This issue's quiz card is the 1999 Japanese CD Promo Charizard #006 in PSA 6, loaded in Rip Station's new $1,000 machine with a mark of $866. It came out of our $150 machine in PSA 9 five weeks ago at $1,290. Same card, three grades apart, a third of the price, and the 6 is the more typical copy.
The card
In 1999 the Pokemon Song Best Collection CD shipped in Japan with three promo cards: Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise, reprints of the Base Set holos with the CD promo stamp. They were the first Charizards printed outside a booster, they went to children who bought a CD, and they were not sleeved. The surviving population is concentrated in the middle grades: 4s, 5s, 6s and 7s are common, 8s are scarce, 9s and 10s are trophies with populations you can count.
Why this curve is different
We have spent three issues on cards where the grade is the whole price: the Base Set Pikachu, the Skyridge Nidoran reverse, the Sylveon alt art where population barely matters. The CD Promo Charizard is the fourth shape. The card carries value in every grade, because it is a 1999 Charizard with Sugimori art and a known, limited print, and the top grades carry a large additional premium because so few copies survived handling. So the curve is gentle at the bottom (a 4 is a real card, a 6 is $866, a 7 is a bit more) and steep at the top (an 8 is a multiple of the 6, a 9 is $1,290 in our engine, a 10 is a different conversation).
What that means in practice
If you want to own the card, a 6 is the honest grade for a CD promo: it looks like what the card is, a played 1999 promo, and it costs a third of the 9. If you are grading a raw one, only the 8-and-up outcomes pay for the fee and the wait, and the odds of an 8 on a card that spent 1999 in a child's hands are low. And if you are comparing it to the Base Set Charizard, do not: the Base Set card has a PSA 10 population in the hundreds and a 6 worth about $500; the CD promo has a 10 population in the single digits and a 6 worth $866. Different objects, different curves.
Grade Expectations ran in The Pack Report, September 24, 2026: PSA at Nine Million, a $59.99 Tier, and a $1,000 Machine. Published by Rip Station.