Dark Charizard pop report: a census of played copies

Published October 18, 2026 · Pop figures refresh with every site build; the current pull is October 1, 2026

Nearly two in three come back below a PSA 8. That is the unlimited Dark Charizard's problem, and the way Wizards printed the card has very little to do with it. At the October 1, 2026 pull the Dark Charizard pop report reads 176 Gem Mint tens from 19,862 submissions, a 0.89 percent gem rate, with 12,790 copies parked at a 7 or lower.

The same illustration, off the same press, in its 1st Edition printing, returns 555 tens from 12,222 grades. Read on October 18, 2026 that is 4.54 percent, five times the unlimited rate.

Where the submissions actually landed

19,862 graded. 176 tens, 2,423 nines, 4,461 eights, and 12,790 copies finishing at PSA 7 or lower, which is 64.39 percent of the census. PSA added 412 more last period on a thirty day trend of +30%.

The peak of that distribution sits a long way down. The commonest verdict on this card is a PSA 8 at 4,461 copies, then a 7 at 3,760, a 6 at 3,336 and a 5 at 2,475. 685 copies have come back a PSA 1. A card that holds a price in any condition keeps getting mailed in whatever shape it is in, and the bottom of this census is what that looks like after 26 years.

These figures cover the unlimited print only, the one with no Edition 1 stamp beside the Flame Pokemon bar. Dark Charizard also exists as a non holo at 21/82, a separate census of 9,891 grades at 2.46 percent on the same reading, and the 1st Edition holo is a third census again. Crossing them is the fastest way to misread the number, and what a population report actually counts covers why a census tracks submissions rather than surviving cards.

Two explanations that do not survive the data

The obvious suspect is the frame. Team Rocket introduced Dark Pokemon, and Bulbapedia describes the treatment plainly: a brown and black artwork window, evolution box and Pokedex box. A dark printed field shows edge wear that a pale field hides, so a set built on them ought to grade worse than one that is not.

It does not. Pool the eighteen English Team Rocket holos in their unlimited print and they return 1.40 percent across 96,190 grades. Pool the fifteen unlimited Base Set holos, the ones with a pale field inside the same yellow border, and they return 1.41 percent across 434,849. Two sets, two frames, the same answer to the second decimal.

The second suspect is the 1st Edition stamp, and it fails in a different way. All eighteen Team Rocket holo pairs do gem better in 1st Edition. So does every pair in Base Set, Jungle, Fossil, Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge, seventy one pairs between them, without one exception. Something that holds across six consecutive Wizards sets is not telling you anything about this one.

The two printings arrive in different condition

Run the same pair match on the share of a census that never reaches a PSA 8 and the sets stop agreeing with each other. Base Set's two printings turn up in almost identical shape, 60.0 percent short of an 8 for 1st Edition against 63.1 for unlimited, a gap of three points, and the 1st Edition still gems 2.12 times better. Team Rocket's two printings turn up 23.4 points apart, 32.5 percent against 55.9.

Whatever separates the Base Set printings, then, it is not wear, and the unlimited Base Set Charizard carries that argument. In Team Rocket wear is most of it. Why the unlimited stock turns up so much rougher is the part the data shows without explaining. The account you hear from dealers who buy vintage collections in volume is that 1st Edition went out in April 2000 to people already collecting on purpose, while the unlimited run sat on shelves for the rest of the year and reached children. Base Set holds a price at any grade, which pulls beaten copies out of both of its pools, and that would be why its two printings look alike.

The link itself is firm. Take every card printed in 2001 or earlier that has passed 15,000 grades, thirty three of them, and set the share finishing below an 8 against the gem rate: they move together at a correlation of minus 0.85. On vintage cards at this volume, how beaten the census is is very nearly the whole story. The Base Set 2 Charizard sits at the far end of the same line, 77.2 percent below an 8 for a 0.28 percent gem rate.

Dark Charizard is rougher than its own set in both printings, by about the same margin each time. Unlimited: 64.39 percent below an 8 against the set's 55.9. 1st Edition: 40.4 percent against 32.5. The card everyone in 2000 wanted is the card that got carried around.

Sugimori drew it, and the sky came off a stock disc

Team Rocket reached English shelves on April 24, 2000, nearly two and a half years after the Japanese Rocket Gang set it was built from. Ken Sugimori drew the Charizard. The sky behind it is not his: Bulbapedia records the background as a stock image from a library disc titled GU Landscapes LA055, which is a quietly deflating detail about one of the more atmospheric holos Wizards ever shipped.

The set carried two other firsts, the first English secret card in Dark Raichu at 83/82, and the first holofoil Trainer and Energy cards. Those trainers are the best gemmers Team Rocket has. In the unlimited print Here Comes Team Rocket! returns 10.42 percent and Rocket's Sneak Attack 3.98, against this Charizard's 0.89, on censuses a tenth the size.

Four hundred dollars in, for a one in a hundred ticket

Start with the gem line, then set it aside. PriceCharting's PSA 10 column here is an estimate rather than a tape: its graded sold tables have masked eBay prices since early October, and with 176 copies in existence there is no steady flow of real tens to check it against. What did clear in October 2026 came through Fanatics, a PSA 8 at $590 on the 13th, a PSA 5 at $270 the same day, a PSA 5 at $205 on the 9th and a CGC 9 at $550 on the 7th.

Read that ladder twice. A 5 at $270 and an 8 at $590 is a narrow spread for three grade points, and the nine that sold went for well under PriceCharting's pooled Grade 9 estimate of $869.14. Below the ten this card is paid for by its name rather than by its grade, which is the reverse of how a modern chase card prices its own ladder.

Weight the payouts by where this census actually lands and the trade gets close rather than obvious. 0.89 percent of submissions reach the ten. 12.20 percent stop at a 9, 22.46 percent at an 8, and 64.39 percent finish below that, where a slab fetches roughly what a clean raw copy does. Standard service at $59.99 caps the declared value at $1,000, which is the honest ceiling for the grade this card usually returns and nowhere near the one it is being chased for.

Buy the grade rather than chase it

412 copies joined the census last period against 317 the period before, so submissions on a 26 year old card are speeding up, not tailing off. Nothing in the ladder suggests the extra volume is finding better cards than the old volume did.

Check the borders before the foil on this one. The dark artwork window sits inside the standard yellow frame, so an off centre cut reads as an uneven band of bright yellow that nobody needs a loupe to see, and that is the cheapest thing to rule out before you pay a fee. An uneven band means the copy is worth more unslabbed than it is in a 7. An even one still only buys you a 0.89 percent ticket, and the cheaper routes to a Team Rocket ten are the 1st Edition print and the two trainers. Every row quoted above is live in the BetterPop gallery, and populations this thin behave differently from ordinary scarcity.

Full Rocket pop report

Sources

• Population figures: GemRate PSA population tracking, pulled October 1, 2026. Comparative and pair matched figures computed across the full dataset on October 18, 2026.
• Set history, release date, Dark Pokemon frame, secret card and the stock image credit: Bulbapedia, Team Rocket (TCG) and Dark Charizard (Team Rocket 4), read October 18, 2026.
• Prices, grade estimates and dated sold results: PriceCharting, Dark Charizard #4 Pokemon Team Rocket, read October 18, 2026.
• Grading fees and service tiers: psacard.com/pricing, read October 18, 2026. Value services paused, Standard $59.99 at a $1,000 maximum insured value, 90 to 100 business days.