Ehhhhhh, I doubt it. There were ~18,500 unlimited lotus printed. I’d venture to say there are >5x that many unlimited charizards.
I kind of doubt the Unlimited versions will ever see exponential growth like 1st Eds did. Most of the ridiculous growth for high end items occurred when Bitcoin was peaking. After that things leveled off again.
As for long term holding, Charizard is probably one of the safest items to invest in. However, it’s growth will most likely continue to be gradual over time. Personally, I think sealed product has the most potential for growth as a long term investment. Population of Unlimited Charizard will continue to grow for awhile but sealed product only decreases. Demand for sealed product has remained strong over the last decade while demand for singles fluctuates a lot more.
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First, I wanted to say this topic is a great conversation about things I’ve been thinking of for a while.
I am also considering Pokémon as an alternative long-term asset.
What is holding me back is the economics standpoint.
Especially the Demand curve. I think people are buying the cards for, mainly two reasons:
- Fun (Nostalgia, collecting, playing)
- Investing
I think it’s safe to say that the majority of group 2 evolves out of group 1.
My concern is how the demand curve will develop. Especially for the older stuff. From an investment standpoint, the older cards will always be more valuable. But from a sentimental standpoint the buyers will shift to different cards because that’s what they had in their childhood.Because we are still in the phase, begging the phase, where the generation that grew up with Charizard is getting the jobs and the money to buy these expensive cards.
So, my concern is that this demand will decline after the next 10 years~ because most of the sentimental buyers are not interested in that product anymore. Generally speaking, such a fragile asset that is based on pop culture and sentimental values are something that can lose a lot of value very quickly if the demand shifts.
I’m sure some of you had similar thoughts. I’m curious to what conclusions you came.
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Just look at the sports card market, and to a lesser extent Magic the Gathering. Pokemon is a brand that does a good job marketing itself to not only is current fan base but new ones. As long as the brand is strong there will be people interested in the cards.
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That is very true, thank you. My concern is not about the brand itself but the chase cards and the shift in price.
What are you concerns? That new product that people are playing with will not be looking to buy it in the future, aka newer product? Your original question doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Sorry, for not being able to voice it correctly. My concern is that the WOTC cards will not continue to see the exponential growth they did because a significant amount of the demand comes form nostalgic buyers and investors. And which time they focus will shift on other sets and the price will not increase as strong as it was.
How is Pokemon different than sports or any other collectible? All hobbies are driven by sentimentality. If anything pokemon has many more safety nets than sport cards. Sport cards took off in the 1980s, because of the 50-60’s generation. Everyone today would kill for the 80s prices of mantle rookies, and anything else from that era 50-60’s.
In short, this fear hasn’t occurred in other hobbies, with less advertising, and a much older crowd. 1950-60’s baseball is higher today than ever.
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Some quick points related to your concerns.
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Pokemon is still making games, movies, toys, cartoons & trading cards and is the highest grossing media franchise in the world ($95billion), clear of #2 by $15billion. As long as this continues I’m not worried about demand declining much as it’s just going to be adding more and more people to the market as they grow up and get an income.
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I’m also not too worried in a demand shift from stuff like base set due to the current generation not growing up with it. That stuff is the top of the mountain for most collectors and it’s not going to change. For young collectors these days they’re consuming content from Youtube, IG, Facebook etc that are all putting stuff like 1st Ed Charizard, vintage boxes etc. on a pedestal, they’re going to grow looking up at those out of reach items and the cycle will keep repeating.
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Fun post!
You won’t get bidding wars on unlimited PSA 10 cards. They aren’t rare enough.
High end items are are driven up in price by a few wealthy people that have lots of disposable income and they want a super rare item that other people can’t get.
Unlimited Charizard is not as rare as 1st edition Charizard so you will never get that same type of bidding war.
I believe this crosses all collectible genres. The rarest items have the most potential upside
this post aged well.
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@mervjackson, could have posted about nearly anything and this post would have aged well…
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