I want to present a dichotomy I feel like I’ve been facing for years now, which is that everytime I think about starting a binder, the cost allocation feels like a pull away from buying absolute rarity goals and I feel like I might be missing something?
I have ended up in the mewtwo cave (as smpratte would say) for almost 5 years now as a collector, a lot of these cards have less then 3-400 estimated copies usually less graded. As a result buying them requires a of capital and a lot of patience.
I have never been one to be a completionist but really love the history and artwork pokemon has (with Kizuki as my favorite artist). But everytime I think about starting a binder, it feels like im slowly pushing the completion of my goals in rare cards away and risking their meteoric growth at times. Yet I’ve been buying a few 2-3 dollar cards over the course of the last few months and really enjoying them as singles. I’m also confused as I never had a binder growing up so I can’t relate to nostalgia there.
But for those of you that collect both, did you change your goals with a binder? Do u allocate capital differently? How do you decide what you want to pursue here?
I think if you’re filling up a binder with $2-3 cards and only buying one every week or two it shouldn’t interfere much with saving up for a big purchase. I love binders but the hardest part for me is always paying up for the binder itself when I think of all the cards I could buy for that money instead.
My TL;DR is: always stick to the age old advice of most expensive first. It’s usually the more boring route but the one least likely to end in regret later on.
The only binder collection I currently have is No Rarity base. I started it with a graded Charizard that I didn’t want to crack (not ideal for a binder collection) and so the plan was to buy another ungraded copy to later fill the gap. At the time, which was barely 2 years ago, low grade (PSA 1-3) were around £750 - £1500. Fine. I held off because I wanted to have fun fleshing-out the rest of the binder and scratching the itch of wanting to watch it grow. Besides, I could always go back and buy the extra Churro later. I didn’t anticipate the price skyrocketing in the short-medium term due to the niche nature of NR base. Problem is, it’s now later, and a PSA 1 runs around £5,000. It’s not out of reach at that price but I’m frustrated at myself since I could have had a much nicer copy for much less money if I’d just got it out the way first.
My collecting is paused at the moment because of home renovation, holidays and wanting various new toys, but eventually when it starts up again I will be sticking to the expensive-first route, even if it means binder collecting has to be put on hold for a while.
Why not create a budget? I’ll give you an example but you can structure it to fit your needs. Say you have $500 for pokemon every month. Put 20% into beat binder singles and 80% into that pokedude slush fund
I feel this dilemma very much. There are just so many distractions/lost in the fog (as smpratte would say). I’m on a similar path of saving for a larger “grail” goal.
Like you mentioned it can get boring…what I’ve been doing is buying cheaper singles every now and then to fulfill that collector desire. I don’t do anything as formal as Banks mentioned, but I think that structure is a good idea as well…so you dont feel like you’re deviating too much away from your main goal.
Binders are a great way of just enjoying the artwork without feeling that worry about condition/maximizing value. I put together a Japanese Vending binder and it was nice not worrying if this card will be a PSA 9 etc. Makes it feel very low stakes and less intense.
There are many cards I want that are very expensive and require some planning and patience.
But also collecting needs to be fun even if it isn’t perfectly efficient. I impulse buy things all the time and go on side quests and really enjoy them.
Does that make my progress slower on big cards, and make me miss the boat on some? Yup. Was the journey still fun and do I still have some great cards I’m proud to own? Also yup.
I think I recognize a lot of what you say and see myself having the same internal debates. I consider myself fortunate that my collecting goal has a mix of the chase and rarity aspect already in it which makes decision making slightly easier.
Unfortunately, with the way the prices are, it also means that I need to make the hard choices every week on where to allocate my limited budget. I have really spent a lot of time now with my binders and the cards in them and I (think) I have clarity on why I collect the cards that I do? Atleast I hope I do.
I just don’t spend any money on cards which are outside of my core collection goals anymore. Do I wish sometimes I had a binder of cosmos holo’s - absolutely yes. Does spending a few bucks out of my budget put a dent in my overall goals - probably not. But, even if it a few dollars, I always think, what if that same money helps me push that auction bidding slightly more in my favour on a card I truly want?
I have gotten extremely picky, even with auctions. I usually just add a bunch of cards on watchlist every week and evaluate which ones I need for my collection, which is really undervalued, and which has the rarity aspect linked to it. I still cross check every single card, if it can be sourced at a better price from Japan. I only bid in one or max two cards instead of bidding a little on everything watch-listed and spreading myself too thin. The undervalued aspect helps me go for expensive (relatively) cards. Worst case, I lose every week, but the more satisfying and best case is managing to win something that fits your collection goals perfectly.
Long winded way of saying, if you have a very strong collection goal, it is better to stick to it, save up the money and make that big purchase. It will be worth it in the end. Good luck.
You aren’t missing anything. Every time you spend money, it pushes you that much further from goals that you haven’t saved up for. However, we are humans, and we have to live our lives. Sometimes that means frolicking with collection side-tangents and forgoing expensive collection goals for other costly life events.
Collecting is supposed to be fun, and you’re supposed to enjoy the path toward completing your goals. Entertaining cheap cards that you like is a very reasonable way to find enjoyment in collecting while saving for a larger goal, even if it takes a small amount away from that pile of money.
It’s also okay to change your interests at any time. If absolute rarity doesn’t give you purpose and cheap/fun binders do, you don’t have to continue pouring your money and time into those expensive cards. Your collection goals should reflect your interests, so as long as you follow that, I wouldn’t stress too much about how long it takes you to complete them.
Don’t have much to add, but as the resident wacky themed binder page guy I’ll say that binders aren’t required to be expensive complete sets or anything like that. I have an existing roster of cheap Art Rares and commons I used to make endless binder themes. It’s what keeps me engaged in the hobby day to day.
This doesn’t stop me from buying the most expensive card first for my collection goals as someone else suggested. But I also don’t have collection goals that are as focused as some of the folks here.
I want to sincerely thank everyone that has left their thoughts on this question. I feel like the range of perspectives has really shown me how I really am able to do both if I set aside a proper purpose for each.
To @SolemnStar 's point, I think when buying expensive cards, I view it as an investment first, hobby second (or hobby in the exploration of sourcing, finding, and tracking the card prices/learning economics)
But the cheaper more available cards that I just find whimsical joy in are ones that I think I’d enjoy collecting in a binder. @hian_43 is correct, that if I’m not spending too much I’d find ways to particpate without impeding life or my other collecting goals.
I’ll try to figure out what a good budget is for myself @banks , thank you!
@mrbubbles i find myself in that conundrum of pickiness as well, and only for the reason to continue to have immense focus. I think your approach to tracking and bidding on cards was very insightful and I appreciated you sharing it!
Thank you for your thoughts @Dyl it definitely helped!
To the ones I didn’t directly tag, I appreciated your thoughts (just didn’t have anything to directly comment about) but I think the takeaway I’ve gotten from this is I should make a list of the types of projects I’d like to work on and what those cards could be. And then also figure out what my budget is for things so I can allocate and experience both the hobby side of things and the fun investment side I have already experienced/know to enjoy.
I really enjoy having a mix of both. The big things I’ve learned over the past few years is both my binders/raw cards and more rare slabs have been good investments if I’m looking at it strictly from what I paid to what I can now sell it for. The main difference being the PSA 10s of more popular cards have really ballooned in the value a lot, while the binders/raw cards have been more linear/steady growth and less volatile.
With the 10s I’ve bought over time, I really just wanted those particular cards in a PSA 10 because I enjoyed them and could afford them at the time. Now a lot of them are at prices where I’d have to sell other cards to even afford them at all, or I’d have to come up with money from somewhere else. Some of them I can’t even find for sale that often now, so I’m reluctant to part with them. The massive price increase is just a bonus to me overall, and for now they’re staying in my collection.
One big advantage to binders and raw cards I feel they are sort of ‘low risk’ and anchor your collection value over time. They’re still valuable and have more linear or steady growth over time. If you do sell any of them, you have a pretty wide buyer pool in that under $100 or $500 card range. A lot of people still like having NM or ungraded cards and you can simply get a lot more quantity of cards for the money compared to collecting high-value slabs or other more rare cards.
Popular PSA 10s though really do shine when the market moves up. They are sort of more risky in ways and can see huge price corrections in downturns, but when things come back up, they move up in a hurry as well. I honestly can’t believe the valuations swings at times, but it is what it is.
So overall, I’d really focus on collecting what you enjoy most. There’s really nothing wrong with either option and it’s good to balance the risk along the way. I’d be a lot less satisfied with my collection if I didn’t build up binder sets and would have got bored with the hobby only collecting the rarest/most expensive cards I think. I like having both.
To a limit, I also don’t care what my binder cards are worth.
I have an exception for my completionist binder (arita).
Otherwise, I do not spend more on cards than I feel comfortable sitting there. I don’t feel a need to be a completionist. I resolve myself with that. I get no gratification from it, but if YOU do, that is a different story, and that is a decision of priorities one has to make.
I also like this:
This i think is the best advice to address the question. Set an objective limit, and Track It. Then if it gets out of hand, you know the score, and if you’re good with budgets, it’ll keep you on target, and minimize regret.
But the age old advice is best as well, buy the expensive stuff first, or decide to pass early on.
I wish you the best luck and satisfaction in your collecting journey.
