How to Know if Your Charizard Pokemon Card is Rare or Not

Pokemon Cards

Pokemon has been going strong for two decades and counting. The Pokemon Trading Card Game has been going strong throughout most of that period. For proof, look no further than the fact that it was the top-selling strategic card game in 2016. As such, it should come as no surprise to learn that Pokemon cards can be quite valuable. None save for the rarest of the rare can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, people who once collected Pokemon cards might be interested to know that there are Charizard cards that can sell for tens of thousands of dollars.

Remember Charizard?

Different Pokemon fans favor different generations of Pokemon. This makes sense because different people were introduced to the franchise at different points in time, meaning that they are going to have different biases. For example, chances are good that someone who started playing in Generation I will have a preference for Generation I Pokemon. In contrast, chances are good that someone who started playing in Generation VIII will have a preference for Generation VIII Pokemon. However, there are a small number of Pokemon that have been favored over the course of multiple generations, thus enabling them to stand head and shoulders over most of their counterparts. Charizard can be considered an excellent example. There are a number of reasons why Charizard is so popular. First, its first evolution Charmander was one of the three starter Pokemon of Generation I, meaning that it was one of the three Pokemon that introduced people to the franchise as a whole.

Moreover, it is worth mentioning that Charmander was considered to be the challenging starter, which provided it with a sense of extra status. After all, Bulbasaur had the advantage against the first two gyms while Squirtle had the advantage against the first gym. In contrast, Charmander had the disadvantage against not one but both of the first two gyms, meaning that winning with it was a sign of the player’s perseverance. Second, Charizard has a design that is considered cool by a wide range of people out there. It isn’t just a one-for-one copy of either a real world animal or a real world object. Simultaneously, it isn’t overdesigned, thus enabling it to avoid the excess of the other extreme. On top of that, Charizard is a fire-breathing dragon, meaning that it taps into a preexisting reservoir of coolness that has been built up by centuries after centuries of storytelling. Third, Charizard is a solid Pokemon for competitive battling. It boasts excellent stats. Even better, it has the right moves to make use of those excellent stats.

As such, a well-built Charizard can do quite well as either a sweeper meant for clearing out opposing teams once it has been properly buffed or a wallbreaker for smashing through particularly stubborn obstacles in its way. Fourth, Charizard’s popularity means that it has received more attention than the overwhelming majority of its counterparts. As such, its popularity is something of a self-reinforcing phenomenon because these incidents serve to make it matter to newer Pokemon fans. This can be seen in how Charizard received not one but two Mega-Evolutions in Generation VI as well as how Charizard received a Gigantamax in Generation VII. Naturally, this means that Charizard cards have been quite valuable in the Pokemon Trading Card Game. Of course, some of those have been much more sought-after than others, which is why interested individuals might want to look to see if they have something truly valuable on their hands.

How Can You Tell If Your Charizard Card Is Rare or Not?

Once upon a time, people have a much more limited range of options for determining the price of a Pokemon card. Nowadays, the use of the Internet is ubiquitous, which in turn, means that interested individuals have options that would have been unimaginable a couple of decades ago. If someone wants to know the rarity of a Charizard card, they can just look it up on a suitable database. Of course, they might want to make sure that what they see is true, which is why they should look it up on multiple databases. Something that search engines make very easy. For that matter, interested individuals should also make sure that they know exactly which Charizard card they have on hand. This is extremely important because there have been more than 40 Charizard cards released since the start of the game. Even if one excludes the ones that clearly stand out from the rest, there are still a lot of Charizard cards left over. As such, a bit of caution can be very helpful when figuring out information about collectibles like this.

What Determines Whether a Pokemon Card Is Valuable or Not?

In any case, there are a number of factors that determine the value of a Pokemon card. For example, the popularity of a particular Pokemon means that every card featuring that Pokemon tends to get a price boost. Similarly, the mechanical usefulness of a particular Pokemon card has a similar effect on how it can fetch in a sale. However, it is the rarity of a Pokemon card that can propel it into truly awe-inspiring prices. This should come as no surprise. After all, a lack of availability combined with a considerable degree of desirability makes for higher prices, particularly since a lack of availability can be a driver of desirability for a lot of people out there. In some cases, the rarity is very much intentional. For instance, there is a reason that Pokemon cards are divided into different rarities. Having said that, there are plenty of cases in which the rarity was very much not intentional, as shown by the various misprints that have occurred over the course of the game’s existence. Besides this, there is the matter of condition as well. Pokemon cards are cards. As a result, an example that hasn’t been cared for can see a lot of wear and tear, with the result that it loses most of its value. If interested individuals want full price, they are going to want to make sure that their card is in either perfect or near-perfect condition, which is one of the reasons that card sleeves are so popular.

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