Pokemon Card Market Trends: 1, 3 and 5 Year Price Data

Data through Aug 2026 · last sale recorded 2026-08-29 · page rebuilt 2026-09-04

This page tracks what vintage Pokemon cards have actually done, measured across 1,118 card variants and 38,356 recorded sales. Every figure below is computed from that dataset, and the method is written out at the bottom so you can judge it.

The headline numbers

Each figure is the median card, not an average. One card going up twentyfold does not move a median, which is the point: these describe the typical card, not the loudest one. The middle-half range shows how wide the spread is around it.

Five years in one line

The line has three phases. It falls for almost two years from Aug 2021, reaching its low of 59 in Jun 2023 — down 41% from where this window starts. It then bounces along that floor for roughly another year, still within 5% of the low as late as Jun 2024. Only from there does it climb, and it does so without a meaningful pullback, reaching 241 in Aug 2026 — a 311% move in 26 months.

This is why the three-year number (+233.9%) is larger than the five-year number (+127.1%). Measuring from 2023 starts you near the bottom; measuring from 2021 starts you part-way down the decline. Neither is wrong, and quoting only one of them is how people mislead themselves about this market.

Which sets moved, last 12 months

Sets with fewer than 15 priced cards are left out rather than shown on a sample too small to mean anything.

First Edition versus Unlimited, last 12 months

The gap between print runs is the clearest split in the data. Over the last twelve months the median 1st Edition card moved +142.1% against +67.2% for Unlimited, on samples of 477 and 503 cards. Same sets, same cards, different print run.

Weekly activity

The price series above is monthly, so this page does not publish a weekly index — there is no honest way to derive one from monthly inputs. What is genuinely weekly is transaction volume, which is counted from individual dated sales.

Averaging 395 recorded sales a week across the tracked card list. The current partial week is excluded.

Latest from Market Trends

How these numbers are built

Look up an individual card

Market-wide numbers describe the typical card and nothing else. For a specific card, the per-card pages carry its own price history, recent sales and graded tiers: Base Set 1st Edition values, all market-trends coverage, or the full guide index.