On August 25, 2026 we rebuilt our vintage graded prices from individual eBay sold listings instead of trusting aggregated medians, and one number stopped us cold. Fossil Zapdos in PSA 9, quoted at $479.50 across the market on 192 recorded sales, is actually a $120 card. Not because the market moved. Because the aggregate pools every printing sold under one product listing, and the 1st Edition printing, which is several times scarcer and several times pricier, is in there with the Unlimited one. Of the provider's 192, our verified Unlimited median stands on 75. We do not publish a split of what the other 117 were: the verifier rejects scarcity-printing claims, wrong names, wrong collector numbers, lots and reprints together, and we did not record which reason fired on which listing.
One product id, three different cards
Marketplaces file every printing of a WOTC era card under one product. Fossil Zapdos Unlimited, and Fossil Zapdos 1st Edition, which is several times scarcer and several times pricier, both sell as the same item. When an aggregator computes a median over those solds, it blends two populations with different true prices. The result lands between them, describing neither. Base Set cards are worse: Shadowless and 1st Edition make it three populations under one number.
The distortion is not uniform, which is what makes it dangerous. Fossil Moltres PSA 9 carried the same disease, 194 mixed sales, but its blend read $201.38 against a verified Unlimited price of $199.99: almost no distortion, because far fewer 1st Edition Moltres copies happened to sell in the window. You cannot eyeball which quotes are poisoned. You have to verify the listings.
Mixed median vs printing-verified median, PSA 9, August 2026
| Card | Mixed median | Verified Unlimited | Distortion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zapdos, Fossil | $479.50 (n=192) | $120.00 (n=75) | +300% |
| Moltres, Fossil | $201.38 (n=194) | $199.99 (n=72) | +0.7% |
| Umbreon, Neo Discovery | $277.75 (n=41) | $252.75 (n=38) | +9.9% |
How we fixed it
Every sold listing now runs through the same comp verifier our card pages use. A listing counts toward the Unlimited median only if its title does not claim a scarcity printing: an unmarked listing means the base printing, and 1st Edition or Shadowless counts only when the seller claims it. Wrong card names, wrong collector numbers, lots, and reprints are rejected before the median is computed. The medians on this site are our own, built from listings verified to be the exact card and printing named.
Data: individual eBay sold listings for Fossil and Neo Discovery PSA 9 slabs, August 2026, verified per listing by title against card name, collector number, set, and printing claims. Mixed medians are the provider aggregates we retired on August 25, 2026, and the three of them are our recorded August 19, 2026 snapshots; the verified medians are our August 25, 2026 snapshots. Sample sizes shown inline. The verifier does not record a reason code per rejected listing, so this piece states how many listings survived verification and does not attribute the shortfall to any one cause. A recheck on September 21, 2026 reads Zapdos $123.50 on 77 sales, Moltres $200.00 on 77 and Umbreon $260.00 on 39, so the rebuilt numbers have held.