XY Evolutions Charizard pop report: more tens than the 1999 original

Published August 18, 2026 · Pop figures refresh with every site build; the current pull is August 13, 2026

More Gem Mint 10 Charizards exist from the 2016 reprint than from the 1999 original. PSA has stamped 602 tens on the XY Evolutions Charizard 11/108 holo rare, against 488 on the unlimited Base Set 4/102 at the same August 13, 2026 pull, and it got there on roughly half the submissions.

The XY Evolutions Charizard pop report still reads like a vintage card, though. 1.1 percent across 53,328 grades. Of the 60 Pokemon cards carrying more than 40,000 grades on file, only Base Set Charizard at 0.47 percent and Base Set Blastoise at 0.74 percent come back worse, and both of those were printed in 1999.

A census that fails one grade short

53,328 graded. 602 tens, 24,212 nines, 18,953 eights, 166 Authentic, and 9,395 sitting at PSA 7 or lower.

The shape matters more than the top line here. Roughly eight in ten of these come back an 8 or a 9, and fewer than one in five lands at 7 or lower. Run the same reading on the 1999 unlimited print and the picture inverts: 75.0 percent of those land at 7 or lower. Two cards, two entirely different ways of failing. The old one arrives damaged. This one arrives clean and stops one grade short.

PSA added 512 more in the last reporting period and the 30 day trend reads +15%. Ten years after release, the submissions are speeding up rather than tailing off.

The same booster packs produced 36 percent gem rates

Sort every XY Evolutions card by gem rate and the set splits cleanly in two.

The thirteen holo rares that reprint the Base Set frame have taken 106,969 grades between them and returned 2,182 tens, a 2.04 percent rate. Hitmonchan sits at 0.23 percent. Magneton at 0.27. Raichu at 0.42. The EX and full art cards that came out of the same booster packs have taken 201,561 grades and returned 72,775 tens, a 36.11 percent rate. Seventeen times better, same year, same factory, same cardboard.

So the problem is not 2016 printing in general. It is doing something to one frame and not the other.

Then 2021 complicated it. The Celebrations Classic Collection reprinted the same Arita composition inside the same Base Set frame, yellow border and all, and that card gems at 59.25 percent across 60,139 grades. Fifty two times the rate of the 2016 version of the same picture.

Which points at the 2016 English sheets rather than at the design. Centering is the likeliest mechanism. PSA asks a 10 to sit within roughly 55/45 on the front and 75/25 on the reverse, and when a bright yellow band runs the whole way around the art, a grader measures that band against itself in about a second. A full art EX offers far less border to measure. Whether that 2016 cut was genuinely looser or merely easier to catch is not something PSA publishes, and the reverse holo of this exact card leaves the question open: same sheets, same cut, 7.66 percent across 27,717 grades.

If you are screening a copy, put a ruler on the yellow before anything else. Left band against right, top against bottom, front and then back. Corners and holo scratch still count, but on this card the border decides the outcome before the rest gets a look. Our guide on how to read a population report covers what census shapes like this one tell you in general.

Arita drew this Charizard twice

Mitsuhiro Arita is credited on both card faces, 1999 and 2016. The pose is his either way: same open jaw, same wing spread, same tail flame trailing off to the right. The 2016 version trades the dark sparked background for a flat orange blaze and drops an EVOLUTIONS logo into the art window.

Everything below the picture is a different card. Base Set Charizard is 120 HP with a Pokemon Power called Energy Burn and a Fire Spin that does 100 for two discarded Energy. The Evolutions print runs 150 HP, calls Energy Burn an Ability, and swings Fire Spin to 200 for three.

English XY Evolutions arrived on November 2, 2016, a 113 card expansion built for the twentieth anniversary that reprinted Base Set cards and kept most of the original layout. Japan had it first, on September 16, 2016, as a 20th Anniversary concept pack.

Where the money went in twelve months

The 10 has climbed and almost nothing else has. PriceCharting tracked a gem at $1,399 in August 2024 and $2,312 in August 2025. On August 18, 2026 it read $6,615.85, the highest this card has ever charted. Dated solds carry it: $4,600 on May 15, $5,700 on June 16, $6,600 on August 4, $6,631.70 on August 8.

The 9 walked $81 to $121 to $212 over those same two years and is still 32 percent under the $313 it drew in February 2021. Raw copies went $38, $44, $83, also short of their January 2021 peak of $122. One number holds the whole picture: a 10 was worth 17 times a 9 in August 2024, and it is worth 31 times a 9 now.

Money is not flowing into this card. It is flowing into the 10.

Running the fee against the odds

The one in 89 shot is worth $74.69 on its own. Take 602 over 53,328 against the $6,615.85 PriceCharting listed on August 18, 2026 and the gem outcome alone very nearly covers the $79.99 Regular service fee before a single 9 is counted. Run the same arithmetic against the $1,399 a 10 fetched in August 2024 and that shot was worth about $16. This is why 512 more copies went in last period.

The rest of the ladder is where people get caught. A PSA 9 traded in a $200 to $300 band through mid August 2026, with dated solds at $222.50 on August 18 and $250 on August 16. Against a raw copy near $95 and an $80 fee, a 9 clears about $38. That is the outcome 45 percent of submissions receive, and it barely pays for the padded envelope.

Then the tier gets awkward. Regular service is $79.99 with a maximum insured value of $1,500, checked on psacard.com on August 18, 2026. The grade you will probably get is worth $213. The grade you are paying for is worth $6,616. Declare for the outcome you expect and a potential $6,600 card ships under $1,500 of coverage. Declare for the one you want and $6,616 pushes you to Walk Through at $599 to insure a one percent event.

Grade the 9, not the dream

Send it only if the yellow measures even on both axes and the back holds up, and make the decision on the 9, because the 9 is what you are buying. The 10 is a $6,600 outcome sitting behind a gate that opens about 1 percent of the time, and buying one already slabbed at its peak is a completely different bet from making one. If you want the printing of this artwork that gems more than half the time, the numbers sit in the Celebrations Classic Collection census, and the 1999 card this one copies is broken down in the Base Set Charizard pop report. All three sort side by side in the BetterPop gallery.

Sources

• PSA population via the GemRate pull of August 13, 2026; every figure above refreshes with each site build
• The XY Evolutions set comparison, the Celebrations Classic Collection rate, the reverse holo rate, and the 40,000 grade ranking were computed from that same pull
• PriceCharting: Charizard #11, Pokemon Evolutions, prices, dated solds, and the monthly history read August 18, 2026
• PSA grading standards and PSA service levels and fees, both read August 18, 2026
• Release dates, the 113 card set size, and the Base Set reprint basis via Bulbapedia's Evolutions (TCG) page, read August 18, 2026
• The Mitsuhiro Arita credit, the HP and attack differences, and the EVOLUTIONS logo in the art window were read directly off scans of both card faces