One in five cards moved 20% in nine weeks. At every price.
By the person who runs Giraffe Trendz · October 2, 2026 · 5 min read
I assumed expensive cards were the stable ones. A $300 card feels like it should hold still, and a 50 cent card feels like noise. So I measured it. I took every Near Mint card with a price on both July 30 and October 1, about 60,000 of them, and sorted them by what they cost at the start.
| Starting price | Cards | Moved more than 20% | Went up | Did not move at all |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1 | 29,018 | 25% | 53% | 15% |
| $1 to $5 | 13,996 | 17% | 52% | 16% |
| $5 to $20 | 9,811 | 20% | 57% | 15% |
| $20 to $100 | 5,834 | 21% | 61% | 14% |
| $100 and up | 1,573 | 20% | 56% | 24% |
That middle column is the surprise. Past the bulk bin, it's basically flat. About one card in five moved more than 20% in nine weeks, whether it cost $3 or $300.
Why the expensive ones are not calmer
Look at the last column. A quarter of the cards over $100 didn't change by a single cent in nine weeks. That's not stability. That's nobody buying one. When a card sells twice a quarter, its price is whatever the last buyer paid, and the next sale can land anywhere.
So an expensive card does one of two things. It sits completely still, or it jumps. There isn't much in between.
The jumps can be ridiculous
Here are real ones from the same nine weeks. A reverse holo Mewtwo from EX Delta Species went from $100 to $1,050. A Rayquaza from Call of Legends went from $107 to $1,013. Going the other way, a 1st Edition Dark Charizard from Team Rocket went from $444 to $122.
Do I believe that Mewtwo is now a thousand dollar card? No. I believe one copy sold for about that, or a listing got picked up as a sale. One data point moved the number. The card didn't get ten times more wanted in two months.
How I read a big move now
- Check how often the price changes at all. If it has been flat for weeks and then jumps, that is one sale talking.
- Look at the other conditions of the same card. If Lightly Played didn't move, the Near Mint jump is probably a one-off.
- Look at the rest of the set. A real move usually drags its neighbors with it.
- Wait a week. A real repricing holds. A fluke drifts back.
One more thing in that table. The share that went up climbs with price, from 52% in the $1 to $5 range to 61% in the $20 to $100 range. So mid-priced cards were the best place to be over these nine weeks. Not the cheapest, not the grails.
Every card page here shows the full price history for each condition, which is the fastest way to tell a trend from a single sale. Pull one up in Analyze and look at how often the line actually moves.
Keep Reading
- Old sets went up. New sets went down. Here is how lopsided it was.Nine weeks of nightly prices across 184 sets: 119 rose, 34 fell, and almost every faller was printed in the last two years.
- Japanese or English? The same Pokémon is not the same price.For 130 of 153 Pokémon, the typical English card costs more than the typical Japanese one. Umbreon is the widest gap. Pikachu is one of the few exceptions.
- Which Pokémon carry the market? I added it up.One copy of every Near Mint card, summed by Pokémon. Charizard and Pikachu lead, but they are not the ones growing fastest.
Market reporting, not financial advice. See how the numbers are gathered.