{ "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/pokemon-card-market-price-vs-lowest-listing", "slug": "pokemon-card-market-price-vs-lowest-listing", "title": "The Market Price Says $39 and the Cheapest Copy Says $30", "summary": "A card page quotes a market price and a lowest listing, and the two rarely agree. Across 35,026 printings priced on 9 October 2026, counting a card's holo and its reverse holo as separate printings, the gap runs 4.00x under a dollar, 1.27x at $20 to $100 and 1.21x above $100, so no single rule carries between cards. At $20 to $100 the cheapest copy is typically priced on the lightly played rung, meaning light edge wear, at a median 0.97 of that quote, so you're paying for condition rather than finding a bargain. Above $100 it sits above that rung, at a median 1.05. And on 19.8% of the $20 to $100 cards the cheapest listing is more than two per cent above the market price, which means nobody is selling at the quoted number.", "section": "Buyer's Guide", "published": "2026-10-10", "readMinutes": 16, "publisher": "moonstone", "findings": [ { "value": "$7.95", "measures": "median saving on a card quoted $20 to $100", "basis": "market price $38.87, cheapest copy $30.66, n=3,877" }, { "value": "0.97x", "measures": "cheapest copy against the lightly played quote, $20 to $100", "basis": "lightly played means light edge wear, Near Mint a clean copy; median of the 2,085 printings holding both quotes" }, { "value": "19.8%", "measures": "cards quoted $20 to $100 whose cheapest listing is more than 2% above market", "basis": "767 of 3,877; the same measure reads 27.9% on the 1,458 cards above $100" }, { "value": "70.6%", "measures": "sub-dollar cheapest listings priced under every condition quote we hold", "basis": "7,704 of the 10,909 sub-dollar printings that carry a quote" } ], "tables": [ { "title": "The ladder, by market price band (9 October 2026)", "columns": [ "Market price band", "Printings", "Median market price", "Median cheapest copy", "Median middle listing (the midpoint of the asks)", "Market price ÷ cheapest" ], "rows": [ { "Market price band": "Under $1", "Printings": "17,899", "Median market price": "$0.28", "Median cheapest copy": "$0.07", "Median middle listing (the midpoint of the asks)": "$0.29", "Market price ÷ cheapest": "4.00x" }, { "Market price band": "$1 to $5", "Printings": "6,710", "Median market price": "$2.21", "Median cheapest copy": "$1.00", "Median middle listing (the midpoint of the asks)": "$2.25", "Market price ÷ cheapest": "1.98x" }, { "Market price band": "$5 to $20", "Printings": "5,082", "Median market price": "$9.63", "Median cheapest copy": "$6.00", "Median middle listing (the midpoint of the asks)": "$10.62", "Market price ÷ cheapest": "1.49x" }, { "Market price band": "$20 to $100", "Printings": "3,877", "Median market price": "$38.87", "Median cheapest copy": "$30.66", "Median middle listing (the midpoint of the asks)": "$50.00", "Market price ÷ cheapest": "1.27x" }, { "Market price band": "$100 and up", "Printings": "1,458", "Median market price": "$193.29", "Median cheapest copy": "$174.99", "Median middle listing (the midpoint of the asks)": "$275.00", "Market price ÷ cheapest": "1.21x" } ] }, { "title": "Six cards quoted $20 to $100, their cheapest copy, and the rung it sits on (9 October 2026)", "columns": [ "Card", "Market price", "Cheapest copy", "Lightly played quote", "Cheapest ÷ lightly played" ], "rows": [ { "Card": "[Mewtwo GX](/card/sm3.5-76)", "Market price": "$96.51", "Cheapest copy": "$71.41", "Lightly played quote": "$71.41", "Cheapest ÷ lightly played": "1.00x" }, { "Card": "[Umbreon & Darkrai GX](/card/sm11-125)", "Market price": "$96.65", "Cheapest copy": "$76.26", "Lightly played quote": "$77.94", "Cheapest ÷ lightly played": "0.98x" }, { "Card": "[Leafeon VSTAR](/card/swsh12.5gg-GG35)", "Market price": "$87.14", "Cheapest copy": "$79.69", "Lightly played quote": "$80.91", "Cheapest ÷ lightly played": "0.98x" }, { "Card": "[Origin Forme Palkia V](/card/swsh10-167)", "Market price": "$85.29", "Cheapest copy": "$75.52", "Lightly played quote": "$75.52", "Cheapest ÷ lightly played": "1.00x" }, { "Card": "[Pikachu V](/card/swsh4-170)", "Market price": "$44.53", "Cheapest copy": "$35.33", "Lightly played quote": "$37.37", "Cheapest ÷ lightly played": "0.95x" }, { "Card": "[Leafeon VMAX](/card/swsh7-204)", "Market price": "$42.83", "Cheapest copy": "$33.50", "Lightly played quote": "$33.51", "Cheapest ÷ lightly played": "1.00x" } ] }, { "title": "What to do, by the market price on the page", "columns": [ "If the market price is", "The cheapest copy typically costs", "What that usually is", "What to do" ], "rows": [ { "If the market price is": "Under $1", "The cheapest copy typically costs": "25% of market, a median $0.07 against $0.28", "What that usually is": "A bulk listing with no stated condition. 70.6% of them sit under every condition quote on the card.", "What to do": "Ignore the cheapest number. The lowest verified copy is a median 0.639 of market, so buy that for one clean card, or buy the card inside a lot." }, { "If the market price is": "$1 to $5", "The cheapest copy typically costs": "51% of market, a median $1.01 less", "What that usually is": "48.8% sit more than 50% under market, and 67.9% below the moderately played quote.", "What to do": "Read the condition line first. A median $1.01 saved here buys a copy the marketplace would quote as played." }, { "If the market price is": "$5 to $20", "The cheapest copy typically costs": "67% of market, a median $2.92 less", "What that usually is": "A played copy about a third of the time, within 30% of market on another third.", "What to do": "Worth two minutes on the listing. 34.3% of cheapest copies sit below the moderately played quote, so check the photo." }, { "If the market price is": "$20 to $100", "The cheapest copy typically costs": "79% of market, a median $7.95 less", "What that usually is": "A lightly played copy at the lightly played rate. 45.8% land within a tenth of that quote and 71.2% within a fifth.", "What to do": "Pay the cheapest price for a card you'll keep or play. Pay the market price when you want Near Mint, because that's the condition it quotes." }, { "If the market price is": "$100 and up", "The cheapest copy typically costs": "83% of market, a median $32.63 less", "What that usually is": "29.4% have no copy listed at or under the market price, and 5.3% have one price in the whole book.", "What to do": "Check that a copy exists at your number before treating the market price as a budget. Where the cheapest listing is above market, an alert beats an offer." } ] } ], "charts": [ { "title": "What the cheapest copy costs, as a share of the market price", "unit": "%", "note": "Median across printings, cut on the band the market price falls in. Feed for 9 October 2026. Scale pinned to 100%.", "points": [ { "label": "Under $1", "value": 25, "basis": "n=17,899 · market $0.28, cheapest $0.07" }, { "label": "$1 to $5", "value": 50.5, "basis": "n=6,710 · market $2.21, cheapest $1.00" }, { "label": "$5 to $20", "value": 67, "basis": "n=5,082 · market $9.63, cheapest $6.00" }, { "label": "$20 to $100", "value": 78.8, "basis": "n=3,877 · market $38.87, cheapest $30.66" }, { "label": "$100 and up", "value": 83, "basis": "n=1,458 · market $193.29, cheapest $174.99" } ] }, { "title": "Where the cheapest copy sits, for the 3,877 printings quoted $20 to $100", "unit": "%", "note": "Share of printings, cheapest listing against market price, 9 October 2026. The five bins partition the band and sum to 100%.", "points": [ { "label": "More than half off", "value": 13.1, "basis": "509 printings" }, { "label": "30% to 50% off", "value": 24, "basis": "930 printings" }, { "label": "10% to 30% off", "value": 30.7, "basis": "1,189 printings" }, { "label": "Within a tenth under, up to 2% over", "value": 12.4, "basis": "482 printings · 440 under market, 42 just over" }, { "label": "More than 2% above market", "value": 19.8, "basis": "767 printings" } ] }, { "title": "The lowest verified copy, as a share of the market price", "unit": "%", "note": "Median of the lowest TCGplayer Direct price divided by the market price, on printings holding both. 9 October 2026. Green is below the market price, orange above it.", "points": [ { "label": "Under $1", "value": 63.9, "basis": "n=9,548 · dearer than market on 13.0%" }, { "label": "$1 to $5", "value": 122.9, "basis": "n=2,859 · dearer on 75.2%" }, { "label": "$5 to $20", "value": 115.1, "basis": "n=2,189 · dearer on 73.6%" }, { "label": "$20 to $100", "value": 119.6, "basis": "n=1,373 · dearer on 74.3%" }, { "label": "$100 and up", "value": 123.2, "basis": "n=387 · dearer on 72.4%" } ] } ], "sections": [ "A $39 card with a $30 copy is the ordinary case", "At these prices the market price is already a Near Mint quote", "Sometimes nobody is selling at the quoted price", "Under a dollar the cheapest listing is a box being cleared", "Paying for a checked copy is cheap only where the cards are cheap", "Waiting a day doesn't change the answer" ], "method": [ "Cross-section: the TCGplayer price feed for day 20735 (9 October 2026), 45,432 rows, joined on TCGplayer product id to English catalog cards and keeping printings where low, middle, high and market are all above zero. That leaves 35,026 printings over 21,358 products, and the cards behind them carry 208 distinct English set names. 232 of those products are claimed by more than one English catalog row, which affects the set-name count and nothing else, since products and printings are counted on the feed's own ids. Bands are cut on the market price, and every ratio is computed per printing before the median is taken, so one expensive listing cannot set a band's answer. Condition quotes are our stored per-printing readings for Near Mint, lightly played, moderately played, heavily played and damaged from the same marketplace, written by a separate provider sweep and matched here on product id and printing name. That table is a live snapshot keyed on product and condition rather than a dated tape, so it carries a read time: it was read for this piece on 10 October 2026, with its most recent write at 06:10 UTC that morning. 21,320 of the 35,026 printings carry at least one quote, and every comparison states its matched n. Those quotes carry their own observation dates: of the 2,085 lightly played quotes used in the $20 to $100 comparison, 95.6% were seen on 8 or 9 October 2026, 1.7% predate 2 October, and the oldest is 19 January 2026, so a handful of rungs are older than the feed they are compared with. Verified prices are the lowest TCGplayer Direct price in the same feed, present on 16,356 printings over 12,897 products, so Direct figures are medians and shares on that subset. Persistence: all feed rows at a $20 or higher market price across days 20719 to 20735 (23 September to 9 October 2026), 140,506 rows, restricted to the English printings that held both a market price and a cheapest listing on all seventeen days. That leaves 5,159 printings and 82,544 day-to-day steps, every one of them at $20 or more on every day in the window. The seventeen-day chart is a second and wider population: all feed rows at $5 or higher over the same days, 250,359 rows, with each printing assigned to the band its market price fell in on 9 October and then tracked backwards, keeping only printings present on all seventeen days: 4,890 at $5 to $20, 3,868 at $20 to $100 and 1,438 above $100. The feed does not state the condition of the cheapest listing, so the rung a cheapest copy sits on is an inference from the quotes for that printing. One day for the cross-section and seventeen for the persistence window: this is a census of a listing book, not a trend, and no claim here says any of these gaps is widening or narrowing. The earlier reading in [Five Cards in Six Trade on a Single Listing](/articles/five-cards-in-six-have-only-one-price) used our daily tape's cheapest-printing column, which equals the quoted price by construction on cards sold in a single printing; day 20717 of that tape, 21 September 2026, reproduces its 83.5% (43,654 of 52,282 lines), and matching those lines to the 9 October feed's printing count per product, counting every printing the feed holds for a product whether priced or not, the agreement runs 98.3% on the 14,964 single-printing products against 39.8% on the 13,916 multi-printing ones, so the 83.5% is a printing fact and is superseded here for anything about listings. Condition rungs across the whole catalog are measured in [The Condition Tax](/articles/the-condition-tax) and [Pokemon Card Condition Price Guide](/articles/pokemon-card-condition-price-guide). Nothing here is investment advice." ], "terms": "Figures are moonstone's own recorded measurements, dated as published. Quote them with the population stated beside them. The article at `url` is the human form of this file." }