{
  "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/the-gem-rate-curve",
  "slug": "the-gem-rate-curve",
  "title": "The Gem Rate Curve: 15.7 Million PSA Submissions, and the Era Nobody Expects to Be Hardest",
  "summary": "We now hold PSA registry counts for 8,590 English cards carrying at least 50 submissions each, covering 15,708,231 graded submissions and 5,904,682 PSA 10s. Across that subset the gem rate is 37.6 percent. The era that grades worst is not Base Set. It is Diamond and Pearl, at a median of 3.8 percent, more than five times harder than the 1999 cardboard everyone assumes is the difficult one.",
  "section": "Quant research",
  "published": "2026-09-07",
  "readMinutes": 9,
  "publisher": "moonstone",
  "findings": [
    {
      "value": "15,708,231",
      "measures": "PSA submissions in the dataset",
      "basis": "8,590 English cards, 50+ subs each"
    },
    {
      "value": "37.6%",
      "measures": "overall gem rate",
      "basis": "5,904,682 PSA 10s"
    },
    {
      "value": "3.8%",
      "measures": "median gem rate, Diamond and Pearl",
      "basis": "the hardest era measured"
    },
    {
      "value": "58.8%",
      "measures": "median gem rate, Mega era",
      "basis": "15x easier than Diamond and Pearl"
    }
  ],
  "tables": [
    {
      "title": "Median gem rate by era (cards with 50 or more PSA submissions)",
      "columns": [
        "Era",
        "Cards",
        "Median gem rate",
        "10th pct",
        "90th pct"
      ],
      "rows": [
        {
          "Era": "Mega (2026 to date)",
          "Cards": "437",
          "Median gem rate": "58.8%",
          "10th pct": "13.7%",
          "90th pct": "71.2%"
        },
        {
          "Era": "[Sword and Shield](/set/darkness%20ablaze) (2020-2022)",
          "Cards": "1,625",
          "Median gem rate": "51.8%",
          "10th pct": "26.4%",
          "90th pct": "69.9%"
        },
        {
          "Era": "Sun and Moon (2017-2019)",
          "Cards": "1,073",
          "Median gem rate": "39.9%",
          "10th pct": "12.3%",
          "90th pct": "59.3%"
        },
        {
          "Era": "[Scarlet and Violet](/set/151) (2023 to date)",
          "Cards": "1,449",
          "Median gem rate": "36.3%",
          "10th pct": "18.5%",
          "90th pct": "54.8%"
        },
        {
          "Era": "[WOTC](/set/base%20set) (1999-2003)",
          "Cards": "1,632",
          "Median gem rate": "20.7%",
          "10th pct": "2.2%",
          "90th pct": "40.8%"
        },
        {
          "Era": "XY (2014-2016)",
          "Cards": "508",
          "Median gem rate": "12.8%",
          "10th pct": "1.8%",
          "90th pct": "34.5%"
        },
        {
          "Era": "EX (2003-2007)",
          "Cards": "828",
          "Median gem rate": "9.8%",
          "10th pct": "3.3%",
          "90th pct": "27.7%"
        },
        {
          "Era": "Black and White (2011-2013)",
          "Cards": "304",
          "Median gem rate": "6.4%",
          "10th pct": "1.9%",
          "90th pct": "17.2%"
        },
        {
          "Era": "HeartGold SoulSilver (2010-2011)",
          "Cards": "135",
          "Median gem rate": "4.6%",
          "10th pct": "1.3%",
          "90th pct": "14.3%"
        },
        {
          "Era": "Diamond and Pearl (2007-2011)",
          "Cards": "341",
          "Median gem rate": "3.8%",
          "10th pct": "1.4%",
          "90th pct": "10.1%"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "title": "The eleven hardest to gem, 1,000 or more submissions",
      "columns": [
        "Card",
        "Set",
        "Gem rate",
        "Submissions"
      ],
      "rows": [
        {
          "Card": "[Rayquaza C](/card/dpp-DP47)",
          "Set": "DP Black Star Promos",
          "Gem rate": "0.1%",
          "Submissions": "1,300"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Typhlosion](/card/neo1-17)",
          "Set": "[Neo Genesis](/set/neo%20genesis)",
          "Gem rate": "0.1%",
          "Submissions": "4,218"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Blissey](/card/neo3-2)",
          "Set": "[Neo Revelation](/set/neo%20revelation)",
          "Gem rate": "0.1%",
          "Submissions": "1,033"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Lugia](/card/neo1-9)",
          "Set": "[Neo Genesis](/set/neo%20genesis)",
          "Gem rate": "0.1%",
          "Submissions": "12,258"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Latios](/card/xyp-XY79)",
          "Set": "XY Black Star Promos",
          "Gem rate": "0.1%",
          "Submissions": "1,369"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Venusaur](/card/basep-13)",
          "Set": "Wizards Black Star Promos",
          "Gem rate": "0.2%",
          "Submissions": "5,429"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Ampharos](/card/neo3-1)",
          "Set": "[Neo Revelation](/set/neo%20revelation)",
          "Gem rate": "0.2%",
          "Submissions": "1,135"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Team Aqua's Kyogre EX](/card/dc1-6)",
          "Set": "Double Crisis",
          "Gem rate": "0.2%",
          "Submissions": "5,846"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Rayquaza](/card/xyp-XY64)",
          "Set": "XY Black Star Promos",
          "Gem rate": "0.2%",
          "Submissions": "1,006"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Latias](/card/xyp-XY78)",
          "Set": "XY Black Star Promos",
          "Gem rate": "0.2%",
          "Submissions": "1,438"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Vaporeon](/card/base2-12)",
          "Set": "[Jungle](/set/jungle)",
          "Gem rate": "0.2%",
          "Submissions": "16,445"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "title": "The four easiest to gem, 1,000 or more submissions",
      "columns": [
        "Card",
        "Set",
        "Gem rate",
        "Submissions"
      ],
      "rows": [
        {
          "Card": "[Lapras VMAX](/card/swsh1-203)",
          "Set": "Sword and Shield",
          "Gem rate": "86.3%",
          "Submissions": "1,776"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Eternatus VMAX](/card/swsh3-192)",
          "Set": "[Darkness Ablaze](/set/darkness%20ablaze)",
          "Gem rate": "85.0%",
          "Submissions": "2,053"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Charmander](/card/mep-038)",
          "Set": "MEP Black Star Promos",
          "Gem rate": "84.1%",
          "Submissions": "19,036"
        },
        {
          "Card": "[Charmander](/card/fpp-231451)",
          "Set": "First Partner Pack",
          "Gem rate": "84.0%",
          "Submissions": "21,779"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "charts": [
    {
      "title": "Median gem rate by era",
      "unit": "%",
      "note": "The trough is in the middle of the timeline, not at the old end",
      "points": [
        {
          "label": "Mega",
          "value": 58.8,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "SWSH",
          "value": 51.8,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Sun & Moon",
          "value": 39.9,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Scarlet & Violet",
          "value": 36.3,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "WOTC",
          "value": 20.7,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "XY",
          "value": 12.8,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "EX",
          "value": 9.8,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Black & White",
          "value": 6.4,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "HGSS",
          "value": 4.6,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Diamond & Pearl",
          "value": 3.8,
          "basis": null
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sections": [
    "Age does not predict gem rate. Print technology does.",
    "Two effects pointing in opposite directions",
    "The cards where the registry is nearly empty at the top",
    "The threshold we had to throw away"
  ],
  "method": [
    "PSA registry counts read from our population tracker, one row per card per day, latest row per card as of 2026-09-08. Universe is English cards with at least 50 recorded PSA submissions, which is 8,590 cards and 15,708,231 submissions. Gem rate is PSA 10 count divided by total population, computed by us from the per-grade counts rather than read from the provider's own rate field, which arrives in mixed units. Rows whose PSA 10 count is absent rather than zero are excluded: an absent count was previously stored as zero and would have manufactured a 0.0 percent gem rate on cards that simply had no breakdown published. These figures are a SUBSET of everything we track, and the difference is deliberate: the Grading Desk reports the full tracked universe of 13,900 cards and 16,226,272 submissions, while this study restricts to the 8,590 cards that carry at least 50 submissions and a gem rate their row can actually support. Rates are only meaningful on that subset, so the two pages report different totals on purpose. Era is assigned from set identity. Cards with fewer than 30 measured examples in an era are not shown in the era table, and neither is the residual bucket of cards whose set identity maps to no named era, which is not an era and is not reported as one. The registry refreshes through the day, so the headline counts are the state of the table at the moment of the pull rather than a figure a later reader can reproduce exactly; the era medians, which are what the study argues from, are stable to a tenth of a point across the whole of that day. The threshold figures in the last section are recomputed on the complete September 8 reading, which is why their universe is larger than the headline count."
  ],
  "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."
}