Wasn’t TPC bragging a few years ago about how they acquired a new printing company, to help meet demand? …Like wut?
Demand now is higher than it was a few years ago, to the point that it’s approaching covid times. We also have to enter the variable of Pokemon underestimating prismatic evolutions and not generating enough supply.
Scalpers are still prevalent to the point where situations like this happen, but I don’t think that this instance is a supply problem.
Code cards were added to make it difficult to weigh modern packs
however god packs are unique in that they are huge outliers in terms of weight
for example you will have i believe 7 pokeballs and 3 holos in a demi god pack?
and 9 SIRs in a full god pack?
something like this
its too heavy and will easily show on a scale as an extreme weight outlier
a single holo will be hard to detect and potentially irrelivent anyways (since there are all kinds of different holo cards these days) so it will be difficult to weigh packs in a hunt for an SIR
however when the entire pack has every single card as a heavy there is no way to mask the significant weight of the pack
I think if people are using Pokemon center to scalp product, they simply need to print more. Pokemon center always has been a last resort place to buy non exclusives since it’s generally more expensive
TPC is going to wait out the storm, like what Beckett did during the grading boom.
Seriously! Just print this stuff into the ground. They could take care of the problem immediately.
I don’t understand why TPC/TPCi is allergic to money.
Awesome. Hopefully we see it worldwide.
i think the decision is dumb
They do this in Japan too, but it’s more performitive than effective. It doesn’t alleviate supply issues. Resellers have no issue with resealing boxes from the pokemon center or selling loose packs on the secondary market.
Send me damaged product and I will claim my money back or at least a large discount.
Sorry but you are buying a sealed/closed/new product.
How much do you guys really want them to print though?
It was at least 1b cards per set during SWSH and people on here were calling the era junk wax.
If from source they came without the plastic, then yes it will affect all those buying for investment and reselling purposes.
IDK why it has become so controversial that cards meant for ‘trading’ and for playing the ‘game’ be actually used for that purpose instead of hoarding for resale.
When prices drop across the board, it becomes junk wax era again
I tried once or a few times to ask what amount of a card is ‘too much’. Can’t remember if I even got any answers.
Imagine if they just printed more and made sets have longer shelf life
It’s really simple. Pokemon should print enough product so that the most recent sets are available for retail price for a reasonable amount of time (like 2 years). Demand should set how much they should print, not some arbitrary number of cards. Clearly, whatever they are printing now is not enough.
Pokemon Centers in Japan have been taking the shrink wrap off some products for awhile, so we actually know the results. Demand for sealed boxes doesn’t go down, prices don’t go down, sealed is still accessible on the secondary market but often just costs more. Scams go up because visible differences between a repacked box and a “shrink removed” box are few and far between.
Moralizing arguments about what Pokemon cards (or any other commodity) “should” be used for are frankly irrelevant. Buying Pokemon cards shouldn’t be okay if you are thinking one thing, but wrong if you’re thinking another. It’s like demanding that Ferrari only sell cars to people who intend to drive them 100,000 miles. Regardless, this point assumes that current demand is being driven by sealed resellers. It clearly isn’t, because those resellers can only operate in an environment where items sell for more on the secondary market because of a supply/demand imbalance. There were no resellers in early SV because printing and demand were balanced. We had this argument in 2021, resellers disappear whenever their model isn’t economically feasible.
This is amateur hour. They’re the ones making the product and control the supply.
They’re just trying to increase hysteria with useless one way arrows down the grocery stores.
It can’t be both junk wax era and they aren’t printing enough at the same time. Tbf, I should clarify by saying that ‘junk wax’ was an E4/Youtube talking point. The subreddits have been complaining about not enough throughout.
I still remember people saying SWSH era chase cards were too common and therefore modern was not worth collecting. Now what’s the difference? Both SWSH and the start of SV - or really all of SV up to the last boom - had their seasons of no one buying. Just because prices are up, are they now worth collecting? All I’m doing is pointing out the hypocrisy.
What I’m saying is TPC aren’t printing cards so that everyone can buy to not open them. Let’s not pretend that that is an objective of the company. Furthermore, the ratio of those who are keeping it sealed for personal enjoyment vs those doing so for monetary purposes/social media influenced must be 1:1000 or worse. The 1 is always used to defend the 1000+ on here and elsewhere.
What does any of this have to do with taking the shrink wrap off of products? I’m not really sure where you’re going here. First, next to nobody is calling this era junk wax. Outside of yourself, there are like 2 people on E4 who have unironically referred to modern as junk wax in the last 3 years. Most well-informed discussion on E4 has centered around the idea that print numbers don’t matter anymore as long as demand is high, which it is.
Also, nobody is arguing that modern isn’t worth collecting. People on E4 may talk about the increased risk of modern cards given the level of printing, most everyone here agrees that modern is great. Some people might not personally like modern cards, but nobody is talking it down. There is no hypocrisy to point out.
I would agree that there’s a big increase in people keeping sealed product as an investment. However, there’s also a huge increase in openings via rip-and-ship businesses. Regardless, as I’ve mentioned before, why does it matter if people are keeping items sealed for investment? That’s a perfectly legitimate way to enjoy Pokemon cards, and is not morally worse than buying cards to open.
I may have been one of those calling for a junk wax era a year ago or so. Pocket and the continued use of rip n ship changed that quickly.
@bk2021 junk wax era refers to 80s baseball cards where every year the sets were massively overprinted. People thought the demand for 40s and 50s baseball cards was just an age thing, not the fact that everyone put their 52 Mantle in their bicycle spokes to make their bike sound cool. It’s similar to vintage Pokemon. We all played with the cards and our moms or aunts threw our childhood cards away. That is why vintage is valuable. Otherwise it wouldn’t be because it was printed heavily as well.