Awesome, excited for this!
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People paying what they want for a pack is not unethical. This is some crazy mental gymnastics/projecting onto more successful people who aren’t doing anything wrong. Pokemon collectors have a problem with falsely equating, “I don’t like something, therefore its unethical”.
Also its deeply ironic; the only reason box breaks are a viable option is because of their major success. You can only be the robin hood hero lower margin box breaker because the more successful breakers created that market & margin. Its an extremely liquid and viable process because of the exact thing being criticized.
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This reminds me of the comments of scalping on Facebook. Remember, these are non-essential niche goods, that nobody absolutely needs. “Scalping” is not the root problem, Pokemon is not producing enough to meet demand, which opportunists take advantage of.
For box breaks, there is no inherent problem with consumers willing to pay for cards on the secondary market.
Are people uneducated consumers that overpay compared to what they could? Yes. Is that a problem? No.
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Again, people can do whatever they want. I’ve not pointed out anybody in particular, I just think people are taking the general approach of max exploit. Like if you’re making $15-30k/mo in youtube monetization, another 5 figures a month breaking boxes and selling them out to people (while the youtube monetization comes from this content that they are paying you high margin for already), do you really need to be selling sealed product @ max margin & above market?
It’s a free market, people can do whatever they want but these people are the backbone of their business and core customers it seems egregious to me to need to take literal max margin from them at every step. ESPECIALLY when it’s just scalp city currently and genuine fans of the hobby are needing to pay up massively as every target, walmart, gamestop, even LGS are completely being sold out instantly and swept for crumbs daily. I’d expect these people to want their customers to have longevity, clearly at these prices people will run out of $ eventually as their $150-200/modern boxes don’t end up turning around profits (shocking). I’ve been part of multiple similar businesses from $0 → high 8 figure exits. You’ve already built a ton of loyalty, have a huge customer base supporting you… slow the customer burn down and give people a reason to stay long term.
I mean listen, I’m clearly part of it now (this is my current order amount ffs, I guess I’m deep in it at this point)
but I’m not even in this side of it because I wanted to be it just seemed that everybody was acting so irrationally and customers were blindly getting taken from hand over fist there had to be a space for a fairer market. And it probably won’t matter, much of it will just get scalped and re-scalped anyways but maybe it will encourage or be a forcing function for sanity. Modern popularity is driving much of the vintage boom we’ve all been fortunate enough to reap the rewards of, it seems that it would make sense for everyone involved to want that popularity to be something sustainable.
And yes Scott, I agree that the current generation of box breakers paved the way for all of this and they have reaped tremendous rewards. There is exactly 0 chance I become a full time youtuber or do box breaks full time, it’s never ever ever going to happen and I have no intention to, but I do think regardless of who they are there is room for them to show some level of compassion to the customer lol. I hope that they do, and then I wouldn’t need to do any of this. It’s definitely more work than it is worth, and I hope somebody who actually has a real following and intention to make it a career fills the void
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I’ve had this discussion as well I’m not entirely sure TPCi isn’t actually doing the most responsible thing. It’s impossible to know exactly how long the hysteria/passion for this all is going to last but I think they desperately want to avoid some junk wax era of the hobby being just completely crushed and so they are willing to pass off profit margin to distributors/retailers (and naturally scalpers) in order to keep the underlying product reasonably valuable and sought after. If they overprinted chase cards would be more plentiful, their price would drop, and general interest would likely wane, and if that happened before they re-tuned distribution down again it could have fairly brutal affects.
Then again though maybe they aren’t (at all), and are simply stranded by covid constraints and we’ll get infinite distribution coming soon. Time will tell
Just read this thread. Scott beat me to it. Since when are we supposed to be somebody’s mother and dictate what’s right or wrong regarding something that somebody wants to pay or sell stuff for?
Lee Steinfeld is going to be selling these exact same packs for 3.99 and 4.99. Does that mean the OP here is gouging unsuspecting collectors?
Here’s my idea. Let the market be driven by the consumers without criticism. They are more than capable of making their own decisions.
Finally, would I want to overpay for packs just for fun? Only if it was for charity.
Would I be more likely to buy the OPs packs for cheaper? For sure.
Would I rather buy Lee’s packs over the OPs packs? Sure.
Do I begrudge anybody for buying or selling as they wish? Surely not.
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@primordialaa, That explanation makes a bit more sense. Also I was just responding in general to all the comments, not one person in particular.
As most know who are in my patreon, last months overrated slot was “box break packs”, in relation to the tangible value vs personal. For example, if you bought a pack from whatever trendy twitch guy is happening right now, its giving you no further tangible value. Its entirely personal, which is completely fine. However, if you bought one of logan pauls packs, you are getting his normal ad rate (50k) at a bargain + a pack of the best pokemon set. Or, if you bought Steve Aoki’s packs, you are actually doing something ethical (donating to charity). Regardless, even the worst case scenario is still not actually a problem. Its just differentiating between different values.
In relation to modern, that should regulate with time + additional product. Champions Path is a perfect example. I wish I could have short that set. The etbs are now $50ish, plenty of availability + more being printed. For those who weren’t around during the Roaring Skies/2017-18 years, English Pokemon has no problem reprinting. Its just generating enough noise to get their attention, which has already happened.
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Can’t argue with any of this, and completely agree. In general I’m a very big proponent of free market and I have very pointedly avoided calling out anybody specifically. There is a hole in the market currently, and that hole is around fairly priced product. Somebody can make a KILLING, like a very good living simply by being a lesser version of the elite tier but being genuine and offering reasonable prices. Like in what world is 50% margin with near instant turnaround not good enough? It will all work itself out in the end, I hope people filling that void forces the best to draw closer to it over time. We’ll see what happens. Fwiw I would much rather have a pack from a gary break than from my own 
, you guys have earned it and that’s fine. It also means some people may get pushed out eventually if they continue to operate on a max greed / completely profit driven incentives. We’ll see over time
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And I’ll also say yea 100%, every take I’ve seen from you (channel and here) has been measured and reasonable with a heavy dose of responsibility towards the new people entering the hobby when almost nobody else seemed to be. I have ultimate respect for you for that 
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keep rippin them boxes fellas;)
What people want and are willing to pay are two different things. There is reason to question moral and ethics, this becomes subjective and ultimately an opinion. If the intention is simply to profit, it’s cut and dry. When people advertise a purchase as an investment, brand them self as educational while liquating what they say to invest in yes it raises a red flag for me on what exactly their intention is.
Call box breaks what they are gambling, so yes I have a problem when they use their likeness and influence to advertise it as anything less than a fun experience with a chance of getting something. Noting PSA 10 prices for everything just so in the moment so someone doesn’t feel horrible about losing their bet. Is there not any other type of information about a card rather than the cost in a condition it isn’t in?
To be completely honest it seems as you’re taking an elitism outlook on this as being a successful member of the community. No one is saying don’t make money. My concern comes to the state of the hobby moving forward with more money coming into the market greed is to follow.
This should be a concern, even at a small percentage… I’d say re-sealed boxes are a concern even at a small percentage.
vr
odds
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Buying booster packs at Walmart is gambling too lol.
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Yes and if you called that investing I would question your education of the topic. I think about all the people that are genuinely interested in investing, have a passion for Pokémon and want to be able to infuse them. We are not in a healthy market overall we are in a junk slap era and some people will be transparent call it for what it is and others will take advantage of people that aren’t as well educated. I’d personally rather say something so that kid has additional information. Yes let them fail it’s how you learn, but I’d rather not have them discouraged and leave the hobby all together. Is that not something I should care about?
At the end of the day this hobby needs the kids continuing to fall in love with Pokémon.
I’ll make it clear if you think this market is super healthy and everything will just continue to raise in price my point is null and that’s that.
vr
odds
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@primordialaa I 100% agree with you on this, and am glad someone is actually converting his opinions into acts.
The fact that ultimately everyone sells and buy at the price they want does not mean a bit more ethics into the Box break “market” would not be a good thing overall.
Good luck with your project! 
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Thanks man . Decided to go even cheaper and ended with $275/pack jungle and $325/pack neo rev. Going to open next Monday (12/21) @ 3:30 PST / 6:30 EST regardless of if it’s sold out. I’m doing at least 4 packs for myself per box but I’m sure I can be swayed up to 10+ if there is a lot left over 
, so there will be some pack opening action regardless. Hopefully it’s a fun one