Every Charizard VMAX Card: Identifying, Valuing, and Pulling

There are exactly four canonical English Charizard VMAX cards across 26 months — the Darkness Ablaze 020/189 (August 14, 2020), the Champion's Path 074/073 Rainbow Secret Rare (September 25, 2020), the Shining Fates SV107/SV122 Shiny Vault VMAX (February 19, 2021), and the 2022 Charizard Ultra Premium Collection SWSH261 Full Art Alt Art Promo (October 28, 2022). There is no official gold Charizard VMAX — the "Gold Charizard VMAX SV107/SV122" listings you see on Amazon and Etsy for $25 to $45 are third-party gold-plated metal novelty cards, not TPCi prints, and not gradeable by PSA, CGC, or SGC. If you've searched charizard vmax in 2026, the SERP is wall-to-wall single-product retailer pages, two Reddit threads, and one DR-6 hobby-shop guide that lists four cards with no set codes and no dates. This is the four-print lineage that page wouldn't write. PullMarket — operated by SKYCOAST CAPITAL LLC — walks each Charizard VMAX printing chronologically, decodes the rainbow-vs-shiny disambiguation, answers the gold-myth in a dedicated section, and is honest about PSA-9-to-PSA-10 economics across the run.

Part of: Complete Pokémon Cards Guide — the pillar overview of every era from 1999 WOTC to the 2025 Mega Evolution Pokémon TCG.

What "VMAX" Actually Means (and How It Fits Between V and VSTAR)

A Pokémon VMAX card is the Gigantamax-evolved stage of a Pokémon V, introduced to the English TCG in February 2020 with Sword & Shield base set — every VMAX evolves from a corresponding V, carries upsized HP (typically 300 or more), runs one signature G-Max attack, and forfeits three prize cards when knocked out instead of one. That last trait is the high-risk / high-reward trade-off VMAX was built around in tournament play, and it's also the design beat that made the cards visually huge in collector form. Charizard VMAX cards depict Charizard's Gigantamax form from the Sword & Shield video games — the dragon-like flame-form whose silhouette wraps the entire card, which is why three of the four English Charizard VMAX printings (Darkness Ablaze 020/189, Champion's Path 074/073, Shining Fates SV107/SV122) share the same base Gigantamax art.

The mechanic-succession line for Charizard runs V → VMAX → VSTAR → ex: Charizard V (Darkness Ablaze 019/189, the prerequisite stage) evolves into Charizard VMAX, which was succeeded by Charizard VSTAR (Brilliant Stars 018/172, released February 25, 2022) and then by Charizard ex (the Scarlet & Violet–era mechanic that launched in March 2023). VMAX was the dominant Charizard mechanic from August 2020 to early 2022. For the V and VSTAR side of that line, see the parent Charizard set-by-set guide; for the ex era that replaced VMAX, see the Charizard ex guide.

Every Charizard VMAX Print, Side by Side

The fastest way to make sense of the Charizard VMAX run is one row per print — set, release, card number, rarity tier, identifier, current PSA 10 comp range, and the sibling deep-dive that handles each card's adjacent context. Every cell below cross-references Bulbapedia and the matching pokemon.com card-database entry, with PSA 10 comp ranges anchored to PriceCharting and PSA APR at the draft date.

All four ship from sealed Sword & Shield–era products. None of them is gold, despite what Amazon listings will tell you — see Section 7 below for the gold-myth answer in full. And the Rainbow Secret Rare is Champion's Path 074/073, not Darkness Ablaze 020/189 — that's the second most common mis-identification in the niche, addressed in Section 4.

Darkness Ablaze 020/189: Where Charizard VMAX Starts (August 2020)

Charizard VMAX 020/189 released on August 14, 2020 inside Sword & Shield — Darkness Ablaze (set code SWSH03), the third English Sword & Shield expansion and the standard 189-card booster-box release that introduced Charizard VMAX to the English TCG. The card is the regular Rare VMAX Holo — the standard Ultra Rare VMAX treatment for the set, pulled from Darkness Ablaze booster packs, Elite Trainer Boxes, and the Charizard V Battle Deck product. HP 330, "Claw Slash" 100, "G-Max Wildfire" 300 damage (discard two Energy). The art is the Gigantamax Charizard pose that becomes the base art for three of the four English VMAX printings.

• Set: Sword & Shield — Darkness Ablaze (set code SWSH03, 189-card expansion)
• Release: August 14, 2020 English
• Card number: 020/189 (regular in-set number)
• Rarity tier: Rare VMAX Holo — the standard Ultra Rare VMAX print
• HP / attacks: 330 HP / Claw Slash 100 / G-Max Wildfire 300 (discard 2 Energy)
• How to pull it from sealed: Darkness Ablaze booster packs, ETBs, the Charizard V Battle Deck — by far the most accessible of the four VMAX printings because Darkness Ablaze shipped as a standard booster-box expansion
• Value anchors: Raw NM $15–$25 in early 2026; PSA 9 $40–$70; PSA 10 typically $80–$150 per PriceCharting and PSA APR — comparatively the cheapest of the four prints because population is the highest

For the broader 2020 Charizard era — including Charizard V (Darkness Ablaze 019/189, the prerequisite stage), the Champion's Path mini-set lineup, and the broader Sword & Shield rainbow-rare run — see the pillar Charizard guide. For the 2020 hobby market context that pushed Champion's Path 074/073 into four-figure PSA 10 territory at the late-2020 peak, Sports Collectors Daily tracked the move in real time.

Champion's Path 074/073: The Rainbow Secret Rare (September 2020)

Charizard VMAX 074/073 released on September 25, 2020 inside Sword & Shield — Champion's Path (set code SWSH35), the 73-card mini-expansion themed around the Sword & Shield video game's Galar League gym leaders. The 074/073 numbering — card 74 above a 73-card listed total — marks it as a Secret Rare, and the rainbow-gradient foil treatment across the entire card face marks it specifically as a Rare Rainbow / Rainbow Secret Rare (Hyper Rare in modern nomenclature). This is the only Charizard VMAX in Champion's Path — there is no non-rainbow Charizard VMAX in the set. The set's other Charizard secret rare is 079/073, the Shiny Charizard V Secret Rare, which is a different card on a different mechanic and not a VMAX.

A critical product-distribution fact that almost no SERP page mentions: Champion's Path never sold as booster boxes. The set shipped exclusively through Elite Trainer Boxes, Premium Collections, Pin Collections, and the Charizard V Box product line. That constraint kept print runs comparatively tight against the booster-box-distributed sets of the same era, which is part of why the 074/073 Rainbow VMAX has held the premium it has — surviving NM-condition population is meaningfully lower than other Sword & Shield–era rainbow VMAX printings.

• Set: Sword & Shield — Champion's Path (set code SWSH35, 73-card mini-expansion)
• Release: September 25, 2020 English
• Card number: 074/073 (Secret Rare slot above the set's 73-card listed total)
• Rarity tier: Rare Rainbow / Rainbow Secret Rare (Hyper Rare in modern nomenclature)
• Distribution: ETBs, Premium Collections, Pin Collections, Charizard V Box — never booster boxes
• Cultural moment: the late-2020 Pokémon-boom card; the Logan Paul / NFL-draft-era hype card; PSA 10 comps spiked into four-figure territory during that window
• Value anchors: Raw NM ~$120–$200 in early 2026; PSA 9 $200–$300; PSA 10 typically $300–$500 per PriceCharting and PSA APR; Card Collective cited $525–$600 in April 2025, with the print trending sideways to slightly down through 2025 and early 2026

The Champion's Path 074/073 sits at the center of the broader rainbow-rare Charizard lineage that runs from the 2017 Burning Shadows GX 150/147 through the various 2019–2022 Hidden Fates / Shining Fates / Brilliant Stars rainbow prints. This article covers 074/073 in depth because it IS a VMAX printing; the cross-card rainbow lineage and the multi-year rainbow price chart live in the dedicated rainbow Charizard price guide.

Shining Fates SV107/SV122: The Shiny VMAX (February 2021)

Charizard VMAX SV107/SV122 released on February 19, 2021 inside Sword & Shield — Shining Fates, the Sword & Shield-era special expansion built around the Shiny Vault subset. Shining Fates packs 122 Shiny Vault cards in addition to the regular 72-card set, and the "SV" prefix on the card number denotes Shiny Vault specifically (SV107 = Shiny Vault card #107 of 122) — it does not mean "Secret Rare." The set was the spiritual successor to 2019's Hidden Fates, two years later and at twice the Shiny Vault count. SV107 is the Rare Shiny VMAX — the same Gigantamax Charizard base art as Champion's Path 074/073 and Darkness Ablaze 020/189, but with Charizard's normally bright-orange scales rendered in dark navy / near-black to depict the shiny variant, over the Shiny Vault foil treatment.

• Set: Sword & Shield — Shining Fates (Sword & Shield-era special expansion)
• Subset: Shiny Vault — 122 total Shiny Vault cards in Shining Fates
• Release: February 19, 2021 English (originally from Japan's Shiny Star V subset)
• Card number: SV107/SV122 — cross-verified against TCGplayer, pokemon.com, Bulbapedia, TCG Collector, and PriceCharting; some competing guides circulate an incorrect "SV108" number, which is wrong and gets the wrong card
• Rarity tier: Rare Shiny VMAX (Shiny Vault treatment)
• Companion shiny in the same set: Charizard V SV106/SV122 — the non-VMAX shiny V, the V-stage companion to the SV107 VMAX
• Visual ID: SV-prefix number, VMAX HP frame, dark navy / near-black scales over the Gigantamax base art, Shiny Vault foil pattern under the art
• Value anchors: Raw NM $50–$100 in early 2026; PSA 9 $100–$150; PSA 10 typically $150–$250 per PriceCharting (whose SV107 product page is the highest-traffic organic result for shiny-VMAX intent on the entire SERP) and PSA APR

The shared-card boundary contract with the sibling shiny guide: this article carries SV107 from the VMAX mechanic angle — how it slots into the four-card VMAX lineage, how its foil treatment differs from the rainbow Champion's Path 074/073, and how its PSA 10 economics compare with the other three VMAX prints. The broader alt-color shiny Charizard lineage from 2002 Neo Destiny Shining Charizard 107/105 through 2024 Paldean Fates "Black Charizard" 234/091 — the four-card story SV107 is one entry in — lives in the dedicated shiny Charizard guide.

SWSH261: The 2022 UPC Alt Art Promo (October 2022)

Charizard VMAX SWSH261 released on October 28, 2022 as the headline VMAX promo in the 2022 Charizard Ultra Premium Collection — the Sword & Shield-era flagship product, $119.99 MSRP, 16 booster packs plus a three-card etched-foil alt-art promo trio commissioned specifically for the box. The trio is Charizard V (SWSH260), Charizard VMAX (SWSH261), and Charizard VSTAR (SWSH262) — three never-before-seen art commissions covering the full V → VMAX → VSTAR mechanic line in one product. For VMAX specifically, the SWSH261 art depicts Charizard swooping over a moon in a gold-and-orange palette — visually distinct from the Gigantamax base art shared by the other three VMAX printings and the most graphically inventive of the four.

• Set: Sword & Shield — Promo (SWSH Black Star Promo numbering sequence)
• Sub-product: 2022 Charizard Ultra Premium Collection (Charizard UPC) — $119.99 MSRP, 16 booster packs, etched-foil V/VMAX/VSTAR promo trio
• Release: October 28, 2022 English
• Card number: SWSH261 (Black Star Promo numbering)
• Rarity tier: Promo / Full Art Alt Art (etched foil)
• Visual ID: New alt art (Charizard over a moon), gold-and-orange palette, "SWSH261" Black Star Promo stamp, etched-foil texture across the card face
• Cultural significance: the last canonical English Charizard VMAX print — Scarlet & Violet ex shipped in March 2023 and the VMAX mechanic was effectively retired from new printings
• Value anchors: Raw NM $25–$50; PSA 9 $60–$120; PSA 10 typically $80–$200 per PriceCharting and PSA APR; comp data is thinner than the other three prints because the print is younger and population grew rapidly through 2023–2024 as resellers cracked sealed UPCs

The shared-card boundary contract with the sibling UPC guide: this article covers SWSH261 as a VMAX printing — number, art, foil treatment, current PSA 10 economics, where it sits in the four-card VMAX lineage. The product-tier decision — UPC vs Super Premium Collection vs Premium Collection, what else shipped in the 2022 Charizard UPC box, the 2022 box's sealed-secondary trajectory below MSRP, and how the 2022 UPC compares with the November 2025 Mega Charizard X ex UPC — lives in the already-shipped Charizard UPC guide.

The "Gold Charizard VMAX" Myth (and What's Actually a Gold Print)

There is no official in-set gold secret rare Charizard VMAX print from The Pokémon Company. Across the four canonical English Charizard VMAX printings — Darkness Ablaze 020/189, Champion's Path 074/073, Shining Fates SV107/SV122, and 2022 UPC SWSH261 — none is a gold / Hyper Rare treatment. Shining Fates does not ship one (the SV122/SV122 slot in the Shiny Vault is a different card, not Charizard). Darkness Ablaze does not ship one (the only secret-rare slot above 189 is the Rainbow Rare, and that Rainbow Rare lives in Champion's Path, not Darkness Ablaze). Champion's Path does not ship one (the only Charizard VMAX in Champion's Path is 074/073 Rainbow, and the only other Charizard secret rare is 079/073 — the Shiny Charizard V, not a VMAX).

The real gold-treatment Charizard cards do exist — they're just on different mechanics. The current gold-Hyper-Rare Charizards include Obsidian Flames Charizard ex 228/197 (the 2023 gold secret rare), Brilliant Stars Charizard VSTAR 200/172 (the 2022 gold Hyper Rare on the VSTAR mechanic), and the brand-new Ascended Heroes Mega Charizard Y ex 294/217 Mega Hyper Rare gold-etched treatment that launched January 30, 2026. None of those is a VMAX — they're ex, VSTAR, or Mega ex respectively, on different card stock from different sets. For the full gold-Charizard-ex lineage including the Obsidian Flames 228/197 and the Mega Y ex 294/217, see the Charizard ex guide.

How to Identify Which Charizard VMAX You Have

If you've pulled, inherited, or are eyeing a Charizard VMAX and aren't sure which print it is, the identification path is solvable in six steps:

1. Read the card number in the lower-left card frame. If the first three digits are 020 and the set total reads 189, you have Darkness Ablaze 020/189 — regular Rare VMAX Holo. If the number reads 074 with set total 073 (card 74 above a 73-card set), you have Champion's Path 074/073 — Rainbow Secret Rare.
2. Check for the "SV" prefix. If the card number reads SV107/SV122 (Shiny Vault numbering, 122 Shiny Vault cards in the set), you have the Shining Fates print — Rare Shiny VMAX. The "SV" denotes Shiny Vault, not "Secret Rare."
3. Look for SWSH promo numbering. If the card carries SWSH261 in the lower-left and the set reads "Sword & Shield — Promo," you have the 2022 Charizard UPC Alt Art Promo — the only one of the four with brand-new alt art (Charizard swooping over a moon, gold-and-orange palette).
4. Confirm the foil treatment. Regular Rare VMAX Holo = standard silver-line VMAX foil over the art frame (020/189). Rainbow Secret Rare = rainbow-gradient foil over the entire card face (074/073). Rare Shiny VMAX = Shiny Vault foil with dark navy / near-black scales visible (SV107). Full Art Alt Art = etched-foil texture across the moon-scene art (SWSH261).
5. Check the art itself. Three of the four prints — Darkness Ablaze 020/189, Champion's Path 074/073, and Shining Fates SV107 — share the same base Gigantamax Charizard art with claws extended. The 2022 UPC SWSH261 is the visual outlier with brand-new alt art (moon scene, gold-and-orange palette).
6. Verify on Bulbapedia or pokemon.com if in doubt. Every PSA, CGC, or SGC slab carries a printed cert number that resolves on the grader's own website — PSA cert lookup, CGC cert lookup, SGC cert lookup. If a seller of any Charizard VMAX slab can't produce a working cert lookup, walk away.

What Each Charizard VMAX Is Worth: PSA 9 to PSA 10 Economics

Values across the four canonical Charizard VMAX prints sit on a clear tier system, and the single biggest variable inside each tier is the PSA 9 to PSA 10 spread — which on chase VMAX cards can stretch 2x to 3x. Every dollar figure cited here is a starting point sourced from PriceCharting, PSA Auction Prices Realized, and Card Ladder at the draft date (May 31, 2026). Comps move week-to-week — the Champion's Path Rainbow historically moves the most aggressively because rainbow rares track Pokémon-boom hype cycles. Treat the numbers below as range orientation, not a quote; values are estimates, not guarantees, and nothing here is investment advice.

Darkness Ablaze 020/189 (Rare VMAX Holo, Aug 2020) — Raw NM: $15–$25. PSA 9: $40–$70. PSA 10: $80–$150. PSA 9 → PSA 10 spread: ~2x; raw → PSA 10: ~5–7x. Grading economics: at PSA Standard service tier of $15–$25 per card plus shipping (psacard.com current public pricing), most raw copies are net breakeven at PSA 9; only a PSA 10 returns meaningful margin, and population is high enough that the PSA 10 ceiling sits in the low three-figures. The cheapest of the four and the most-pulled — Darkness Ablaze was a 189-card booster-box expansion, so surviving NM population is the highest of the run.

Champion's Path 074/073 (Rainbow Secret Rare, Sept 2020) — Raw NM: $120–$200. PSA 9: $200–$300. PSA 10: $300–$500 (Card Collective cited $525–$600 in April 2025; print has trended sideways to slightly down through 2025 and early 2026). PSA 9 → PSA 10 spread: ~2x; raw → PSA 10: ~3x. The clearest grading case of the four — Rainbow Rare with a comparatively low surviving NM population (Champion's Path never shipped as booster boxes), a clear PSA 10 premium, and a four-figure ceiling during Pokémon-boom cycles.

Shining Fates SV107/SV122 (Rare Shiny VMAX, Feb 2021) — Raw NM: $50–$100. PSA 9: $100–$150. PSA 10: $150–$250. PSA 9 → PSA 10 spread: ~1.5–2x. The SV107 PriceCharting product page is the highest-traffic organic result for shiny-VMAX intent on the entire SERP — the demand signal on this specific card is the clearest of the four.

2022 UPC SWSH261 (Full Art Alt Art Promo, Oct 2022) — Raw NM: $25–$50. PSA 9: $60–$120. PSA 10: $80–$200. PSA 9 → PSA 10 spread: ~1.5–2x. Comp data is thinner than the other three because the print is younger and population grew rapidly through 2023–2024 as resellers cracked sealed 2022 UPCs (which trade below $119.99 MSRP today — see the Charizard UPC guide for the sealed-secondary context).

Grading services across all four prints: PSA Standard service runs $15–$25 per card plus shipping at current public tiers (psacard.com live pricing); CGC (cgccards.com) and SGC (gosgc.com) sit in the same band. Card Ladder is the right source for trailing PSA-10 progression across all four prints; PSA APR is the right source for individual sale anchors. Treat any figure here as a starting point and verify the linked comps before paying real money.

Buy a Slab, Hunt Sealed Product, or Rip a PullMarket Pokémon Pack?

Three legitimate paths exist for any collector who wants a Charizard VMAX in-hand, and the right one depends on what experience you're actually buying:

A short, plain note on the third path: PullMarket runs a hybrid fulfillment model — every pulled card is a real third-party-graded slab, some held in PullMarket's own insured custody and some reserved against verified supplier and partner-vault inventory per Terms §5.5. PullMarket Gems is store credit, explicitly not cashable. PullMarket isn't a sweepstakes, lottery, or wagering product — the product is collecting and ripping real graded cards with the odds disclosed before purchase. The full operating model is on the trust & safety page; the rip → decide → vault / ship / sell-back flow is on how PullMarket works.

Closing: The Four-Card VMAX Lineage in One Frame

There are four canonical English Charizard VMAX cards across 26 months — the August 2020 Darkness Ablaze 020/189, the September 2020 Champion's Path 074/073 Rainbow Secret Rare, the February 2021 Shining Fates SV107/SV122 Shiny Vault VMAX, and the October 2022 2022 Charizard UPC SWSH261 Alt Art Promo. There is no official gold print. The Rainbow Rare is Champion's Path 074/073, not Darkness Ablaze 020/189. The Shiny VMAX is Shining Fates SV107/SV122, not "SV108." And the VMAX mechanic was retired when Scarlet & Violet ex shipped in March 2023 — the SWSH261 is the farewell print. Pick the print you want, identify the card you actually have, and chase the specific slab you actually need. The master comparison table in Section 2 is the map; the pillar Charizard guide and the sibling deep-dives (shiny, rainbow, UPC, ex) are the field guides for each adjacent angle; and the three buying paths — graded single, sealed product, or a Pokémon-curated rip on PullMarket — are mapped in Section 10 above.