Hello everyone, I’ve been wondering about this for a while and I wanted to flush out more of my thoughts/questions by getting some more experienced input as I’ve only gotten back into this hobby for a few months.
To give some background, I was born in 1992, so I think I was in 1st grade when base set came out in 1999. My family never had the money to buy booster packs back in the day, so I would buy a few commons every week for $0.10/card from a game store. I recently found out when I pulled out my old cards that over half were fake (lol). But never mind that because the nostalgia and the good memories of Pokemon from both the TCG and the old Gameboy games have stuck with me ever since. Fast forward to today - I am lucky enough to have a job a few years after college and some disposable income with which I can collect things that I love.
I’ve seen Scott’s videos where he talks about my exact situation where people come back and spend money on the things they loved but couldn’t afford when they were kids. My question is more geared towards when this will happen in full force for Pokemon (or whether it’s already happened). Does anyone have any data or insight on how old the average collector was when Pokemon was in its prime in the late 90s/early 2000s? I’d imagine I was probably on the youngest end of the spectrum, but were many people in high school/college or older at the time just as into Pokemon? And if most of the people who loved Pokemon back then have already been earning money for many years, does this mean that a lot of the fuel of new collectors coming into the hobby has already been spent?
As a related question, I know that Pokemon is popular with kids now too, so how will that affect the hobby when this generation grows up? Will they be interested in the WoTC era at all? I feel like with so many forms of entertainment and distractions in today’s world, kids may not have as much of an emotional connection to Pokemon as I personally did when I was growing up.
If you got this far, thanks for humoring my ramblings This is probably my first real post of substance on this forum and would appreciate any constructive feedback for future reference.
TL;DR: Are there any good comparisons or data with respect to the age of collectors in a hobby to give indicators or timelines as to when Pokemon is expected to mature as a hobby? Has that already happened? I know this isn’t an exact science but I’m curious to see how others in the hobby view this topic.
Hi welcome to the forum!! In answer to your question of has Pokemon matured as a hobby? In terms of pricing probably not!! I cannot guarantee it will see a spike like it has over the last couple of years but aslong as pokemon is still in print and continues to be a healthy franchise I predict at least wotc product will continue to grow and be safe for the next 20 years as it will only become more scarce over the years and the mass of people who grew up collecting the WOTC era product will only have bigger disposable incomes than they do now, so the combination of limited product, higher disposable incomes and a healthy market i can only see things increasing over the next 20 years! In terms of long term interest in the hobby wotc product was experienced by kids in the 90s early 2000s which was also the start of the digital era making pokemon cards the last biggest connection to an era where kids didnt solely rely on digital product! which i believe is important for adults from that era who have grown up even into the old age to have something which represents their childhoods and pokemon does so well because of nostalgic purposes and you can never get that era back again considering we are moving into a a new one!!
I don’t mean to say that there won’t be new collectors coming into the hobby. I wanted to discuss more around the aspect of age. Was Pokemon a phenomenon that broadly reached all ages back in the day? If so or if not, does that imply a certain pattern or trend in terms of the pace of new collectors entering for the future?
A 14-15 year old kid walked into work with a fake 1st base Zard yesterday, they care and they’re interested in the wotc era. Kids love seeing old cards.
Pokemon probably reached a handful of adults into nerdy things in the early 2000’s or just pure collectors like Gary but it was mostly children. Now grown men and women who are CASUAL collectors throw thousands at modern product, grading and cards from almost every era.
It’s socially acceptable to do this in a public setting now. I know of people blowing their tax returns on modern SM and XY product… the hobby is very strong.
Look at PSA 10 Hyper Rare Zard. $400-500 for a card with a pop of almost 600 that’s still in print. Children aren’t the catalyst for that price.
Echoing what @budget said, I was buying some graded Base Set cards in person a few months back and a random kid, maybe 10 years old, walking by with his family exclaimed out loud, “Those are 1995 Pokemon cards!”
Even the kids that didn’t grow up in the WOTC era know about the legendary originals.
I know there’s a handful of users on here that weren’t even alive when Pokemon came to the States, let alone came out. When I tell my friends from school about it, they follow along with what I tell them and are especially impressed with the numbers. Some of my friends are cynics about it because high school aged boys are just mean to one another, but I know they at least respect it. They’re definitely at least a little jealous at the amount my collection has appreciated… lol. The more emotional side of collecting is a little foreign but they can at least understand what I’m talking about. We all loved the newer generations of Pokemon when we were younger. I might be one of the only ones who has continued with it in full swing (I consider the trading card game and, therefore, serious collecting to be one of the “deepest” forms of liking Pokemon), but several of my friends still get excited over the new main series games… oh and EVERYONE was getting together and driving around town when Pokemon GO came out. Some still do.
There will always be collectors coming into the hobby like previously stated. I for example am 25 but am heavily into muscle cars, my own personal car rolled off the assembly line 19 years before I was born.
Thank you everyone for your responses. So what I’m getting from a lot of you is that there is more than just nostalgia that drives a hobby. That makes sense
Everyone here makes some great points. I would add that some collectors, like myself, flow in and out of the hobby. I started collecting again from 2013-2014 and took a break until the summer of this year. It’s not that I would ever sell any part of my collection but I become satisfied with what I have and move on to other hobbies for a time. I’m slightly older than you and followed a similar collecting path. I do plan on introducing my future kids to Pokemon in general once I have them and they are old enough to appreciate it
The concern about you being on the young end of that age demographic is anecdotal if you are considering that anyone older than you has already returned to the hobby. One thing you have to consider is, maybe you just came back into the hobby earlier than most people older than you? Just because you are younger and are back in the hobby, doesn’t mean everyone older is already here. Or maybe they are here, but still in graduate school and won’t be seriously collecting for another couple years or something.
The concern about most collectors already making it back to the hobby really echoes the argument people make that PokemonGo was THE spike in interest. It goes something like, “everyone that wanted to get back into the hobby to collect their childhood cards is now already here and there won’t be much increase collector’s moving forward.” An argument like this is based on a huge assumption because it presupposes the idea that if people wanted to get back into card collecting and they didn’t with Pokemon Go, they must not be interested. My personal journey is an example of how returning to the hobby can occur at any time:
There are new collector’s from that age demographic trickling in every day. Sure, we saw a massive influx of collectors as a result of Pokemon Go, but that wasn’t the only boat, just a really big cruise ship. Pokemon Go was simply a giant catalyst, but not one that hooked everyone. I’m an example of one of those people. I remember when Pokemon Go came out, my whole office was playing and I didn’t even download it. I thought it was cool, but I’m a video-game snob and imo Pokemon Go was not a fun-looking video game when it first released.
It was only a year later, I was going through some old boxes and found my old card binder. THAT was what got me hooked. The main reason I liked Pokemon in the first place…THE CARDS. A few clicks online and I learned just how popular the hobby had become, quickly learned to grade my cards and now here I am.
My overall point being, just because those in their 30s haven’t come back to the hobby, it doesn’t mean they won’t return a few years down the line.
I think there will be a really unique sequence that will occur as we move forward. We’ve already seen phase 1 of this mechanism, let’s call it Phase Go. (Disclaimer, I made this up on the fly, I’m just considering ideas, this isn’t my dissertation lol)
Phase Go: College kids, fresh college grads, or new professionals are suddenly catapulted back into their childhood with Pokemon Go and many of them get back into card collecting.
Phase “Oh Yeah!”: This is an ongoing phase that pretty much never ends. This is the phase that brought me to the hobby, which is, sheer random “Oh yeah, my old cards! whoa pokemon cards are still a thing! I’m going to collect again!” Thru the “Oh yeah!” phase we will continue to slowly see new trickles of collector’s at various rates, seemingly by random realizations/discoveries.
Phase ~For The Kids~: This is a phase I think that we will see dominate the next 10-15 years. This phase will predominantly bring back serious collector’s who missed the Pokemon Go boat and never had an “Oh Yeah!” random moment. This phase will generally affect those people who now have kids who will be 8-13 years old in the next few years and beyond who fall in love with modern pokemon. Then, let’s say their parents used to collect, but never had a reason to really think about or pay attention to pokemon. So, their kid starts to talk pokemon all the time and suddenly the parent thinks, “well little Jonny, let me show you my old collection from when I was your age!”. Then the parent proceeds look up some old cards, only to find the hobby is booming and suddenly they’re a serious collector again.
Phase Pokemon Go Virtual Reality: This is the ultimate stage. Once pokemon Go is a fully immersive augmented reality, society will rely on pokemon cards as currency. BTC will be gone, fiat will be gone, pokemon cards will be how you pay for things. So better start collecting!
A bit tangential to the main topic but you can have nostalgia for things that were created/produced before you were alive.
My 11 year old cousin told me he wanted to open a Jungle box. YouTube allows kids today to vicariously interact with older product and that is a component of nostalgia. I too was born in 1992 but I have a strong nostalgic connection to the NES because my father had one and I played it quite frequently. It came out in 1985.
This is definitely eye-opening for me. I think I pigeonholed my definition of nostalgia and why people collect things in general to just my own experiences.
People collect for a ton of reasons. Even the idea of nostalgia isn’t binary. I am now somewhat nostalgic for the original EX era, even though I grew up during the original generation. That EX era looks aged to me now, and has naturally become more historic with time.
Also there are members here 10 years younger than me and enjoy the hobby identically. The general theme today is this hobby is mainstream. Any type of person you can think of collects.
I can only comment from my own experience and my local surroundings back then, but I was 14 when Base released and pretty much deemed too old for Pokémon by many. People back then seemed to base their opinion on watching the anime for a minute and thinking all that cuteness must be solely aimed at kids. The majority of my friends and family thought it was weird for me to be so invested into the card game, video game and anime. But at my local game shop, at tournaments and on the internet were people at least double my age who shared the Pokémon phenomenon.
So I would say things have changed; Pokémon definitely has grown and is accepted by many more people of all ages. Just look at the average age of a Pokémon GO player; It’s night and day compared to the early years of the franchise.
Good topic, an intro with just enough info (not dragging on) and even a TL;DR. Good job!
Hey! I’m also from 1992 as you and I was 7 years old when Pokemon started here in Finland so I was in elementary school and I have been a fan since. Also my situation used to be exactly the same as yours in a way - my mom wouldn’t buy me any TCG packs because they did cost 2 times more than a pack of TOPPS cards. So that’s the reason why I feel slightly more nostalgia for TOPPS than WOTC. But from ex-series forward I bought packs every time I had money. Until that point I just had to get singles from flea markets and so on.
I collect because I enjoy Pokemon and especially the creatures itself, I love the art on cards, I like the videogames… I’m more distant of the anime these days but I’m still a big fan of the first seasons and first movies of it.
And you are right @pkmnflyingmaster, we also had a NES when I was a kid and I feel nostalgia for it. It was the first ever console I played with. It was my uncle’s but we “rent” it from him for some time. Super Mario Bros. 3 was my first favorite game so it’s dear to my heart.
I think the oldest cards will always hold significant interest, even for those who weren’t around at the time they hit. Nostalgia is certainly a heavy influence for many including myself (I collect only first edition WotC because that’s what I grew up with), but even for younger collectors, I think people are frequently drawn to the classics after having interest captured by modern product. Video games are a good analogy–if a player starts playing Pokemon XY and SM and really likes the games, it would be natural to look back and want to experience the classics and play RBY, GSC, etc. I see this with all sorts of IPs (e.g., modern Zelda players wanting to experience OoT and LttP) and even genres (e.g., modern RPG players wanting to experience Chrono Trigger and FFVII).
This is probably my first real post of substance on this forum and would appreciate any constructive feedback for future reference.
