First Partner Bulbasaur pop report: the count that will not hold still

Published October 28, 2026 · Pop figures refresh with every site build; the current pull is October 23, 2026

This Bulbasaur gained 13,620 Gem Mint 10s between August 13 and October 1, 2026, which works out to 278 a day, every day, for seven straight weeks. At the October 1, 2026 pull the First Partner Bulbasaur pop report reads 24,508 tens from 30,879 submissions on Bulbasaur #037, the Series 1 promo in the Mega Evolution Black Star Promo set, a 79.4 percent gem rate.

Only one of those two numbers is worth writing down.

The gem rate holds still. The count does not.

30,879 graded. 24,508 tens, 5,826 nines, 382 eights, 3 Authentic and 160 copies at a PSA 7 or lower. PSA added 11,573 more in the last reporting period against a 30 day trend of +30%.

Start with that last figure. More than a third of every copy PSA has ever graded on this card landed inside one reporting window, and the period before it brought 8,922. The flow is not tapering off. It is widening.

What 278 tens a day looks like beside a 1999 holo

At that same October 1, 2026 pull, the unlimited Base Set Charizard holds 490 Gem Mint 10s against 108,058 submissions, accumulated across twenty seven years of people mailing the card in. This Bulbasaur produces 490 tens in one day and eighteen hours.

Add the other two 1999 prints. The 1st Edition Charizard holds 123 tens and the shadowless print holds 58, so all three Charizards together account for 671 Gem Mint 10s. Bulbasaur #037 clears that in two and a half days.

Whatever this pop report measures, it is not scarcity.

The curve had not turned down

GemRate carries 52 weekly readings for this row, the last dated October 1, 2026. The first graded copies show up in week 27, which places the start of the census in mid April, roughly four weeks after the product reached shelves on March 20, 2026. It climbs from there: 6 new grades, then 45, then 81.

The final three readings are 2,899, 2,812 and 2,857. Those are the three largest weeks in the whole series. Seven months after release, submissions were still setting records.

You are reading mail that was posted in spring

PSA's Standard tier carries an estimated turnaround of 90 to 100 business days, read off psacard.com on October 28, 2026, with Value services still paused. Ninety business days runs about four and a half months.

So a copy counted in the October reading was most likely mailed in May. This population figure is not simply incomplete. It describes a decision somebody made two seasons ago, and every card sitting inside PSA's building today is invisible to it. On a 1999 holo that lag rounds away to nothing. Here it covers most of the card's life.

The rate, for what it is worth, barely moved

On August 13, 2026 this row stood at 78.68 percent across 13,838 grades. By October 1 it had taken on 17,041 more and read 79.37. Seventeen thousand fresh cards shifted the lifetime figure by two thirds of a point.

Tempting to call that remarkable. It is not. Eighty rows in the dataset added at least 3,000 grades over the same window, and their median lifetime rate moved 0.31 points. The 0.69 here ranks 61st of those 80, so this card drifted more than most of them did. A gem rate that sits this still is only what a census does when nothing about the card is changing.

One pattern does run through the product. All nine Series 1 promos drifted upward, the later arrivals gemming a little better than the copies ahead of them, Turtwig by 3.90 points and Rowlet by 0.53. Worth treating as a hint rather than a result, since 51 of those 80 rows drifted up as well. Nine out of nine inside a single product is suggestive, not settled.

One signature on all of them

The credit line reads Illus. Saboteri, the same name on the Charmander that travels in the same pack. Bill's Archive, a fan catalogue of the line, credits Saboteri with all twenty seven promos across the three series.

The art is flat and graphic rather than painted. Bulbasaur leaps over an overhead jumble of shop shelving, a red Pokedex, loose Poke Balls and a yellow Pikachu silhouette carrying a 30 for the anniversary year. Basic, 80 HP, Leech Seed for 10, regulation mark J, copyright 2026. It runs to all four edges with no yellow border to soak up a knock, which is the layout collectors usually blame when centering goes wrong. Just 0.52 percent of this census has ever come back below an 8.

Where the fee lands

PriceCharting's tape, read October 28, 2026 and filtered to PSA titled rows, puts the raw card at a $25.49 median across 60 sales back to July 11, a PSA 9 at $28.62 across 20 sales and a PSA 10 at $75.31 across 30 sales. PriceCharting's own ungraded column read $23.33 the same day, close enough to leave alone.

Standard grading costs $59.99, which is 2.35 times what the card itself costs.

Work it through. A raw copy plus the fee comes to $85.48 against a $75.31 sale, so the trade is ten dollars down before anybody takes a cut. Hand back the usual 15 percent to fees and shipping and $64.01 is what you keep, which puts a guaranteed Gem Mint 10, carrying no grading risk whatsoever, at a $21.47 loss.

Weight those payouts by the card's own census instead and a submission returns $55.76, a $29.72 loss. Notice that $55.76 sits below the $59.99 fee by itself, which means the card could be handed to you free and the trade would still lose $4.23. A PSA 9 nets $24.33, or $1.16 less than selling the raw copy and skipping the whole exercise.

The gem rate on this card is excellent. It does not matter.

What to do with the number

Keep it in a sleeve, and read the figure above as a rate rather than a stock. Asking what your copy would do at PSA, 79.4 percent is a sound answer and it has been steady for months. Asking how rare your slab is, the honest answer is that a few hundred more arrived today. The other 2026 Bulbasaur in the data gems 7.08 percent at that same pull, which leaves it holding 1,800 Gem Mint 10s against this card's 24,508, and its PSA 10 cleared a $710.00 median on September 30, 2026. The scarce count is the one that pays. If the mechanics of the count are the part you want, start with how a population report gets built, then watch this one climb in the BetterPop gallery.

Sources

• GemRate PSA population data via the BetterPop dataset, October 1, 2026 pull; the 52 week reading series, the August 13 to October 1, 2026 snapshot difference, the 80 row drift control and the Charizard counts computed across all 111,788 rows on October 28, 2026.
• PriceCharting, Bulbasaur #37 Pokemon Promo, grade columns and dated sold tape read October 28, 2026. Medians exclude CGC, BGS, SGC and Ace slabs, multi card lots and one French copy sharing the page.
• Pokemon.com, First Partner Illustration Collection Series 1, launch date of March 20, 2026 and contents, read October 28, 2026.
• PSA, trading card grading services, Standard tier fee and turnaround read October 28, 2026.
• Illustrator credit, HP, attack, regulation mark and copyright line read from the card face of MEP EN 037. Series wide illustrator attribution from Bill's Archive, a fan catalogue.