When many speak of investments within the Pokemon sphere it tends to usually be surrounded around the Wizards of the Coast era, perhaps going as far as the fourth generation (Diamond and Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold SoulSilver), but never beyond Black and White era; I’m curious as to whether the newer sets will ever be deemed desirable as an investment despite the over-printing?
Primal Clash and newer got bashed by the POGO printing hype. But no one can answer your question unless they have a time-machine.
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Well that’s true 
One of the reasons why I’m curious as to whether Nintendo will ever release 1st edition variants ~
Secret rare Charizard from burning shadows has grown in price a lot in last few years, some FA trainer cards from modern sets got a boost as well. Btw I think that newest secret rare tag team Card from unbroken bounds can be a next big thing.
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Careful with the Reshizards as they will likely drop in price once they are no longer playable. There is certainly a premium right now since they are top tier in Standard.
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Unleashed, Undaunted, Triumphant are the money sets in the DPHGSS sets. Those three sets are just to unique to not go up in value at some point. It’s somewhat overshadowed by Call of Legends.
For the BW-era, I really have no feelings what so ever. It’s missing a lot of wow-factor. The gold full-art Zekrom and Reshiram (Legendary Treasures) are the only things that pop, but they lost their wow-factor a bit due to TCPi doing that style of card again in XY-USUM sets. Dragon Exalted might carry more value due to Rayquaza being in it and his popularity skyrocketed over the past few years.
Anything post-XY is burning money. Better to just find the gem cards and not the sealed product.
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I still don’t think you can say this as the core audience for S&M is still very young. I gave a Guardians Rising ETB filled with bulk to a kid and his initial reaction was to scream “TAPU KOKO!!”. You can’t compare it to something like 1st base but there are lots of hard to pull cards that will go up in price in the very long term.
Pretty much every set is going to drop in price when falling out of standard and at least slowly increase in price. People get sick of the last gen until it has a chance to become nostalgic. No one wants to open XY right now but they will someday. The price on any sealed booster box over time can vary but is a pretty good indicator of this. B&W booster boxes are $300+.
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I agree, but would you also state that Generations has somewhat of a limited availability (to an extent) given how they’re obtained?
Yes. But S&M doesn’t have many chase cards that really appeal to collectors. The Charizards only just appeared, there are little to none Eeveelutions, no Rayquaza and especially early print runs the print quality is just so god damn awful. For the younger audience; yes S&M might be nice. But my nephews (4-7) really like watching old Pokemon episodes more and without me influencing them they like Pikachu, Charizard and Totodile a lot more then Tapu Koko, Lycanroc and Turtinator. Maybe also because those names are harder to say but also because the series is so much different.
The prime reason why BW is hitting $300 is because there is printed less of it. XY-USUM has been printed so much for sake of playability and availability of so many staple cards that a box of Celestial Storm will not hit $300 for a long time.
Generations still packed in all XY and early SM box EX/GX boxes. Their print run really not that low (I can still find Shining Legends are retailers, until last summer Generations wasn’t hard to find either).
Who says people won’t want to collect all the Hypers, full art trainers and secret rares.
Little to no eeveelutions? Pretty sure there is a GX for all of them. Just off the top of my head, there are definitely an Eevee GX, Flareon GX, Jolteon GX, Vaporeon GX, Sylveon GX, Garedevoir & Sylveon GX, Umbreon GX, Espeon GX, Leafeon GX, Glaceon GX.
There is a Rayquaza GX in Celestial Storm.
Print quality being bad is only going to make the pristine copies more valuable.
Pikachu shouldn’t be considered an “old episode” pokémon as he has been in almost all the episodes. He’s the mascot of the franchise.
You can’t compare those new non-starters to old starters. Pikachu is always around and Charizard is a huge exception because he brings his own special hype. He also played a large role in the XYZ episodes and was showcased mega evolving and beating up everything in sight.
How much more of XY-SM was printed than BW? Look how many more difficult(~one per box) cards there are to pull in SM. How do we know that all those extra hard-to-pulls won’t negate any extra printing?
Edit: When Celestial Storm is 2,933 days old(age of B&W) it could easily be $300+. We have 2,594 days to go.
No. For an investment, you want items with the least risk of saturation.
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@rattlebear I totally blanked out on the Eevees than. Personally I think they’re the most blend things ever made and I honestly just sell them off asap. That’s why they leave no lasting impression.
But I think you’re going into niche collecting, not the set/sealed product collecting. And I think that’s what OP meant. Will product post-BW have any investment worth compared to DPHGSS? And to that my answer is no. All these specific collections can be completed without opening new product, because the cards are out there in massive quantities due to the PoGo hype and the rise of opening channels on YouTube. The pull rate of EX/GX/Full Arts also increase over the years compared to DPHGSS LvX/Prime/Legend cards. You don’t really need to crack open 5 cases to get all the Hypers and Full Arts any more.
Somewhat, but I just initially felt that the 20th anniversary collection (mythical, in this example) was somewhat intriguing, especially with the foil promo and the pin ~
Mythical Collection and Shining Legends are still out there. Two years after release I can still pick up Shining Legends at local retailers. And I still see big stocks of Mythical Collection on Amazon and other websites. As an investment I think these products are bad anyway, as a collector they’re cool to have one version of each for displaying.
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Derium was on something like 80 boxes of Unbroken Bonds opened and still didn’t have a single hyper Reshizard. It’s a big set but you would need to open a ton of any of these sets in order to get all the full arts, hypers and secrets. Opening product is never the best way to complete the collection but this is a good example of how much product you need to open in order to get one of everything. You would never get anywhere close to 80 boxes of older sets without completing the master set multiple times over.
Let’s say you get 1 full art trainer, hyper or secret per booster box. There are 26 of these possible in unbroken bonds vs. older sets that only had a few. Assuming they all have equal pull odds, 1/26 booster boxes is going to contain a certain big hit. Even if a set like unbroken bonds is printed into oblivion, these cards are gonna pretty rare compared to the total volume. There’s no way to know for sure but I find it hard to believe that they printed 8.7x more S&M than all the older sets. Even if they did print boat loads more you have to consider the value of the high end stuff to be spread across more cards. 3 chase cards are going to be more valuable individually but might not be as valuable as the 26 combined. The 26 are going to require many more boxes.
Interesting
I guess I’m just mulling over what I should buy ~
I’m definitely not saying new product is the best or even a good investment. I just think that you can’t look at hyper/secret pull rates and print run the same as an older format. Several pieces to the puzzle have changed and we don’t even have the actual print numbers.
If something like Hyper Reshizard is only 1 in 26 boxes maybe it has a lot more going for it than we think.
Say we have 3 gold stars in a set with all equal odds of being pulled. If they are 1 in every 2 boxes we can potentially get the whole set of 3 in 6 boxes as long as we don’t pull doubles.
Want the whole 26 set of fa trainers/hypers/secrets? You’re buying at least 26 boxes without a duplicate pull.
Collectors on here seem to only want some extra rare mega god pull charizard in every set. The internet makes everything much easier to complete but if you look at these new sets they are a serious challenge. Unbroken bonds is a whopping 214 cards(234 with secrets) plus all the reverses. This master set alone would be an insane challenge if you didn’t go online and buy them all in singles.
How easy does this make base set seem? 16 holos in the set and you get 12 per box. No reverses, no card rarity limited to one a box. Assume no duplicate holos and you could have the full set in 1-1/3 boxes.
The answer to that is simple: buy what you like, not what you think has value.
Do not buy Pokemon cards as an investment. Period. The money to be made has already been made and it was made many years ago by people who weren’t here for the money to begin with: they were here for enjoyment of the hobby.
If you want to invest in something, call up your stock broker or open up a retirement account to invest in your future. The first rule for buying cards is this, *buy what you enjoy.*if what you’re buying today is worth $0 tomorrow, would you still be happy with what you bought?
If not, then you’re in this for all the wrong reasons.
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If i had…lets say…a couple thousands at this time i wouldnt even consider buying new generation stuff…
My point of view at this time is simple: PSA9 1st Ed. BASES SET Holos market is fluctuating, but mostly down, PWCC auctions let people snag huge bargains on top tier cards; mostly vintage ones for incredible prices.
I’d play it safe and go for 1st Ed. cards…or WOTC Stuff.
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