Pokémon Card Market Report — August 2026
Modern chase Pokémon cards outpaced vintage by 22.5 points over the past 30 days.
CardTrack's monthly read on the Pokémon card market, built from live blended values across 4,656 tracked cards. Movement is each card's change vs the previous month's close.
The market, in plain English
Well, that's a month I won't forget in a hurry. The CardTrack Pokémon Index dropped 8.1% over the past 30 days across the 4,656 liquid cards we track, and honestly, it's one of the sharper pullbacks we've logged in a while. If you check Pokémon prices right now, you'll see a market that's basically split down the middle — a handful of cards catching fire while some big names take a real beating.
Start with the good news: Phione from the SM Black Star Promos more than doubled its price to $109, up a wild 88.3%, and it wasn't alone. Crobat from the Mega Evolution promos jumped 83.4% to $42, while Rayquaza C from Supreme Victors climbed 77.3% to $71. But the story on the other side is a lot rougher. Shining Tyranitar, one of the most iconic cards from Neo Destiny, cratered 88.1% down to $508 — a genuinely brutal move for a card that's usually a cornerstone of any serious collection. Dark Gyarados, Psyduck, and Meganium ex all saw similar-sized drops. When you've got risers up 80%+ and fallers down 85%+ in the same window, that's not a gentle correction, that's a market shaking itself out.
Zoom out and Pokémon looks like the clear outlier this month. Every other major card game was quietly green — Magic: The Gathering up 2.9%, One Piece up 1.6%, Lorcana up 1.2%, Yu-Gi-Oh! up 0.7%. Nothing dramatic there, just steady grinding higher while Pokémon went the other way. Compare that to traditional assets and the gap looks even stranger: gold was up 1.5%, the S&P 500 was basically flat at -0.1%, and Bitcoin gained 2.5%. So this wasn't some broader risk-off month dragging collectibles down with stocks or crypto — this was a Pokémon-specific story, concentrated in a batch of high-dollar vintage and promo cards that moved hard in both directions.
If you're holding vintage right now, it's worth a look at how your key pieces stack up against the CardTrack 100 or browsing the most valuable Pokémon cards to see where the real damage and the real opportunity are sitting side by side. Volatility like this tends to shake out fast — let's see if September brings some calm back to the grid.
📈 Top 10 risers
| # | Card | Value | 30d |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $109PSA 10 $2,640 | +88.3% | |
| 2 | $42 | +83.4% | |
| 3 | $71PSA 10 $6,300📍 Last sold $100 Raw · 27 Jun · 8 sales/90d | +77.3% | |
| 4 | $250PSA 10 $520 | +75.0% | |
| 5 | $56PSA 10 $511 | +73.8% | |
| 6 | $59PSA 10 $1,588📍 Last sold $888 CGC 10 · 27 Jun · 10 sales/90d | +71.6% | |
| 7 | $235PSA 10 $3,967 | +70.3% | |
| 8 | $70PSA 10 $3,900📍 Last sold $120 Raw · 21 Jun · 6 sales/90d | +62.7% | |
| 9 | $53PSA 10 $1,832 | +57.4% | |
| 10 | $55 | +57.1% |
📉 Top 10 fallers
| # | Card | Value | 30d |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $508PSA 10 $6,900📍 Last sold $1,895 PSA 8 · 29 Jun · 7 sales/90d | -88.1% | |
| 2 | $34PSA 10 $453📍 Last sold $1,225 PSA 10 · 21 Jun · 2 sales/90d | -87.6% | |
| 3 | $32PSA 10 $534 | -87.3% | |
| 4 | $35PSA 10 $7,000📍 Last sold $219 PSA 8 · 25 Jun · 12 sales/90d | -87.1% | |
| 5 | $55PSA 10 $795📍 Last sold $70 Raw · 27 Jun · 9 sales/90d | -87.0% | |
| 6 | $33PSA 10 $795📍 Last sold $188 PSA 9 · 25 Jun · 5 sales/90d | -86.6% | |
| 7 | $35PSA 10 $220 | -86.2% | |
| 8 | $30PSA 10 $620📍 Last sold $13 Raw · 26 Jul · 10 sales/90d | -84.9% | |
| 9 | $72PSA 10 $3,000📍 Last sold $29 Raw · 26 Jul · 5 sales/90d | -84.7% | |
| 10 | $78PSA 10 $3,500📍 Last sold $375 PSA 9 · 29 Jun · 7 sales/90d | -84.6% |
💵 Biggest dollar movers
| # | Card | Value | $ move | 30d |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $508PSA 10 $6,900📍 Last sold $1,895 PSA 8 · 29 Jun · 7 sales/90d | −$3,757 | -88.1% | |
| 2 | $950PSA 10 $65,625📍 Last sold $8,900 PSA 6 · 26 Jul · 12 sales/90d | −$3,042 | -76.2% | |
| 3 | $1,582PSA 10 $14,700📍 Last sold $760 Raw · 26 Jul · 8 sales/90d | −$2,412 | -60.4% | |
| 4 | $940PSA 10 $10,250📍 Last sold $699 Raw · 29 Jun · 10 sales/90d | −$2,063 | -68.7% | |
| 5 | $400 | −$1,705 | -81.0% | |
| 6 | $1,130PSA 10 $9,900📍 Last sold $750 Raw · 27 Jun · 12 sales/90d | −$1,504 | -57.1% | |
| 7 | $400 | −$1,377 | -77.5% | |
| 8 | $800PSA 10 $23,400📍 Last sold $1,585 PSA 8.5 · 26 Jul · 9 sales/90d | −$1,345 | -62.7% | |
| 9 | $1,000PSA 10 $78,000📍 Last sold $3,450 PSA 3 · 25 Jul · 11 sales/90d | −$1,227 | -55.1% | |
| 10 | $519PSA 10 $19,651📍 Last sold $1,136 PSA 8 · 26 Jul · 7 sales/90d | −$1,083 | -67.6% |
🏆 PSA 10 premium leaders
Biggest raw → PSA 10 multipliers — where grading adds the most. See the full Grading ROI index →
| # | Card | Raw | PSA 10 | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $250 | $10,000 | 40× | |
| 2 | $31 | $1,246 | 39.8× | |
| 3 | $40 | $1,585 | 39.6× | |
| 4 | $38 | $1,500 | 39.6× | |
| 5 | $102 | $4,051 | 39.6× | |
| 6 | $31 | $1,238 | 39.5× | |
| 7 | $51 | $2,000 | 39.5× | |
| 8 | $33 | $1,280 | 39.4× | |
| 9 | $31 | $1,200 | 39.2× | |
| 10 | $76 | $2,966 | 39.2× |
💎 Grading ROI spotlight
Where grading pays off most — the PSA 10 best case beside the expected return once every grade is weighted by its gem rate, after cost. Full Grading ROI index →
| # | Card | Gem rate | Best case | Expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15.2% | +$68,830 | +$14,636 | |
| 2 | 4.8% | +$109,040 | +$11,055 | |
| 3 | 8.4% | +$46,351 | +$7,566 | |
| 4 | 4.3% | +$75,600 | +$6,903 | |
| 5 | 2.6% | +$48,819 | +$5,019 | |
| 6 | 5.7% | +$55,586 | +$4,924 | |
| 7 | 19.3% | +$19,293 | +$4,899 | |
| 8 | 3.1% | +$38,442 | +$4,611 |
📦 Sealed product watch
| Product | Price | 30d |
|---|---|---|
| $196 | +70.7% | |
| $196 | +70.7% | |
| $196 | +70.7% | |
| $196 | +70.7% | |
| $196 | +70.7% | |
| $148 | -41.0% | |
| $122 | -38.9% | |
| $978 | -22.6% | |
| $1,000 | -20.0% | |
| $81 | -18.5% |
Reading the August 2026 numbers
The CardTrack Index reads 71.8 this edition. That figure compares totals: the 4,656 cards in this basket are worth 28.2% less in total than the 6,288 cards in the July 2026 report's basket were. The -8.1% beside it is a different measure: the value-weighted average of each card's own move since that snapshot, leaving out any move beyond ±90%. The two disagree by 20.1 points this edition, because a card joins or leaves the basket as its value crosses the $10 floor, and a total over a different set of cards is not a like-for-like comparison.
Read the index as a measurement of CardTrack's own values, not as a market return. Both snapshots are blended prices, so when CardTrack changes how a price is computed, every card priced that way moves between editions without a copy changing hands. Even a reading as small as -8.1% belongs next to the movers above, not in a sentence about where the market went. The daily CardTrack 100 marks its own method steps, and the way a blended price is built is set out in how CardTrack prices cards.
Vintage here means cards from sets released before 2003 (539 cards this edition); modern chase means alt-art, illustration, special illustration, secret, rainbow, hyper and V-era ultra rarities (1,627 cards). Modern chase led by 22.5 points, -3.5% against -26.0% for vintage. Both baskets moved the same way, so the gap is about how far each went, not which way. The vintage basket is the smaller of the two, so a handful of expensive cards carry more of its average.
Phione from SM Black Star Promos tops the risers at +88.3%, now $109. 2 of the 10 risers moved 80% or more, close to the ±90% line beyond which a move is treated as bad data (35 cards crossed it this edition and were set aside). A move that near the cut-off deserves the same suspicion: open the card page and check the sales before reading it as demand. Of the 10, 2 are from sets released before 2003. The daily movers board shows the same kind of list updated every day rather than once a month.
At the other end, Shining Tyranitar (Neo Destiny) fell 88.1% to $508. Percentages flatter cheap cards, so the dollar table ranks by the size of the move in money: Shining Tyranitar (Neo Destiny) moved −$3,757 to $508. All ten of the biggest dollar moves were falls.
The PSA 10 premium table divides a card's PSA 10 price by its raw price and only considers multiples between 2× and 40×, which is why this edition's leaders sit between 39.2× and 40×. Gyarados ex (FireRed & LeafGreen) leads at 40×: $250 raw against $10,000 in a PSA 10. A big multiple says a gem copy is scarce next to raw ones; it says nothing about your chance of grading one, which is what the gem rate measures. The grading spotlight weighs that chance in. For Charizard (Skyridge) the best case after about $1,370 of grading and shipping cost is +$68,830, but only 15.2% of the copies in PSA's population report are 10s, so the expected result, valuing a PSA 9 at 40% of a PSA 10 and anything lower at the raw price, is +$14,636.
The sealed product table in this edition is identical to the July 2026 edition's, product for product and to the decimal, which means the 30-day sealed price changes behind it did not refresh between the two builds. Treat it as a stale reading rather than this month's sealed market; current prices are on the sealed Pokémon products pages.
The basket went from 6,288 tracked cards in July 2026 to 4,656 in August 2026. This report samples one snapshot a month; to follow a single card between editions, open its card page, where the price history is daily. Every figure above is in the JSON download below under the same free-to-cite terms, and earlier editions are in the Pokémon market report archive.
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Pokémon Card Market Report — August 2026. CardTrack, 1 August 2026. https://cardtrack.com/pokemon/reports/pokemon-card-market-report-2026-08<iframe src="https://cardtrack.com/embed/cardtrack-index" width="100%" height="240" style="border:0;border-radius:12px" title="CardTrack Pokémon Index"></iframe>
<p style="font:12px sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://cardtrack.com/pokemon/reports/pokemon-card-market-report-2026-08">CardTrack Pokémon Card Market Report</a></p><iframe src="https://cardtrack.com/embed/report?id=2026-08" width="100%" height="300" style="border:0;border-radius:12px" title="CardTrack Pokémon market report — August 2026"></iframe>Frequently asked questions
What is the CardTrack Index?
The CardTrack Index tracks the value of a basket of 4,656 liquid Pokémon cards, with sub-indices for Vintage (pre-2003), Modern chase and Graded (PSA 10). This edition it stands at 71.8, -8.1% over the past 30d.
Why are some big movers excluded?
Movers need a minimum value (≥ $30) and at least three contributing marketplaces, and any move beyond ±90% is treated as bad data rather than a real price change — 35 cards were excluded and flagged for review this edition.
Is vintage or modern doing better right now?
This edition, Vintage (pre-2003) moved -26.0% and Modern chase moved -3.5% over the past 30d.
Is a rising CardTrack Index a reason to buy Pokémon cards?
No. The index compares two snapshots of CardTrack's blended values, so it moves when prices move and also when CardTrack changes how a price is computed; this edition's -8.1% is a reading of those values, not a forecast. It describes where CardTrack's prices sat when the edition was built, not where they are going, and nothing in this report is financial advice.
How is the PSA 10 premium calculated?
It is a card's PSA 10 price divided by its raw (ungraded) price, and the table only considers multiples from 2× to 40×. This edition Gyarados ex (FireRed & LeafGreen) leads at 40×, $250 raw against $10,000 in a PSA 10. The multiple ignores grading cost and the odds of a 10, which the grading spotlight accounts for.
Methodology
The CardTrack Index tracks the value of a basket of liquid Pokémon cards, with sub-indices for Vintage (pre-2003), Modern chase (alt-arts, illustration/secret/rainbow rares) and Graded (PSA 10). Blended from eBay sold results, Fanatics auctions, TCGplayer and Cardmarket, updated daily. To avoid noise, movers require a minimum value (≥ $30), at least three contributing marketplaces, and any implausible move (greater than ±90%) is excluded and flagged for review. This is market data, not financial advice — prices can move quickly.