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◇ INSIGHTS · RESEARCH · MARKET COMMENTARY

The Ledger

6 ARTICLESWEEKLY RESEARCHNEW · LAUNCHING
★ FEATURED◇ RESEARCH

Is Europe Really Cheaper for Pokémon Cards? We Checked 2,800 of Them.

Buy from Europe, it's cheaper, is common knowledge among collectors. So we measured it properly. Realized European sale prices against realized US sold prices across 2,800 cards. Turns out the collectors are right. Europe is cheaper on more than three out of four cards, by a median of 28%. Here's the data, the eras where the gap is widest, and the one catch that decides whether it's free money for you.

Martin LavilleMARTIN LAVILLE10 JUN 20267 MIN READ
◇ RESEARCH

Best Pokémon Card Investment Tools in 2026 — PriceCharting, TCGplayer, Collectr & More, Honestly Compared

Every serious collector ends up with five tabs open — one site for current prices, another for history, another for graded sales, a spreadsheet for the portfolio. We tested the tools people actually use, verified every price on their own pages, and wrote the comparison we wished existed. Including where our own tool loses.

Martin LavilleMARTIN LAVILLE11 JUN 2026 · 9 MIN READ
◇ RESEARCH

Is Grading Even Worth It? For Almost 4 in 5 Cards, No.

We priced every PSA grade against the raw card across our whole database. Almost four in five lose money the moment you mail them in — and it's not really about the era. It's the raw price. Here's the math, the one number that decides, and where grading still genuinely pays.

Martin LavilleMARTIN LAVILLE06 JUN 2026 · 8 MIN READ
◇ RESEARCH

We Counted Every Graded Pokémon. One Is 9.4% of Them All.

10,184,623 PSA-graded Pokémon cards, grouped by character. Charizard alone is 9.4% of every graded card in existence — but the gap between the most-graded Pokémon and the most-valuable one is the part investors should actually care about.

Martin LavilleMARTIN LAVILLE04 JUN 2026 · 7 MIN READ
◇ RESEARCH

The Release-Cycle Pump-Fade Is Mostly a Myth…

We measured 2,008 set-release events across 43 Pokémon sets. The common belief — older cards pump before release and fade after — is the opposite of what the data shows. The bigger finding is which Pokémon actually move when new sets feature them, and which don't.

Martin LavilleMARTIN LAVILLE28 MAY 2026 · 8 MIN READ
◇ RESEARCH

Why The Hottest Pokémon Cards Are Often the Worst Bets…

A point-in-time, survivorship-safe study of 47,431 Pokémon card price histories across 5 market regimes. Cards that just spiked underperformed; recently-cooled cards outperformed. The data, honestly.

Martin LavilleMARTIN LAVILLE20 MAY 2026 · 7 MIN READ