I’m pretty new to PSA collecting, so here is a question that came to my mind.
In terms of price stability and safety, which of these versions of the same card has the lowest risk of plummeting in value? Or in other words: which one is the safest bet when I want my cards in a few years to have at least the value they have today?
1st Ed. English PSA 9
Unlimited English PSA 10
Japanese PSA 10
We are talking specifically about WOTC era (holo) set cards here!
My guess is on the 1st Ed. English PSA 9, because it has inherent rarity compared to the others and isn’t that reliant on a 3rd party opinion.
On the other hand, the PSA 10s are considered the “best” of their kind (at least as long as PSA keeps its good reputation).
Personally I don’t care too much about values and am not a big 1st Edition fan anyway, but I’m interested in your opinions
I think this question is way too broad to even begin to develop an answer. If you’re asking if we foresee a massive price crash in high-graded WOTC holos, I doubt that will happen.
There is no contradiction here. Value trends aren’t my main concern, since I’m a collector and will hold onto my cards for a looong time. But I care enough to inform myself about possible risks before I spend 100s of Dollars (in my case Euros).
You’re right in that it is a broad question, that’s the reason I came here to ask.
For example we could also take holo pull rates and opportunity costs of opening packs into consideration to guess how the Pop report is going to develop. Japanese packs are still fairly cheap and the cards are easy grades, so how is that going to play out? etc.
I just thought that topic might do for a good discussion.
To answer your question - I don’t think you can go wrong with any of those 3 categories. There will always be people interested in original English and Japanese WOTC.
I don’t really see any of them plummeting in value, but I wouldn’t expect to see a PSA 10 Unlimited Caterpie skyrocketing in value either. It all depends on what you enjoy and which cards you want to have in your collection. Collect what you like, collect what you can afford.
Heck, you could even sprinkle in a little bit of everything and diversify. That would be the safest best.
In terms of price stability and safety, best option is to keep the money in the bank
But really it just seems you’re looking for a little bit of validation that you aren’t throwing away all your money. Prices don’t just fall to zero, worst case the price on something you bought comes down a little and you would lose a bit of money if you had to sell. If you’re just buying these for a long term collection it doesn’t even matter, the value is inherent in owning the card itself.
Just buy which of the 3 you like best. No one can predict the future and honestly the safest answer is probably not even the best choice
There is an obvious contradiction between not being interesting in something at all and caring about other people’s opinion of it. If you’re about to spend hundreds of dollars on base set, then this contradiction is even more apparent. Even if Base Set has absolutely no emotional resonance to you, you still care about it as it relates to your money.
But there’s not much point in arguing over semantics, I understand what you’re saying.
Anyway… the answer to your question is extremely subjective and uncertain, but if I were to invest in one of these things myself it would definitely be PSA 9 1st edition English.
Or you can go with the extremely generic but nevertheless good advice: “Buy what you like.” (Which I guess in your case means not buying any of them!)
Dude, I think you got a little carried away here. Let’s skip the semantics, but regarding the rest of your statement:
I like all of them, but 1st Edition I like the least and Japanese the most.
Also I have neither any idea how you came to think I was explicitly talking about Base set, nor why you assume that I have no connection to it.
If you want me to be specific, I’m interested in cards of Neo Discovery, Neo Revelation, Expedition, Aquapolis and Skyridge.
Kinda sad that I have to get so defensive for making an attempt to start a healthy discussion.
You’re really in no position to tell me that I don’t appreciate the cards for the pieces of history and art that they are, you don’t even know me.
I hope we can go back to just being two e4 members that are at least neutral towards each other without bad sentiments.
BTT: I really would’ve thought there would be more to this question than ‘buy what you like’. It seems there isn’t, and so I’ll happily do just that - which is buying Japanese PSA 10s.
For any of those to plummet in value something crazy would have to happen which would mean all 3 variations plummet anyway. Also going to give the “buy what you like” advice, it’s worked well for me. If you truly like Pokemon and like what you’re buying there’s a good chance others out there do too.
@muk I’m sorry if I misinterpreted you. I had originally thought you meant that you don’t care about the cards you were asking about (1st Ed. English PSA 9, Unlimited English PSA 10, Japanese PSA 10) but you were nonetheless curious about other people’s perception of them. Again, to whatever extent I misinterpreted you, my apologies.
Maybe I was overthinking the whole thing, but nevertheless it’s comforting to hear that all three options are relatively safe. Now I can really ‘buy what I like’ whithout any doubts on my mind.
