What if you bought 1st edition Charizard card in 2000?
Alternatives · Card. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play2500.0× · S&P 500 same money: $4,626
$1,000 in 1st edition Charizard card at the start of 2000 would be worth about $2,500,000 today — 2500.0 times your money, and ahead of the S&P 500 over the same stretch.
The story
The first-edition Charizard comes from the 1999 English release of the Pokemon trading card game's Base Set, the card every child in the schoolyard wanted. Most were played with, bent and lost; the value here applies to the small number in top condition graded by firms such as PSA, where a single grade point can change the price several times over.
For years these cards rose quietly among collectors. Then nostalgia met money: millennials with disposable income, YouTube unboxings and celebrity collectors pushed prices up through the late 2010s, and the pandemic triggered a frenzy in 2020-21. Grading companies were so swamped that PSA temporarily stopped accepting most submissions in 2021. Prices cooled after the peak but remained far above earlier levels. The appreciation is genuine, but so are the pitfalls: a thin market, counterfeit cards, condition disputes and auction fees, plus the knowledge that much of the value rests on a single generation's memories.
The lesson: Scarce collectibles can soar on nostalgia, but value depends on condition grades, thin markets and one generation's tastes, all of which are fragile foundations.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $100 | $2,500,000 | $4,626 | 2500.0× |
| 2003 | $200 | $1,250,000 | $7,727 | 1250.0× |
| 2005 | $400 | $625,000 | $5,763 | 625.0× |
| 2007 | $500 | $500,000 | $4,789 | 500.0× |
| 2008 | $500 | $500,000 | $4,626 | 500.0× |
| 2010 | $800 | $312,500 | $6,071 | 312.5× |
| 2012 | $1,500 | $166,667 | $5,312 | 166.7× |
| 2015 | $3,000 | $83,333 | $3,301 | 83.3× |
| 2018 | $10,000 | $25,000 | $2,519 | 25.0× |
| 2020 | $30,000 | $8,333 | $2,092 | 8.3× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2000, turning $1,000 into $2,500,000. The S&P 500 from that same year: $4,626.
Now try it without hindsight. The wheel decides the year and the asset class, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick, and we simulate to today. 1st edition Charizard card is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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