Stellar Crown Squirtle pop report: the card Stellar Miracle never had

Published November 14, 2026 · Pop figures refresh with every site build; the current pull is October 23, 2026

Two of the thirteen illustration rares in Stellar Crown hold 73.88 percent of every grade PSA has issued across that tier. Squirtle 148/142 is the larger half of the pair, and neither card was in the Japanese set.

The Stellar Crown Squirtle illustration rare pop report reads 37.2 percent Gem Mint, which ranks thirteenth of thirteen inside its own rarity. It also carries eighteen times the census of the tier's median row. Those two facts share a cause, and the cause is a localization decision rather than anything about the card.

Last of thirteen, and eighteen times the median census

37,994 submissions, 14,116 Gem Mint 10s, 19,980 nines and 3,246 eights, with 650 copies landing below that. PSA added 429 grades last period against a -16% thirty day trend. The English set went on sale September 13, 2024.

Thirteen illustration rares pool 38.36 percent on 98,031 grades, and the individual rates run from this Squirtle at the bottom to the Zeraora at 151 on 44.00 percent across 5,791 submissions. Under seven points separate the best of the group from the worst. Rank the same thirteen by census and the shape breaks: the median row has taken 2,075 grades and this one has taken 37,994.

So the gem rate is close to a tier constant and the census is not. What singled out this Squirtle?

Twelve Art Rares went in, thirteen Illustration Rares came out

Stellar Miracle, the Japanese expansion released July 19, 2024, carried twelve Art Rares: Ledian, Lileep, Turtonator, Raboot, Crabominable, Joltik, Zeraora, Milcery, Meditite, Gulpin, Archaludon and Noctowl. English Stellar Crown shipped thirteen illustration rares eight weeks later, and the lists do not match.

Noctowl left. Its Art Rare was pulled out of the pack tier and reissued as SVP Black Star Promo 141 inside the Stellar Crown Elite Trainer Box on launch day. In its place came two cards from somewhere else: Bulbasaur at 143 and Squirtle at 148, full art prints that first appeared in the Venusaur & Charizard & Blastoise Special Deck Set ex, a Japanese three deck box sold on November 10, 2023.

Those two imports hold 72,426 of the tier's 98,031 grades, leaving 25,605 for the eleven cards that were actually in Stellar Miracle. Across the nineteen English Scarlet and Violet era sets whose illustration rare tier carries at least eight rows and 10,000 grades, nothing else is close to that top heavy: the runner up is Perfect Order at 61.6 percent, and the Phantasmal Flames tier where one card took a third of the pile reads 49.8.

Put two Kanto starters in a thirteen card rarity and the submitters sort themselves.

The whole deficit sits at one step on the ladder

The two imports pool 37.42 percent Gem Mint on their 72,426 grades. The eleven natives pool 41.01 on 25,605. That 3.59 point gap is large enough that sampling noise cannot reach it, so it is worth splitting into the two things a gem rate actually mixes together, a method the Ascended Heroes Psyduck census works through in full.

Damage first. Setting the handful of Authentics aside, copies finishing below an 8 run 1.62 percent on the imports and 1.54 percent on the natives, and the eights sit at 7.94 against 7.54. Statistically those are the same number. Whatever happens to these cards between the pack and the flip happens to all thirteen equally.

Conversion is where it all is. Of the copies that came back a 9 or a 10, the imports converted 41.38 percent to the ten and the natives 45.11. Every point of the deficit lives at that one step, which is the step centering and surface flatness decide.

Two tidy explanations died on the way to this paragraph. The first was the release channel, on the theory that a card handed out loose in a box takes a beating a sealed pack prevents. It does not survive its own counterexample: the displaced Noctowl went from Japanese pack pull to English box promo and gems 39.76 percent on 3,531 grades, with the Pokemon Center version at 47.05 on 3,258, both above the pack tier they left. The second was the release window, and across nineteen Elite Trainer Box promos past 1,000 grades the rates run 19.18 to 45.22 with 2023, 2024 and 2025 scattered through the order. Neither the door nor the year does the work. A separate print source for two cards grafted into an English set is the obvious candidate, and the data here cannot confirm it, so it stays one.

Three starters, one Japanese box, three different doors

The signature reads Illus. Saboteri, who also drew the First Partner Charmander standing in a toy aisle. Here it is a balcony: Squirtle in a blue inflatable paddling pool firing a jet of water straight up, three Pidgey crowding the rim, a coiled garden hose along the decking. The Bulbasaur it shares the tier with is signed Orca, so the pair is not one artist's matched set. It is two drawings that shipped in the same box.

That box held a third. The Charmander full art by MINAMINAMI Take was already loose in English before either partner arrived, as SVP Black Star Promo 044 in the Obsidian Flames Elite Trainer Box from August 11, 2023, and its census now sits at 49,414 grades and 22.58 percent. All three went out together once more, in Indonesia and Thailand on January 26, 2024, in a promo pack attached to Shiny Treasure ex boxes.

Forty dollars against a three hundred dollar ten

Thirty PSA titled sales of the ten cleared between October 24 and November 12, 2026 at a $326.38 median. Twenty four PSA 9 sales from October 30 to November 14 medianed $99.14. The eight tape is thin, eight sales since September 1 at $93.00. All three drop the CGC, BGS, SGC and ACE rows that share these listing titles, and on this card there are plenty of them.

Run the ladder at this census's own proportions and a submission grosses about $182.71. Take 15 percent off for fees and shipping and it returns roughly $155 against $122.34 of card plus fee, so the average attempt clears about $33. The gem rate that would merely break even, with misses landing on the $99.14 nine, is 19.71 percent, and the census is running nearly double that. This card is one of the few on this blog where the math says mail it.

One correction before anyone acts on that. The raw figure above is PriceCharting's ungraded column at $82.35, which averages in played copies, while thirteen TCGplayer Near Mint sales since October 15 medianed $92.00. A submission starts from a Near Mint copy. Pay the real number and the return falls to about $23 a card against a 24.71 percent breakeven. Still clear, by less.

PSA read live on November 14, 2026: Value is open again at $39.99 a card, a $500 maximum insured value and 90 to 100 business days, with Standard at $59.99 and 70 to 80 days. A $326 ten fits under the Value cap with room. Five months of queue is the cost that never appears in a margin table.

What to do with the copy you pulled

Send it, but screen it at the nine to ten step first, because that is the only place this card loses. Check the border width top against bottom and left against right, then look across the foil for the soft roller lines that cost a ten and never a nine. Anything you would not call dead centre is a $99 card wearing a $40 fee. The pop report guide explains what the gem rate column counts, and every row quoted here keeps refreshing itself in the BetterPop gallery.

Sources

• Population figures: GemRate PSA population data, pull dated September 20, 2026; all tier, set and promo comparisons computed inside that same snapshot.
• Set composition, card text, illustrators and release history: Bulbapedia, Stellar Crown (TCG), Squirtle (151 7), Bulbasaur (151 1), Charmander (Obsidian Flames 26), Noctowl (Stellar Crown 115) and Venusaur & Charizard & Blastoise Special Deck Set ex (TCG), all read November 14, 2026. The expansion page's own rarity counts, thirteen illustration rares, eleven ultra rares, six special illustration rares and three hyper rares, match the dataset's row counts for those four tiers exactly.
• Prices: PriceCharting, Squirtle #148 Pokemon Stellar Crown, grade columns and sold tape read November 14, 2026, filtered to PSA titled rows. The Near Mint raw figures come from the TCGplayer sales on that same page.
• Grading fees and turnaround: PSA pricing, read November 14, 2026. Value $39.99 at a $500 maximum insured value and 90 to 100 business days, Standard $59.99 at $1,000 and 70 to 80 days, Priority $79.99 at $1,500 and 50 to 60 days.