Mimikyu Munch promo: PSA 7 to PSA 9 case study

The card is identified on its slab label as a 2018 Japanese Sun & Moon-era promo, Mimikyu, "Munch: A Retrospective," card number 289/SM-P. It is the card CardRevive features on the homepage as its headline before-and-after, so the grades and values on this page are the same ones already on the public record.

This case is published with the card owner's permission. As with every CardRevive case study, any certification number is withheld to protect the owner's privacy.

Before restoration the card was graded PSA NM 7, Near Mint on PSA's scale. The before photo above shows the card at that grade. As standing policy, CardRevive photographs and logs every card at intake so the baseline is unambiguous before any work is proposed.

The card had a dent and needed a clean; that was the scope of the restoration before it went back for grading.

CardRevive's bench is assessment-led as standing policy: a card is physically assessed first, and the proposed service, its material risks and the price are presented for approval before treatment begins. The exact products and steps are trade-confidential and scoped per card, so this page describes the documented outcome rather than a method, and it contains no repair instructions.

Two more standing policies apply to everything we treat: we never recolour a card, and we never sell work as undetectable.

After restoration the card was graded PSA MINT 9. The value figures published with this card on the homepage are A$2,800 before and A$14,900 after, a difference of about A$12,100, or roughly 432 per cent. Both figures were the card's actual sale prices at the time this case was documented (this page's publish date, above).

Read those figures with the honesty they deserve. PSA made the grade call, not us. Market values change, so those dollar figures are not a promise of what any card will fetch today, and not a valuation CardRevive underwrites.

Any work on a card is technically alteration. We restore and conserve, we never recolour, and we never sell work as undetectable.

The grade belongs to the grading house. PSA, BGS, PCG, ACE and CGC each apply their own current standards to the physical card and make the final call. No grade is ever guaranteed, and a past result never promises the next one.

Disclosure travels with the card. If you later sell or resubmit it, describing the work honestly to the buyer, marketplace or grading house is your call as the owner. CardRevive keeps private before-and-after records and helps you make that disclosure accurately.