Every 90s kid can recite the roster: Pikachu on the shoulder, Butterfree released to the wild, Pidgeotto forever mid-evolution, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and the lizard that stopped listening. All six had cards in the 1999 Base Set and Jungle print runs. So here's the thought experiment your inner ten-year-old deserves: had you assembled Ash's original team in PSA 10 back when graded Pokémon was a punchline — how would that binder page have performed against the two most respectable things your parents could have bought instead, the S&P 500 and gold?
Six childhood memories, priced as assets
The team's value today is violently top-heavy. Charizard is the engine: $12,863 for an unlimited Base Set PSA 10 on fifteen recent sales. The shock is Butterfree — a card nobody chased in 1999 — whose Jungle PSA 10 median sits at $20,150 on four thin sales, because almost nobody bothered grading a common well enough to gem it. The remaining four — the actual STARTERS of the franchise — combine for barely $2,200. Pidgeotto, the most loyal bird in animation history, is worth less in a gem slab than a modern booster case.
Ash's team, PSA 10 medians (July 2026)
| Team member | Card | PSA 10 | Sales n | PSA 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charizard | Base Set 4/102 | $12,863 | 15 | excluded — comp-mixed |
| Butterfree | Jungle 12/64 | $20,150 | 4 (thin) | $311 |
| Pikachu | Base Set 58/102 | $999 | 10 | $83 |
| Squirtle | Base Set 63/102 | $570 | 3 (thin) | $105 |
| Pidgeotto | Base Set 22/102 | $325 | 2 (thin) | $43 |
| Bulbasaur | Base Set 44/102 | $303 | 2 (thin) | $120 |
The team — every card links to live pricing
Charizard vs. the S&P vs. gold
The clean comparison uses the flagship, because it's the one card with a documented early market. By contemporaneous auction reporting, a PSA 10 unlimited Base Set Charizard could be had for roughly $2,000–$5,000 in the mid-2010s, when graded Pokémon was still a niche. Against today's $12,863 median, a decade's hold works out to roughly 10% a year if you paid the top of that range — and roughly 20% a year if you caught the bottom. The same decade in the S&P 500 returned approximately 13% annually with dividends reinvested, and gold roughly 11%. Buy the dip of the range and the lizard beat both handily; pay the top and it merely kept pace with the greatest equity bull market of the modern era — while being a picture of a dragon.
Approximate annualized returns, mid-2010s → 2026
PSA 10/9 figures are current median recorded eBay sale prices from Moonstone graded market data as of July 27, 2026, with sample sizes shown — Butterfree (n=4), Squirtle (n=3), Pidgeotto and Bulbasaur (n=2) are thin samples and should be read as indicative; Charizard's PSA 9 median is excluded as comp-mixed (shadowless/1st Edition listings polluting the unlimited window). The mid-2010s Charizard entry range ($2,000–$5,000) reflects widely reported contemporaneous auction results, not our own records, and is presented as a range for that reason. Benchmark returns (S&P 500 total return ≈13%/yr, gold ≈11%/yr over the same approximate window) are rounded public figures. 'The team' uses each member's 1999-print Base Set/Jungle card in unlimited printing. Nothing here is financial advice — Pidgeotto never forgave Ash either.