moonstone Research

Research

112 notes · every number from live market data, every product linked to its page.

We Remeasured First Edition With Four Times the Data. The Premium Held. The Fine Print Did Not.

Three days ago we published a 1st Edition premium of 2.63x from 195 same-day pairs. After filling in printing rows for 1,342 vintage cards, the census is 838 pairs, and the median is 2.59x. But the bigger sample overturns the old footnote: the premium DOES compress with price, falling to 1.81x above $100, and seven of the eighteen inversions sit in one set.

We Remeasured First Edition With Four Times the Data. The Premium Held. The Fine Print Did Not.

The Reverse Holo Beats the Holo on Penny Cards and Loses Where the Money Is

The $0.69 Dark Ampharos and the $899.99 Zapdos: Two Lies on One Shelf

Launch, Mania, Markdown: the Mega Era on Our Own Tape

The Big Hit Went From One Per Box to One Every Third Box

Pulling the Chase Costs 6x to 86x More Than Buying It

The Gem Rate Curve: 15.9 Million PSA Submissions, and the Era Nobody Expects to Be Hardest

We Were Wrong About Momentum. Here Is the Bigger Sample That Says So.

We Were Wrong About Momentum. Here Is the Bigger Sample That Says So.

The Trainer Box That Costs More Than Its Booster Box

We Audited Our Own Pick Engine and It Was Failing. Here Is the Fix.

Does Momentum Work in Pokémon Cards? 28,288 Observations Say Yes, With a Catch

The Same Pack Costs 40% More If You Buy Six of Them

In 41 of 48 Sets, the Best Card Costs Less Than the Box You Would Open to Find It

Japanese Registries Are Twice as Deep, Their Slabs Trade a Third as Often, and the Gem Premium Is Flatter

Twelve Percent of the Sold Record Is Thrown Away, and the Worst of It Is Where the Cheap Slabs Live

The Set Inside the Set: a 70-Card Annex Holding 90% of the Release's Value

First Edition Is Worth 2.63x, and One English Card in Twelve Is Published at the Wrong Printing

The Reverse Holo Is Worth Double the Card It Copies, and 11x in the WotC Era

Painter or Pokemon: the Artist Predicts 14% of a Card's Rank, the Creature Predicts 40%

TAG Now Out-Trades Beckett, Its 10 Prices at PSA Parity, and a BGS 10 Beats Both

The Basement of the Registry: at PSA 7, the Slab Stops Being Worth More Than the Card

The Frozen Tape: 38% of Card Prices Are Last Week's Price

Nothing Moves Together: A Year of Weekly Prices Finds No Pokémon Market Factor

The Fee Is a Fixed Cost: A PSA 9 Pays the Grading Bill on One Card in Three

The Same Card, the Same Grade, Four Times the Price

The 10,872 Cards That Look Like Other Cards

Japan Prices the Same Cards on a Flatter Ladder

What Completing a Set Actually Costs, and Why It Is Two Purchases

260,000 Simulated Boxes: Not One Set Pays for Its Own Box

Ninety Percent of Decks, Twenty-Six Cents: The Game and the Market Are Different Economies

The Casting Premium: A Charizard's Advantage Is Decided Before the Card Is Printed

The Book at Thirty Days: Every Position We Own, Marked, Including the Pair We Had to Suspend

The Gate Is the Market: 316 Desk Notes and a 62-Call Machine Converge on One Number

Seven Signals, One Vote: We Audited Our Own Rating Engine and It Is a One-Factor Model

The Half Point: A BGS 9.5 Is Worth More Than a CGC 10, and the Tape Now Proves It

The Multiple Ladder: A Gem Premium Is Mostly a Statement About the Price Tag

Ninety Days to Our Own Grave or Trophy: 466 Dated Calls Are Now on the Books

Seven Cards We Refused to Rate

The First Negative Stamp: The Card You Lose Money Grading Even When It Works

The Ask Is Lying to You: What Raw Listing Prices Get Wrong by Construction

The Eight-to-One Stamp: What a CGC 10 Is Actually Worth in PSA Terms

The Thirtieth Anniversary Slate: What the 25th Already Priced In

Bulk's Hidden Floor: A Quarter Century Later, the Worst WotC Cards Are Worth 33x the Worst Modern Ones

The Gem Rate Drift: PSA Is Getting Stricter, and We Can Prove It Card by Card

The Registry Is Closed: Dark Charizard and What Happens When Demand Meets a Finished Population

The $7,500 Card That Trades Four Times a Year: Crystal Kingdra and the Illusion of the Trophy Price

PSA Changed Its Mind About the Felt Hat: The Van Gogh Pikachu's Gem Rate Fell by Half

Anatomy of a Mania, Recorded Live: Mega Charizard X ex Is the Fastest Tape We Have Ever Tracked

The Umbreon Standard: One Card, Six Datasets, and Everything the Modern Market Believes

Same Picture, Ten Times the Price: A Buyer's Guide to the Twins Our Scanner Untangles

Everyone Grades the Freebies: MEP Black Star Promos and the Deepest Registries in the Game

The Handout Grails: Wizards Black Star Promos and the Cards Nobody Paid For

Prismatic Evolutions vs Its Own Arithmetic: The Most Hyped Set of the Era Is Losing to Its Registry

151 Proved the 90-Day Rule Twice: The Set That Crashed, Doubled, and Got Harder to Gem

The Set That Ate the Modern Market: Evolving Skies, Five Years On

The Autopsy: Every Weekly Buys Pick That Went Wrong

The Same Card, Two Oceans Apart: JP vs EN Pricing

The Twin Problem: The Cards That Fool Every Scanner

The Lottery Ticket Index: Where a $4.73 Pack Chases a $288 Card

Print-Run Archaeology: What Registry Depth Says About How Much Was Actually Printed

The Grading Throughput Index: 44,000 New Slabs a Week, and Half of Them Are Tens

The Liquidity Ledger: The Market's Hottest Slabs Trade 40 Times a Week. Its Trophies Trade Four Times a Year.

Buy This, Not That: Grail Cards and Their High-Growth Understudies

Reading a Display Case: A Field Guide to Shop Prices

We Grade Our Own Homework: Inside the Weekly Buys Ledger

What 56,000 Cards Say About How Sets Hold Value

The Sealed Freeze of 2026: 651 Products, Six Gainers

How Many Sales Is a Price? A Census of Our Own Numbers

Which Market Price? The Same Card Has Three Honest Numbers

Sellers Say, Pixels Decide: What 1,350 Listings Taught Us

The $479 Lie: How Mixed Printings Corrupt Vintage Prices

What the Scanner Sees: How We Taught a Camera to Outvote the Seller

The Condition Tax: LP Costs You a Quarter, Damaged Costs You Two-Thirds

Does Pokémon Have a Season? Eighteen Months of Index Tape Says: Not Yet

The First 90 Days: Every Modern Set's Launch Buyers Paid the Top

Where the Money Sleeps: 1% of Cards Hold 45% of the Market's Value

Grading ROI, Computed Honestly: The Registry Already Ran Your Experiment

The PSA 9 Discount Curve: Vintage 9s Cost 18 Cents on the Dollar, Modern 9s Cost 38

The Population Growth Tax: Watching the Registry Eat the Premium in Real Time