Base Set Ninetales pop report: the census was screened first

Published November 2, 2026 · Pop figures refresh with every site build; the current pull is October 23, 2026

Five Base Set holos have taken more submissions than this Ninetales. All five arrive at PSA in worse condition, and they arrive in worse condition in the exact order of how many submissions they have taken.

Ninetales 12/102 from the 1999 unlimited print run has returned 479 Gem Mint 10s from 21,513 grades, a 2.2 percent gem rate and the fourth best of the fifteen Base Set holos in that print. It did not come off a kinder sheet than the Charizard. It came off the same sheet.

The Base Set Ninetales pop report, and the five censuses above it

21,513 graded, 479 tens, 4,205 nines, 5,322 eights, and 11,498 copies finishing at PSA 7 or lower, which is 53.45 percent of everything ever mailed in. PSA added 244 grades last period on a +10% thirty day trend.

Pool all fifteen unlimited holos and the set returns 1.394 percent across 439,148 grades, so this row sits well clear of the line its own set draws. Only Poliwrath at 3.648 percent, Zapdos at 3.504 and Nidoking at 2.306 finish ahead of it. The unlimited Charizard, carrying five times the census, returns 0.453. If a ratio like that needs unpacking first, start with how a population report is assembled.

Fifteen holos, one sheet, fifteen different denominators

Every one of those cards was cut from the same Wizards of the Coast sheets, sealed into the same wrappers and opened by the same children in the same year. Production separates them by nothing. The grade ladders separate them anyway, and not at the top. At the bottom.

Rank the fifteen by census size and the six largest fall into the same order on the share of submissions finishing below a 7: Charizard at 58.82 percent of 106,004 ladder grades, Blastoise 51.26 of 52,578, Venusaur 48.99 of 47,434, Mewtwo 41.79 of 31,842, Gyarados 37.19 of 25,587, Ninetales 35.59 of 21,358. Six for six, largest census to smallest, worst arrival to best. Alakazam breaks the run at 36.56 percent on 20,681, and across all fifteen the two rankings still match at 0.82 against a perfect 1.

So why would a larger census arrive in worse shape if the cards are identical?

Because a population report is not a sample of surviving cards. It is a sample of decisions. A creased Charizard earns its fee back in a PSA 5, so it gets mailed and lands in the denominator. A creased Ninetales comes back worth about thirty dollars against a sixty dollar fee, so its owner looks at it once and leaves it in the binder. The Blastoise post named this mechanism and hedged it honestly, calling it the likeliest reading while admitting it came off the census shape rather than a measurement. It can be measured.

What happens when the cheap card stops being cheap

The 1st Edition print removes the filter. PriceCharting put a raw 1st Edition copy of this Ninetales at $430.00 on November 2, 2026 against $16.32 for an unlimited one, and at four hundred dollars nobody leaves a worn copy in a binder. So if the unlimited ordering is a screening artifact, the screening should vanish on the stamped print.

Twelve of the fifteen say it does. Inside the same snapshot, every holo except the three starters arrives worse as a 1st Edition copy than as an unlimited one, by between 2.53 and 10.80 points on the share below a 7. This Ninetales moves from 35.59 to 39.64 percent, Alakazam from 36.56 to 47.21, Zapdos from 32.36 to 43.16. The exceptions are Charizard, Blastoise and Venusaur, each shifting less than 1.2 points either way, and those are precisely the three whose unlimited censuses were never screened to begin with. They had nothing left to lose.

The shape changes with it. Crossing to the stamped print, the 7 and 8 band shrinks on fifteen cards out of fifteen while the 9 and 10 band grows on fourteen, so that census is not cleaner. It is hollowed out in the middle and fatter at both ends, which is what happens when the junk stops being filtered out and the top copies really were better kept.

Gem rate gains then sort by price. Charizard gains 4.66 times across that step, Blastoise 3.37, Venusaur 3.01, against a median of 1.57 for the other twelve. Ninetales gains 1.28, second smallest of the fifteen, landing at 2.856 percent on 2,381 grades. Its unlimited census already grades close to a 1st Edition one because it was already built the same way.

The 2000 reprint, and two rows only this card has

Wizards pressed Sugimori's fox again in 2000 and the number barely moves. Base Set 2 at 13/130 reads 2.396 percent on 3,590 grades, and 86 tens carries a standard error of about a quarter of a point, so that is level rather than better. Level is the unusual part: the 2000 reprint drops fourteen of the fifteen holos it shares with 1999, at a median of 0.63 times the original rate, and this is the card it leaves alone.

GemRate carries two more rows nobody else in the set has. The shadowless printing that left Fire Blast without its 80 damage, which Bulbapedia records as an error on a small number of copies, has 176 grades and no 10. The Black Flame printing, recognized by CGC on February 9, 2021 after a collector submitted both versions together, swaps the blue flames for black and sits behind a heavier shadow. CGC reads it as an early unlimited run, the same claim the Jungle no symbol holos settled, and Base Set cannot settle it on 221 grades and 4 tens.

One holo in every Brushfire deck, from January 1999

Illus. Ken Sugimori, 12/102, a 1999 Wizards copyright line. Stage 1 from Vulpix, 80 HP, Water weakness. Fire Blast does 80 and discards a Fire Energy to do it, and the flavor box warns that grabbing one of this Fox Pokemon's many tails could result in a thousand year curse.

English Base Set reached shelves on January 9, 1999 alongside four theme decks, each holding exactly one holo. Brushfire was the Fire and Grass deck and the holo inside every copy of it was this Ninetales, above two Vulpix and four Charmander. A deck copy never passed through a booster pack, which ought to show up in the grades. It does not. Zap! carried Mewtwo, Overgrowth carried Gyarados, Blackout carried Hitmonchan, and Hitmonchan gems at 1.204 percent, twelfth of the fifteen. That channel moved supply, not condition.

The eight and the nine do the work, and still need the ten

Filter the completed tape to PSA titled rows, drop the CGC, BGS and TAG results, and the ladder reads $119.00 at the 8 across nineteen sales since October 12, $210.00 at the 9 across thirteen since October 1, and $55.01 at the 7 across nineteen since September 18. The ten climbs inside the year: January and February cleared $725.00 to $999.99, while the eight sales since June 1 median $1,952.63.

PSA Standard ran $59.99 a card on November 2, 2026 at a $1,000 maximum insured value and 70 to 80 business days, Value services paused. Add the $26.47 market copy and a submission costs $86.46 before postage. Take 15 percent off each rung and weight by this card's own ladder and the three rungs that clear are the 10 at $1,659.74, the 9 at $178.50 and the 8 at $101.15. Those three hold 46.85 percent of the census, which is rare on a 1999 holo. The 7 returns $46.76 and the 35.59 percent landing at a 6 or lower returns $28.63, both under the cost of getting there.

Weighted together that is $115.97 against $86.46, an edge of about thirty dollars a card. The catch is in the last line: strike the ten entirely and the same math returns $78.75, eight dollars short. The 8 and the 9 pay for almost all of the trip and not the end of it.

Your copy, and the two grades that matter

The realistic question on an unlimited Ninetales is never the ten. It is whether the copy in front of you is an 8 or a 9, a ninety dollar swing across two rungs holding 44.28 percent of the 21,513 grades on this row. Lay it flat and compare the yellow border width left against right at the top edge before anything else, because centering is what caps a clean Wizards holo at an 8 and it is the one call you can make without guessing how a grader reads foil. The BetterPop gallery holds every Base Set row side by side, and the low population guide covers what a thin top end does to a price.

Sources

• Population figures, grade ladders and thirty day trends: GemRate PSA population tracking, pulled October 23, 2026. The fifteen holo comparison, the 1st Edition ladder shift, the rank correlation and the reprint ratios were computed across the full dataset inside one snapshot on November 2, 2026.
• Card text, illustrator credit, Pokedex line, the English release date, the missing Fire Blast damage error and the Brushfire, Zap!, Overgrowth and Blackout deck lists: Bulbapedia, Ninetales (Base Set 12), Brushfire (TCG), Zap! (TCG), Overgrowth (TCG) and Blackout (TCG), read November 2, 2026.
• The Black Flame printing: CGC, Base Set Ninetales Black Flame Variant, read November 2, 2026.
• Prices and dated sold results: PriceCharting, Ninetales #12 Pokemon Base Set, read November 2, 2026. Graded medians use PSA titled eBay rows only, with CGC, BGS, SGC and TAG results and Base Set 2, shadowless and 1st Edition listings removed.
• Grading fees and service tiers: psacard.com/pricing, read November 2, 2026. Standard $59.99 at a $1,000 maximum insured value and 70 to 80 business days, Value services paused.