The 1st Edition premium is one of the most argued-about numbers in the hobby and one of the least measured, because most published comparisons put a graded 1st Edition against a raw Unlimited, or a sale from one year against a sale from another. We measured it the only way that settles anything: 195 products where the same price feed quotes both printings on the same day at the same venue. The premium is 2.63x, and it does not shrink as the cards get more expensive.
By set, where we hold at least two pairs: Fossil 3.85x on 17 pairs, Neo Discovery 3.58x, Jungle 3.19x, Neo Destiny 2.79x, Neo Revelation 2.75x, Gym Heroes 2.48x on 132 pairs, Neo Genesis 2.24x, Team Rocket 2.19x, Gym Challenge 2.08x.
The audit that came out of the same data
A product's feed row collapses its printings into one market figure, and that figure is the dearest printing. Across 52,104 products holding both a collapsed figure and a canonical printing price, the collapsed one is higher on 1,750. Restricted to the 21,245 English catalog cards, it is higher on 1,720, which is 8.1%, or one English card in twelve. Where they differ, the median overstatement is 1.10x, the 90th percentile 2.00x and the 99th percentile 5.41x. Summed across the catalog it is $474,095.93 against $465,710.78, a 1.8% inflation that is invisible in aggregate and enormous on individual cards.
Rocket's Zapdos ex is the extreme: $899.99 published against a canonical $163.09, a factor of 5.52. Lugia from Neo Genesis is the card the rule was written for, at $1,085.03 for the 1st Edition against $518.99 Unlimited. Dark Blastoise is $455.66 against $202.53. Tyranitar $450 against $147.26. Dragonite $461.75 against $187.74. Erika's Dragonair $407.99 against $117.63.
The widest premium is Hitmontop at 9.32x, $192.45 against $20.65. The only two inversions in the whole sample are Fire Energy at 0.59x and Feraligatr at 0.87x.
Population: per printing rows inside the daily TCGplayer dump, restricted to products holding both a 1st Edition or 1st Edition Holofoil row and an Unlimited or Unlimited Holofoil row with a market price above zero. That is 195 products, 194 matched to catalog cards. Both legs are same product, same day, same venue, so no time alignment or cross venue join is involved, and the only derived quantity is a ratio of two independently recorded printing prices. Set level medians are reported with their n so the Gym Heroes weighting is visible. The publishing audit compares each product's collapsed market figure against the canonical printing price produced by the shared price rule, across 52,104 products and the 21,245 English cards among them. Base Set is absent from the pair census because the product carries a single blended holofoil row rather than separate printings.