Welcome to Pokemon 2021, where sneaker group hype beasts with $8,000 bots secure more shining fates ETBs than a local TCG shop could ever dream of getting in the first wave! So many horror stories of small shops losing loads of money refunding people because their distributor canceled their entire SF order. Only for these guys to buy out an entire store’s worth in a few minutes online
Good thing there are better things to buy lol. I can’t really be bothered with modern english sealed right now. If sneaker flippers who know nothing about pokemon are buying it, it’s probably something to avoid.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens as these cards come on the market… will people pay a ton or will they just wait? The scalpers will need to get their money back at some point to move into the next endeavor.
In all seriousness though, I’m not going to worry about it too much. Yeah I want two ETBs, one to open for the promo and have fun, and then a second for my sealed collection. I’m just going to be patient and hope to pick them up if I’m lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time at a retail store. I’ve decided that it’s not worth it for me to spend $150 on an ETB online or fight the Target/Walmart crowds in person when there are so many other great cards I’m still chasing for my binders, mostly from the “semi-vintage” era.
That’s where my focus has been all week. I’m working on several WOTC master sets and three of which are very near completion. Ended up grabbing a lot of Team Rocket, Jungle and Black Star promos. Felt good to buy them, as opposed to the feeling of seeing empty displays every time I go out for modern product.
People with money will always pay. It will be a hard case of FOMO for most who are buying. I can draw parallels with PS5 when they launched. A console with a couple of launch titles was going for 3x / 4x the price and is still being scalped today and sold at inflated prices due to the shortage of supply. People can be very impatient, and the scalpers know whom to target.
Simply a sign of huge demand compared to the supply. My guess is the prices are going to go even higher once the initial supply drop is released. From what I’ve heard there will be the initial release with 50% of the stock then subsequent waves will be like 10% of the supply over a series of waves. So once that initial supply is sold, prices will start moving higher again and the subsequent waves will be too small to satisfy demand. Also keep in mind that we haven’t even got the additional $1,400 stimulus from the feds so that will likely put even more demand on pokemon TCG in the short-term. SF is likely to be HF 2.0 until the 25th aniv set is released.
Anyone buying anything for any reason in any quantity for any amount is the sign of a healthy hobby.
It is only when we pause for a single moment to stop and think about what we’ve done that everything will be ruined and Pokemon will be gone forever.
Buy. Buy. Buy. Buy. Buy. Buy. Buy. If you aren’t thinking “buy” right now there is something wrong with you. Buy. Buy. Buy. This media property is your life and livelihood–stop thinking about all other things and just think about buying. Buy.
So I’m in Walmart, standing in the women’s clothing section. Been here way too long to not have my masculinity brought into serious question. There’s a dude scoping out the Pokemon section from the bathrooms on the opposite side of the isle. He must be a pro scalper. Much better vantage point than mine. All I can think about is how stupid this all is, but it is about the only way to get product anymore. Base set wasn’t this hard to get when it was in print! What the hell has Pokemon become?
Hell, Base Set was easy as shit to get for like 10+ years after it was released lol.
The current scalping situation is just a symptom of the fact that the supply chain is completely screwed up right now. When all of that gets back to normal, TPCi will have zero problem meeting all of the demand.
It’s undeniable there is a lot of demand, but this, imho this particular instance is somewhat artificial demand. The way it works is some head honchos of these groups, who resell everything - not just pokemon - say “This is going to be hot, you should buy all of it”. and people just blindly listen. It’s not like the botters are buying these because they want to open, because they understand the market deeply, or anything like that. It’s purely because they can, and it will resell.
True demand is shown in the resale price if you ask me. If people are willing to buy at $100 then that shows the true market value (like it or not).