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Base Set Charizard Population Report: 140,783+ Graded, All Versions Combined

Every English 1999 Base Set Charizard population line at PSA, CGC and TAG adds up to more than 140,783 graded slabs: 6,157 1st Edition, 12,850 Shadowless and more than 121,776 Unlimited. PSA holds more than 121,551 of them, CGC 17,573 and TAG 1,659. Beckett and SGC could not be read, so the true graded total is higher still.

The PSA part mixes three dates, because PSA’s live report now sits behind a login. The rule used here is the latest dated PSA census figure for each print, whether read on PSA’s own CardFacts page or quoted from PSA’s census in an auction-house lot: 5,436 1st Edition (CardFacts, May 2026), 10,750 Shadowless (Fanatics Collect, late March 2025) and more than 105,365 Unlimited (a Goldin listing, October 2026). Every figure counts slabs, not unique cards; for what that means for how many Charizards survive, see how many Base Set Charizards exist.

As of October 2026: PSA 1st Edition 5,436 graded with 125 PSA 10s (May 2026). PSA Shadowless 10,750 with 58 PSA 10s (late March 2025). PSA Unlimited more than 105,365, fewer than one-half of one percent of them PSA 10s (October 2026). CGC 17,573 across six Charizard lines and TAG 1,659 across four, both read live on October 6, 2026. Highest sale found: $1,000,952.84 for a 1st Edition PSA 10 on eBay in September 2026.

How the Base Set Charizard population total is built

Three English prints are counted. 1st Edition cards carry a small black circular Edition 1 stamp below the art box. Shadowless cards have no stamp and no drop shadow along the right edge of the art box. Unlimited cards have that shadow. A fourth variety with a 1999-2000 copyright line, issued for the UK market and nicknamed the 4th print, is filed by CGC inside its Unlimited set, so it is counted with Unlimited here (see how many 4th print Charizards were printed).

PSA’s totals are derived. On PSA’s CardFacts grade table, the POP Higher column on the Authentic row counts every copy with a numeric grade, half grades included; adding the Authentic copies gives the total. On the May 2026 1st Edition page that is 5,390 + 46 = 5,436. PSA keeps qualifier grades (OC, ST and similar) on a separate population line, so these totals may run slightly low.

The sums, grader by grader:

  • PSA: 5,436 + 10,750 + more than 105,365 = more than 121,551.
  • CGC: 650 (1st Edition) + 13 (Gray Stamp) + 1,924 (Shadowless) + 14,801 (Unlimited) + 125 (Black Dot Error) + 60 (1999-2000) = 17,573. The three main lines alone come to 17,375.
  • TAG: 58 + 176 + 1,422 + 3 (Black Dot Error) = 1,659, or 1,656 without the error line.
  • All three graders: more than 140,783.

Use PSA’s own archived pages only and the PSA sum falls to 94,909 (5,436 + 6,909 + 82,564), because the newest Shadowless page PSA hosts dates from March 2023 and the newest Unlimited page from August 2025. That is an older floor, not a better figure.

Two graders are missing. Beckett’s pop report was offline with the rest of its website after what Beckett calls “suspicious technical activity”, and SGC’s lookup sits behind a reCAPTCHA. Both grade Base Set Charizards, so the combined figure understates the graded total by an unknown amount.

Every version, every grader: the master table

Version Grader Graded Top grade As of
1st Edition PSA 5,436 PSA 10: 125 May 2026 (PSA CardFacts)
1st Edition CGC 650 Pristine 10: 3; Gem Mint 10: 35 October 6, 2026
1st Edition, Gray Stamp CGC 13 CGC 9: 2 October 6, 2026
1st Edition TAG 58 TAG 10: 3 October 6, 2026
Shadowless PSA 10,750 PSA 10: 58 Late March 2025 (Fanatics Collect, quoting PSA)
Shadowless CGC 1,924 Pristine 10: 1; Gem Mint 10: 37 October 6, 2026
Shadowless TAG 176 TAG 10: 1 October 6, 2026
Unlimited PSA More than 105,365 Fewer than one-half of one percent PSA 10 October 2026 (Goldin listing, quoting PSA)
Unlimited CGC 14,801 Perfect 10: 1; Pristine 10: 11; Gem Mint 10: 284 October 6, 2026
Unlimited, Black Dot Error CGC 125 CGC 9.5: 1 October 6, 2026
1999-2000 print (4th print) CGC 60 Gem Mint 10: 2 October 6, 2026
Unlimited TAG 1,422 TAG 10: 2 October 6, 2026
Unlimited, Black Dot Error TAG 3 TAG 8: 1 October 6, 2026
All versions BGS Not readable Report offline October 2026
All versions SGC Not readable Behind a reCAPTCHA October 2026
All versions PSA + CGC + TAG More than 140,783

CGC (1st Edition, Shadowless, Unlimited) and TAG (1st Edition, Shadowless, Unlimited) were read live. The PSA Shadowless and Unlimited figures come from auction-house lot copy quoting PSA’s census, and Goldin’s own boilerplate says such information is “accurate at the time a lot is posted for auction and is subject to change.” The Goldin Unlimited figure comes from a live listing whose extended bidding starts October 25: a stated census figure, not a sale. PSA’s archived CardFacts pages show only three 1999 Charizard-Holo entries (plain, Shadowless and 1st Edition), so any 1999-2000 copies PSA has graded are probably in the plain line; that could not be confirmed. The Unlimited print on its own is covered in how many Unlimited Base Set Charizards were printed.

1st Edition vs Shadowless vs Unlimited: share of graded copies

These are shares of graded copies, not of the print run. Wizards of the Coast never published how many Charizards it printed (see how many Base Set Charizards were printed), and owners decide which cards are worth a grading fee, so a graded share is not a print share.

Grader 1st Edition Shadowless Unlimited (all lines) Slabs counted
PSA 4.5% 8.8% 86.7% More than 121,551
CGC 3.8% 10.9% 85.3% 17,573
TAG 3.5% 10.6% 85.9% 1,659
All three 4.4% 9.1% 86.5% More than 140,783

The three graders agree closely. 1st Edition makes up 3.5% to 4.5% of each grader’s Base Set Charizards, Shadowless 8.8% to 10.9% and Unlimited 85.3% to 86.7%. PSA’s Shadowless share is the lowest of the three partly because its input is the oldest, from March 2025. PSA also warned in 2019 that it started recognizing some varieties “long after the company began grading the issue”, so some early Shadowless copies may be counted in PSA’s plain Charizard-Holo line, the one used here for Unlimited.

PSA population history, 2016 to 2026: five times the slabs, almost no new 10s

PSA’s 1st Edition Charizard count rose about five-fold in ten years while its PSA 10 count barely moved. Every row below is PSA’s own data, from PSA’s 2016 Set Registry article and archived CardFacts pages (2020, 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026).

As of PSA graded PSA 10 PSA 10 share
May 2016 1,071 95 8.9%
Dec. 2020 2,868 121 4.2%
Oct. 2021 3,486 122 3.5%
Jan. 2023 3,959 123 3.1%
Feb. 2024 4,321 124 2.9%
Feb. 2025 4,752 125 2.6%
May 2026 5,436 125 2.3%

The May 2026 count is 5.1 times the May 2016 count and 1.9 times December 2020’s. Over the same ten years, PSA 10s went from 95 to 125. Since December 2020 PSA has added a net 2,568 1st Edition slabs and a net 4 PSA 10s, a gem rate of 0.16% on the additions. The growth sits in mid and low grades: between December 2020 and May 2026, PSA 5s went from 313 to 743 and PSA 1s from 44 to 202.

Shadowless and Unlimited show the same pattern. The PSA-hosted rows come from archived CardFacts pages (Shadowless 2020, Shadowless 2023, Unlimited 2020, Unlimited 2025); the rest are auction-house lot descriptions quoting PSA (Fanatics Collect 2024, Goldin September 2024, Goldin December 2024).

As of Shadowless graded / PSA 10 Unlimited graded / PSA 10 Source
Nov. 2020 3,221 / 54 14,389 / 433 PSA CardFacts
Mar. 2023 6,909 / 57 — PSA CardFacts
Late Apr. 2024 9,028 / 57 — Fanatics Collect
Sept. 2024 — More than 62,400 Goldin
Dec. 2024 — More than 67,000 Goldin
Late Mar. 2025 10,750 / 58 — Fanatics Collect
Aug. 2025 — 82,564 / 489 PSA CardFacts
Oct. 2026 — More than 105,365 / under 0.5% Goldin (live listing)

Shadowless grew 3.3 times between November 2020 and late March 2025, and Unlimited 7.3 times between November 2020 and October 2026. Between November 2020 and August 2025, PSA added a net 68,175 Unlimited slabs but only 56 PSA 10s (433 to 489), so the Unlimited gem rate fell from 3.0% to 0.6%.

Gem rate by print, and PSA’s full grade tables

Print PSA snapshot PSA 10 rate PSA 9 rate
1st Edition May 2026 2.3% 13.4%
Shadowless March 2023 0.8% 10.9%
Unlimited August 2025 0.6% 10.1%

The 1st Edition rate is the highest of the three, yet it has fallen at every PSA snapshot as lower-grade copies arrive: 8.9% in May 2016, 2.3% in May 2026. Later auction-house figures point the same way. Fanatics Collect put the Shadowless rate at 0.5% in late March 2025 (58 of 10,750), and Goldin’s October 2026 listing says fewer than one-half of one percent of its more than 105,365 Unlimited copies are PSA 10s.

PSA grade 1st Edition (May 2026) Shadowless (March 2023) Unlimited (August 2025)
10 125 57 489
9 729 751 8,322
8 711 1,034 14,388
7 597 963 14,072
6 832 1,181 14,232
5 743 984 12,582
4 575 705 7,522
3 414 468 4,161
2 228 283 2,685
1.5 49 14 85
1 202 300 3,058
Authentic 46 15 73
Total (derived) 5,436 6,909 82,564

PSA’s CardFacts tables list whole grades only. Half grades (8.5, 7.5 and so on) are inside the totals but have no row, which is why the columns do not add up: in May 2026, for example, 97 1st Edition copies sat at PSA 8.5.

CGC, TAG, BGS and SGC in detail

CGC

CGC’s scale runs Perfect 10, Pristine 10, Gem Mint 10, then Mint+ 9.5, and CGC says its report counts reflect its current grading scale. CGC keeps 1st Edition and Shadowless as separate categories and splits out three more Charizard lines: the Gray Stamp 1st Edition (a stamp “much lighter than the normal black color”), the Unlimited Black Dot Error (a small ink spot over the t in Nintendo) and the 1999-2000 print.

CGC line Total Perfect 10 Pristine 10 Gem Mint 10 9.5 9 Altered (AA)
1st Edition 650 0 3 35 14 51 30
1st Edition, Gray Stamp 13 0 0 0 0 2 0
Shadowless 1,924 0 1 37 22 83 33
Unlimited 14,801 1 11 284 147 1,000 143
Unlimited, Black Dot Error 125 0 0 0 1 5 3
1999-2000 print 60 0 0 2 1 3 2

AA is Authentic Altered, and those slabs sit inside CGC’s totals: 30 of the 650 1st Editions and 143 of the 14,801 Unlimited. CGC’s counts have roughly doubled since mid-November 2022, when it reported 297 1st Edition, 965 Shadowless and 7,276 Unlimited Charizards (2.2, 2.0 and 2.0 times). In early May 2024 CGC reported 467 1st Editions, 24 of them Gem Mint 10 and two graded higher; the live report now shows 35 Gem Mint 10s and three Pristine 10s. CGC graded its first Pristine 10 1st Edition Charizard in January 2023.

TAG

TAG shows 58 1st Edition, 176 Shadowless and 1,422 Unlimited Base Set Charizards, plus 3 Black Dot Errors. Its TAG 10s number 3, 1 and 2 respectively, and no copy has reached TAG’s 10P (Pristine). TAG’s Base Set listing has no 1999-2000 line; TAG files that print as a separate set, with 9 Charizards not included in the totals here.

BGS (Beckett)

Beckett’s website, app and pop report were all offline when this was compiled. The only first-hand Beckett figure found is a Beckett Media post of June 7, 2021 about the BGS 10 Pristine 1st Edition Charizard that Logan Paul wore to the ring: “this is a Pop 3 on the BGS Pop Report.” That is BGS 10 Pristine, not Black Label, and no first-hand Black Label count was found. Beckett also tracks 1st Edition Thick Stamp copies as their own line; a BGS 9.5 Thick Stamp, listed as 1 of 5 with none higher, sold for $150,000 at PWCC on August 22, 2021.

SGC

SGC’s lookup needs a reCAPTCHA, so no SGC count is included. SGC’s own pop page warns that across 28 years of data “inconsistencies may be present” and asks collectors to report “inconsistencies/duplicates”. The one SGC Charizard in the sales table below is a gold label 1st Edition that Goldin sold for $369,000 in December 2020.

How to read a population report without fooling yourself

A population report counts grading events. Keep these in mind before treating any number above as a count of cards:

  • Cracked slabs stay counted. PSA’s help page says collectors crack cards out to have them signed, resubmit them or sell them raw, and “unless we get that label back, there’s no way for us to know that the population needs to be updated.”
  • Crossovers double-count. A card cracked from a CGC slab and regraded by PSA can sit in both reports, so adding graders gives slabs, never cards.
  • CGC says it outright: its census reports “are not an indicator of value or rarity.”
  • SGC warns of duplicates in its own data, as above.
  • Varieties were recognized late. PSA wrote in 2019 that “some of the population data may not reflect accurate numbers” because early copies were graded before PSA noted the variety on the label.
  • Popular figures go stale. The claim that PSA has graded only 121 1st Edition PSA 10s held from 2020 to 2022. PWCC’s March 2022 lot copy said over 3,000 copies had been submitted to PSA with 121 PSA 10s, and news coverage turned that into “there are 3,000 copies of the card”. PSA’s own page showed 125 in both February 2025 and May 2026.

Sources also disagree by a copy around the same date. In December 2025 Heritage said its $550,000 copy was among 125 PSA 10s, while Sports Illustrated said the card had been “graded 4,993 times, with just 124” Gem Mint 10s. Goldin’s Logan Paul lot, which closed in February 2026, cited more than 5,220 graded and 124 PSA 10s. A pop can fall when labels are returned, and lot copy is written weeks before a sale. SI’s 4,993 sits well below Goldin’s figure two months later, so treat it as stale.

Record sales by version

These are the highest public results found for each version, attributed to whoever reported them. They are past sales, not valuations.

Version and grade Price Where When Note
1st Edition PSA 10 $1,000,952.84 eBay Sept. 9, 2026 Reported by Sports Illustrated; highest sale found
1st Edition PSA 10, Logan Paul Break label $954,800 Goldin Feb. 16, 2026 Highest auction-house sale found
1st Edition PSA 10 $550,000 Heritage Dec. 12-13, 2025 Heritage said it beat the pandemic-era public-auction record
1st Edition PSA 10 $420,000 PWCC March 20, 2022 Reported at the time as an all-time record for a Base Set Charizard
1st Edition, SGC gold label $369,000 Goldin December 2020 An SGC card, not a PSA 10
Shadowless PSA 10 $105,000 PWCC October 23, 2021 Highest public sale found
Unlimited PSA 10 $48,000 Fanatics Collect March 2026 Highest in Fanatics Collect’s own sales history; not a confirmed record

The $1,000,952.84 sale was reported by Sports Illustrated on September 14, 2026; no auction-house lot page was found for it. The $369,000 Goldin sale is often listed as a PSA 10, but Goldin’s own post that night described an SGC gold label card, sold hours after a PSA 10 went for over $350,000 on eBay. The $48,000 Unlimited result comes from Fanatics Collect’s sales history; later PSA 10 Unlimited sales there ran $23,400 to $27,500.

PSA 10 price history from verified sold listings across eBay, TCGPlayer, Goldin, and Fanatics Collect is on the card pages for the 1st Edition Charizard, the Shadowless Charizard and the Unlimited Charizard. The Goldin Unlimited PSA 10 that supplied this report’s newest Unlimited census figure is still a live listing; its extended bidding starts October 25.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Base Set Charizards have been graded in total?

Adding every 1999 English Base Set Charizard line at PSA, CGC and TAG gives more than 140,783 slabs as of October 2026: more than 121,551 at PSA (the latest dated PSA figure for each print), 17,573 at CGC and 1,659 at TAG (both read October 6, 2026). BGS and SGC could not be read, and population reports count slabs, not unique cards.

How many PSA 10 1st Edition Base Set Charizards are there?

PSA’s CardFacts page showed 125 PSA 10s out of 5,436 graded 1st Edition Base Set Charizards in May 2026. The often-repeated figure of 121 dates from 2020 to 2022.

How many Shadowless Charizards has PSA graded?

The latest dated figure is 10,750, with 58 PSA 10s, quoted from PSA’s census by Fanatics Collect in late March 2025. PSA’s own newest archived page, from March 2023, showed 6,909 with 57 PSA 10s.

How many Unlimited Base Set Charizards are PSA graded?

A Goldin listing in October 2026 cited more than 105,365 PSA-graded copies, with fewer than one-half of one percent of them PSA 10s. PSA’s own archived page showed 82,564 with 489 PSA 10s in August 2025.

What percentage of graded Base Set Charizards are 1st Edition?

About 4.4% of the combined PSA, CGC and TAG total, against 9.1% Shadowless and 86.5% Unlimited. That is a share of graded copies, not of the print run, which Wizards of the Coast never published.

Does the population report show how many Charizards exist?

No. It counts grading events. PSA says cracked-out cards stay in its count unless the label is returned, CGC says its report is not an indicator of value or rarity, and cards that were never graded are not counted at all.

What is the most expensive Base Set Charizard ever sold?

The highest sale found is $1,000,952.84 for a 1st Edition PSA 10 on eBay on Sept. 9, 2026, as reported by Sports Illustrated. The highest auction-house result found is $954,800 at Goldin in February 2026, for the PSA 10 from Logan Paul’s box break.

Sources


Population figures are snapshots of each grading company’s public report on the date shown and change every week as new cards are graded. Print-run figures for the 1999 English Base Set were never published by Wizards of the Coast; anything described here as an estimate is labelled as one. This article is collector information, not investment advice. Pokémon and Charizard are trademarks of Nintendo, Creatures Inc. and GAME FREAK inc.; Pokemon Pricing is not affiliated with them or with any grading company.

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