1996 Japanese Base Set Charizard (No. 006): price, No Rarity version, fakes

The 1996 Japanese Base Set Charizard holo (リザードン, No. 006, 拡張パック) sells raw for about $312 to $399 and as a PSA 9 for $2,975 to $3,500, as of 26 October 2026; PSA 10 copies sold for $16,600 to $43,920 between February and October. Raw, that is the same price as the English Base Set Charizard ($379). One variety is a different animal: the No Rarity Symbol copy, where a PSA 10 sold for $1,700,000 on 3 March 2026.

What is the Japanese Base Set Charizard and why do people want it?

It is the holo Charizard from the first Japanese Pokemon card set, 拡張パック (Expansion Pack, 102 cards), which TCGdex dates to 20 October 1996; CGC says only 1996. The art is by Mitsuhiro Arita, and TCGdex records the card as a Stage 2 Fire Pokemon with 120 HP and the attack 火のスピン (100 damage, discard 2 Energy from it). Both are community database figures, not an official page: pre-2002 cards are not in the official pokemon-card.com database, so we have no official card page or image for it.

People want it because it is Charizard, because it is the Japanese twin of the English Base Set card at a similar price, and because one variety of it has set world records. The card is listed as No. 006, its Pokedex number.

How much is the Japanese Base Set Charizard worth?

Each line is a median of completed sales, a guide price or a range, with the sample and date. Prices move daily; read these as a late-October 2026 snapshot.

Condition explains much of the raw spread. In PriceCharting’s October sales, copies marked damaged sold for $120 to $300, moderately played ones for $190.50 and $405, and a near-mint-to-lightly-played one for $650. Look at the condition in each listing, not the headline.

PSA 10 sales are sparse and scattered: about one a week on average, the latest on 5 October at $43,920 and none in the three weeks since. That is why the guides ($26,000 to $27,000) and the sales range ($16,600 to $43,920) disagree. Neither source separates the No Rarity copies, and no listing title we saw says “No Rarity”; sales this far below $1.7 million are presumably standard copies, but we can’t confirm it.

What is the No Rarity Charizard?

The No Rarity Symbol variety is “missing the rarity symbol at bottom right” (CGC). Nothing else visual is described by CGC. It is far rarer: CGC had certified 123 No Rarity copies against 3,009 standard ones in January 2026.

The prices are in different universes. A No Rarity PSA 10 sold for $1,700,000 on 3 March 2026, and a copy in a case signed by Mitsuhiro Arita for $1,232,200 five days later (Sports Illustrated; the auction house was not named). Earlier, Heritage Auctions sold a No Rarity CGC Gem Mint 10 for $57,500 (September 2023) and a standard one for $2,520 (November 2023). If you think you own a No Rarity copy, look at the corner before you do anything else; a collector forum notes it is a weak tell on its own and that posters say the height and weight box is also wrong on it, which is anecdote, not a test.

Japanese Base Set Charizard vs the English Base Set Charizard

The English card is Base Set Charizard 4/102. PokeInvest’s figures on 26 October 2026:

Raw and PSA 9 prices are within about 5% of each other, so the Japanese card is not the cheap alternative it often is for modern sets: you are paying for the same Charizard in another language. The deciding factors are the version (a Japanese copy with or without the symbol), the condition and the grader. PokeInvest lists 103,122 PSA grades of the English card, but its Japanese figure (42) is clearly incomplete, so we can’t compare populations. Why modern sets price differently is in Japanese vs English Pokemon cards.

How do you spot a fake Japanese Base Set Charizard?

A vintage Charizard is a standing counterfeit target, and the evidence we found is anecdotal: in November 2018 collectors on a forum identified a PSA 1 Japanese Base Charizard on eBay as a counterfeit card inside a real slab, citing the holo pattern and the font of the “006” number and card text against a genuine copy. So:

1. Compare against a known genuine copy. The holo pattern, the “006” font and the text font are where the 2018 fake gave itself away.
2. Check the symbol. A standard copy has a rarity symbol at bottom right; a No Rarity copy does not. A card with no symbol is not worth more until a grader says it is a genuine No Rarity.
3. Don’t trust the slab alone. Look up the certification number with PSA, BGS or CGC and check the label for the set (Japanese, 1996) and No. 006.
4. Check the other Charizards. The Japanese 25th anniversary Promo Pack Charizard carries a 25th anniversary logo (CGC); it is a separate card with a separate price.
5. Check the price. A “PSA 9” far below $2,975 or a “raw” copy far below the $120 that damaged copies sold for deserves a second look.

The general checks for foil, edges and light are in how to tell if Japanese Pokemon cards are fake.

Where do you buy it, and does Japan save money?

We found no verified Japanese shop price for this card: a Cardrush search for it returned no listing, and we did not check any other Japanese source, so we can’t say whether Japan is cheaper. What we can say is what the trip adds. Shipments from Japan to the US have paid a combined 12.5% duty since 24 July 2026 under the Section 301 action (Holland & Knight), which is about $50 on a $399 card and about $390 on a $3,100 PSA 9. Japan Post EMS to the US costs ¥3,900 (about $25) for up to 500 g, with insurance on top for a card of this value.

Against US prices of $312 to $399 for raw copies, a Japanese seller has to be well below those prices to come out ahead. For a graded vintage card, the seller’s reputation and the slab’s certification matter more than a small saving. The cost build-up is in shipping from Japan to the US and the seller options in where to buy Japanese Pokemon cards. Readers outside the US pay their own country’s import rules.

We don’t sell anything yet. When that changes, our listing will be labeled, and the prices here stay what collectors have paid elsewhere.

What else should you know about the Japanese Base Set?

The set is 拡張パック, 102 cards, and its Charizard is one of the few Japanese cards of this age with steady US sales: PriceCharting logs about one raw sale a day and three sales a week at grade 8, across all graders. The rarity codes used on modern cards are explained in Japanese Pokemon card rarity symbols.

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