, double any other big mover Since Jan 2025: +745%, miles ahead of its own set The only Pokemon card that beat its percent this week traded 3 times. Thin spikes happen every week. Volume like this is how a card re-rates.

ran the numbers on the stamp itself: same promo, same grade, stamped vs regular. the PC stamp is worth multiples, not percent. N's Zekrom 10x, Paldea Pikachu 9.4x, 151 Snorlax 7.1x in PSA 10. and the multiple fattens as supply ages out, so the newest stamps (Magneton 2x, Mimikyu 3x) are where the scarcity is still cheap. your hold thesis checks out hard.

Modern Pokémon cards are getting crushed by vintage. And it’s more dramatic than it looks. This chart removes the overall Pokémon market trend — so it shows which eras are actually outperforming the market. Over the last year: 2009–2013: +76% 1999–2003: +56% 2004–2008: +51% 2024–2028: -50% Mid-era vintage is absolutely ripping.