Umbreon ex Prismatic Evolutions pop report: a wall of nines

Published August 15, 2026 · Pop figures refresh with every site build; the current pull is August 13, 2026

Half of every Umbreon ex SIR that PSA grades comes back a 9. Not a 10, which pays $6,500. Not an 8, which stings. A 9, worth about $60 more than the raw card that went in. The Prismatic Evolutions census is 20,966 copies deep as of the August 13, 2026 pull, and its defining feature is that wall: 10,351 nines against 6,237 tens.

A census still in its first act

20,966 graded since the set's January 17, 2025 release. 6,237 PSA 10s, 10,351 PSA 9s, 3,177 PSA 8s, a 29.7 percent gem rate, 30 day trend -19%. The census tripled across 2025 and kept climbing through 2026 while The Pokemon Company ran reprints at what it called maximum capacity, an announcement it made two days before the set even launched. Reprints fed the census. The raw price held above $1,400 anyway.

Watch the variant rows if you go comparing: the same set carries Umbreon at 059 in base, reverse holo, Poke Ball and Master Ball reverse patterns, each its own census row. This page is 161/131, the Special Illustration Rare, the one the hobby means.

The heir, not the sequel

The obvious comparison is moonbreon, and one correction has to lead it: listings love claiming the same artist returned for this card, and it is not true. The Evolving Skies alt art is Keiichiro Ito's; this one is credited to Yashiro Nanaco, an illustrator whose TCG debut came just one set earlier, in Surging Sparks. Two Umbreons under a night sky, four years apart, both painted by near newcomers handed the biggest card in the set. The elder's census story, a 69 percent gem rate that never dented the price, is in the moonbreon pop report; this card is running the same experiment with harder odds.

Why the nines?

Factory, not fingers. The community's read is consistent with every dark SIR of the era: etched foil that scratches in the pack, a navy backdrop that displays every print line, and borders that show whitening early. Nobody handled these cards; they were sleeved the moment the pack opened. The 70 percent that miss the gem were mostly born that way, the same pattern measured across the Charizard ex 151 pop report, where the English printing gems at a third of the Japanese rate on identical artwork.

The nine trap, in dollars

The 9 trap in one sentence: raw and PSA 9 are sixty dollars apart, so the modal grading outcome converts a $349 fee into a sideways trade. Every dollar of expected value lives in the 29.7 percent chance of the 10, which is why the first confirmed gem sold for $5,000 just ten days after release and why pre-screening is not optional on this card. It is a lottery with good ticket math and a brutal consolation prize.

Playing the wall

Treat submission like a position, not a flutter: send only a copy you would confidently double down on, with money that can wait out a 9. Buyers have the simpler side: 6,237 tens exist, the count grows weekly, and the premium tracks the census in real time. This row is the one to watch for how a modern chase census matures, and it updates with every pull in the BetterPop gallery. For the vocabulary this page leans on, gem rate, variant rows, pop growth, start with what a pop report is.

Sources

• PSA population via the GemRate pull of August 13, 2026; figures refresh with each site build
• PriceCharting: Umbreon ex #161 with August 2026 dated solds, read August 15, 2026
• The Pokemon Company reprint statement, January 15, 2025; TCGplayer pull rate sampling at release
• Artist credits verified on both card scans (Yashiro Nanaco here; Keiichiro Ito on Evolving Skies 215); debut history via Serebii and TCGdex