Welcome to Staten News, where the same card can be the week's best trade and its worst one, depending on whether it's sitting in plastic.
On October 4, a PSA 10 Lugia from the 30th Celebration Classic Collection sold for $3,850. On Sunday, three of them sold between $1,575 and $1,650.
Same card. Same grade. Two weeks apart.
📈 Last week's gainer: Lugia 149/147, raw
The ungraded Lugia 149/147 (30th Celebration, Classic Collection holo) is sitting at $257.34 on PriceCharting, up $38.57 on the week. The sold list tells a cleaner story. The median sale ran about $196 from October 8 to 11, then climbed to $250 across 31 sales from October 12 to 18. Call it roughly 27%, with the caveat that the earlier sample was only four sales.
Since Friday, eBay copies have traded mostly between $200 and $400.
TCGplayer hasn't caught up. Its market price on Sunday was $193.36, with a mid price of $237.48. Read that gap again, because it matters for this week's call.
📉 Last week's loser: the same Lugia, in a PSA 10 slab
PriceCharting now has the PSA 10 at $2,025, down $874.99. Sales went $3,850 on October 4, $1,900 on October 13, then the three Sunday sales at $1,575 to $1,650. That's about 17% down inside the week and 59% off the high.
The volume explains it. There were zero PSA 10 sales from October 5 to 11. There were 13 from October 12 to 19.
Translation: the first wave of graded copies came back from PSA, and the people who paid for the grading all wanted out at once.
That's not the card losing value. That's the grading premium getting repriced the moment supply showed up. The raw card and the slab are converging, and both sides of the trade moved toward each other in the same week.
PSA's own backlog is part of this. CardGrade's read of the PSA tracker had it at 8.2 million cards on October 6, down from about 9 million in late September and 12.4 million in late July. Value tiers are still paused, and Standard runs $59.99 with an estimated 90 to 100 business days. The pipe is draining. More slabs are coming.
🧹 The mover we threw out
A couple of aggregator "top movers" lists had Typhlosion 17/115 from Unseen Forces up roughly 440% to $540 last week. PriceCharting has the holo at $76.50 raw and shows no October sale above $130. That's a data glitch, not a market move, and it's a good reminder to check sold listings before trusting a percentage.
🐉 Delta Reign is cooling off before it even arrives
Pokémon has confirmed Mega Evolution: Delta Reign for November 6. It has 135+ cards, more than 35 special illustration Pokémon and Trainer cards, and Mega Rayquaza ex, Mega Golurk ex, Mega Malamar ex and Mega Golisopod ex on the box.
Presale prices on TCGplayer have been sliding since the end of September:
Pokémon Center ETB: $569.93 on Sept. 30, $421.23 on Oct. 18 (down 26%, MSRP $59.99)
Elite Trainer Box: $133.50 to $115.74 (down 13%, MSRP $49.99)
Booster Bundle: $79.74 to $70.55 (down 12%, MSRP $26.94)
Booster Box: $261.13 to $240.85 (down 8%)
The booster box is still trading around 50% over its roughly $160 MSRP. The premium hasn't vanished. It's just stopped growing.
📅 November 6 is crowded
Delta Reign doesn't land alone. The same day brings a wave of 30th Celebration premium product, and the presale spreads are wild:
Ultra-Premium Collection (Night): $179.99 MSRP, $617.40 on TCGplayer
Ultra-Premium Collection (Day): $179.99 MSRP, $561.50
Ditto Premium Collection: $39.99 MSRP, $192.30
Mewtwo Figure Collection: $29.99 MSRP, $166.41
Mew Figure Collection: $29.99 MSRP, $148.83
Before that, the Umbreon ex and Espeon ex Battle Decks drop October 30 at $19.99. They're already listed at $61.88 and $43.19.
Collectors have a fixed amount of money for November. Six big products on one day means something gets less of it.
🔮 This week's calls
Predicted to rise: Lugia 149/147, raw. TCGplayer's market price ($193) sits below its own mid price ($237) and well below what eBay buyers paid last week. As the market price catches up to actual sales, the quoted number should drift toward $230 or higher even if demand only holds steady. The risk is the slab: if PSA 10s keep sliding toward $1,500, some buyers will skip raw and grab the graded copy instead.
Predicted to fall: Delta Reign Pokémon Center ETB. It has already dropped 26% in under three weeks, and the November 6 calendar is splitting collector budgets six ways. NerdSnack tracked Pitch Black presale prices falling 32% to 80% within ten weeks of release. We're not calling a crash. Another 5% to 10% off by next Monday wouldn't surprise us.
And the wildcard: Goldin's 30th Anniversary auction runs through October 25, led by a PSA 8 1997 Japanese Gold First Place Trophy Pikachu with pre-bids already over $1 million. Big headline numbers tend to pull attention back to vintage right when modern sealed is wobbling.
This is the week the hobby finds out whether the 30th anniversary premium survives contact with real supply. Lugia slabs already gave one answer.
Sources: Pokémon TCG: Delta Reign, PriceCharting Lugia 149, TCGCSV TCGplayer prices, NerdSnack presale tracker
This is not financial advice. Always do your own research before buying or selling collectibles.
— The Bandicoots 🃏🐉