Thoughts on the obscure art academy cards? For those that don’t know they were awarded to the winners of the art academy contest on Nintendo DS and only 100 copies of each art were produced given to the winners.
Would these cards be a good investment considering the low amount produced? The most recent podcast that found Scott and his buddies made mentioned that the Snap poliwag might be a poor investment choice due to how obscure it was so I was wondering if that might also apply in this scenario even though its 100 copies vs 20.
AA cards can vary pretty heavily from $120 to $600 ungraded, so you can overpay by buying one for $500 and lose “value” over two years yet gain some value over ten years. So some important aspects are the cost of entry and the term.
A lot else depends on the particular artists’ artwork and how much people like it More obscure cards can be more valuable… for instance the copies that were sparsly distributed by the artist, some not even at all. So as you can see there are a lot of factors… too many to make any well founded estimation.
When asked whether some cards are a good “investment” I usually try to assume they mean to say “will I lose money?”. In the general scheme of “things” I always recomment collecting what you enjoy over what you feel you would gain a return. The best aspects of the hobby are experienced when collecting what you enjoy most!
I would disagree that the snap poliwags are a bad investment. They were selling for around 300,000yen give or take at the time. There are only 20 copies available and many are now unlikely to surface for a while. Then you have the recent sale of the 3 starter snaps going for 1,500,000yen and 1,600,000yen. A snap poliwag will never sell for 300,000yen or under again I can assure you that lol
The problem with snap cards in general is they haven’t actually grown much, if at all. 8 sold in the early 2000s for more than what most have sold today. The prices were between £4,250-£11,000.
Outside of the starters which recently sold, all snap cards have yet to grow, especially the poliwag. Sure, how they were put to market wasn’t ideal. Every flipper and their dog flipped that card, with negligible profit. This process turned people off to the cards as well.
Objectively speaking, snap cards are not an investment. Most have yet to catch up to earlier sales, and the recent starters that sold maybe earned slightly higher or matched the previous sales mentioned. They have always been niche for a number of reasons. That doesn’t mean they aren’t rare or collectible, but since their release almost 20 years ago, the prices haven’t moved, and have declined for most.
Again I would disagree, snap cards have risen dramatically in price in almost every instance, a Koffing sold for I think it was $650! on Yahoo Japan several years ago, today you might be able to sell that card for 10x as much.
There was another Squirtle that sold in 2015 on Yahoo Japan for much less than this current sale of 1,500,000Yen (I am not sure of the exact price but I think it was $3000 apologies if I am incorrect).
Personally the price I paid for my Gyarados is much less than what it’s value is today, also a few other Gyarados have sold over the years I know of two sales one around $2700 and another around that price on Yahoo Auction; recently we had that mint ungraded copy sell for 784,000Y.
That private sale is the only instance of snap cards potentially declining in price. I would agree that in that instance it seems those prices are high but we do not know the details behind which cards etc. £4,250 for a Pikachu is a bargain but Poliwag not so much.
Those Mandarake auctions with the sale of those ungraded trophies including the 100k+ raw Illustrator if they were legit is a terrible investment, but that one sale does not mean that Illustrators and those neo trophies are bad investments in themselves just like the private sale of those snaps in 2000.
I have never seen a public sale of a snap card that over the years has lead to a decline in price. Potentially these starters might be a sort of ceiling but only time will tell especially if more come to market but overall snap cards have risen dramatically, if I hadn’t jumped in to buy my Gyarados I probably wouldn’t be able to afford it now.
I know the details of the sales mentioned. The highest (£11,000) was the pikachu. The snap poliwag earned more in that 8 card sale than today. The starters were higher on the range, as well as chansey’s fat butt for some reason.
The individual(s) who purchased those 8 snap cards have yet to see a return in almost 20 years. Leaving that money in an account with an abysmal 1% would yield a better return, and qualify as a better investment. Objectively speaking, the cards have not been good investments for almost the past 2 decades. Sure, the one person who bought the koffing in the mid hundreds is fine. But that would be the best scenario for these cards. There were so many better options from that time in the market to purchase.
That is only one instance of a private sale and yes that person(s) probably made a bad investment but to say all snap cards are bad investments regardless of price paid isn’t valid IMO.
The first public sale of the Illustrator was $20k (not sure of the date was it 1999/2000?), if that card is in played condition that is a bad investment given the time you would likely not get much more than your initial investment and you could have bought mulltiple 1st ed boxes/ Charizards etc etc. Just looking at that sale I would not say overall Illustrators are bad investments it just depends how much you pay. Especially since in the late 2000s early 2010s ungraded Illustrators were going for under or at around 10k on Yahoo Japan
I would agree however that the PSA 6 and equivalent ungraded Poliwag’s out there may prove to be less effective investments as other similarly priced cards, but overall the desire to complete the whole set will hopefully ensure that even poor Poliwag will see some growth
I get what you are saying with the illustrator analogy, that does have some relevant parallels! However even with graded snaps there has yet to be a premium. Grading is a new element that can change things a bit.
Following that illustrator analogy, which I think is solid, the most recent sale for a psa 6 was 60k. Where the last graded snap, the poliwags, were all less than what it previously earned.
The main struggle for snaps is their release. At least with art academy 100 is more of a reason to sell/trade, therefore more market activity. Where some of the snaps have a handful of sales at best, most-all private.
I like the cards, but I think they have a cautious demand. They appear so infrequently that when they actually pop up for sale, people are hesitant to buy. Where with a more established item, people are more comfortable pulling the trigger.
