Blastoise

A steady hold rather than a flip. The mix of starter Pokemon, competitive pedigree, and a closed BW print run gives it a solid floor. Graded gem copies are the version most likely to keep climbing as raw vintage supply tightens.

High grades carry a meaningful premium here. BW Secret Rares show edge and surface wear easily, so clean PSA 9 and especially PSA 10 copies sell well above raw. The gap between a raw near-mint and a gem-graded example is one of the wider ones in the set.

Black and White era sets didn't publish official pull rates, and the modern Scarlet and Violet odds don't apply here. For reference, current S and V sets run about one Double Rare per five packs, one Illustration Rare per twelve, one Ultra Rare per fifteen, one Special Illustration Rare per ninety, and one Hyper Rare somewhere in the 300 to 700 range, with odds for one specific card running far longer. None of that maps onto BW. What's reliable is the structure: Secret Rares sat at the very bottom of the BW rarity ladder, well below the EX and Full Art cards, and showed up far less often than any standard holo. With two Secret Rares in Plasma Storm and no live print run today, the practical way to get this Blastoise is as a single, not from packs. Sealed Plasma Storm product is scarce and priced accordingly, so pack-hunting is an expensive route to a card you can simply buy graded.

Within Plasma Storm, Blastoise and Charizard are the two Secret Rares, the rarest slot in the set above the EX and Full Art cards. Against the broader BW run, it's a typical two-per-set Secret Rare, but the Kanto starter subject pushes its demand above many of its peers.