As someone with degrees in Economics here is my hot take…
Maybe, but maybe not.
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While overall pokemon card popularity may have spiked, the 1st edition zard and other limited quantity vintage items do not fluctuate on the same scale as the rest of the pokemon cards. I don’t think you’re going to see any shadowless items pop like a bubble, because not only are there no more of them being created, many of them have been sucked up into collections already.
It’s the not so limited quantity stuff printed everywhere in massive quantities that has the biggest chance to go down the most. From reading this thread, I’m not sure the OP should have given the impression that the 1st ed zard represented the market as a whole. If anything pops it won’t be the high end stuff…
The 1ed zard and her owners are the same as other high end collections out there. The market is mostly for them, and the inflation is driven by them. For this reason the 1st edition Zard is now in their control and the bubble can only pop in their world.
A similar effect is what drives rare errors collection prices, because someone legitimizes the items value by purchasing it for that amount.
Here’s the thing, though: while there may be over 100 examples of PSA 10 Charizards, how many of them actually hit the market? Not many. Most of them get in the hands of collectors and stay there. That’s why prices will remain high. The population may be relatively high, but the supply in terms of those that are actually available/will become available isn’t.
You could make the same argument about real estate in certain markets. All the good land has already been purchased, they are not making any more of it, and people will hold on to it (generally) for the long term. Even with that, you can see pretty serious price fluctuations.
Overall, I do not think the price increases have anything to do the growing popularity of Pokemon. There is too much money out there looking for returns, and some of it is being used to speculate in collectibles (among other things). This is likely driving up the price of things like 1st Edition Charizards.
I don’t have any data to back this up though. This is just speculation on my own part 
There’s one hitting the market just about every week lol
There can be a low supply and high demand and still be a bubble. What I’m saying is that at any given time 20+ of these could hit the market at the same time. What happens then? Price could drop down to $5k again. It’s not likely but it is possible to flood the market with this particular card.
A lot of other cards if not the majority have doubled and tripled in the same time frame, not just Charizard. You would have to extend the bubble to all Pokemon cards for it to make sense. Charizard only stands out because it is such a large amount lol.
The history and ‘lore’ of Pokemon collecting is very fragmented and a lot of the time not readily accessible to an average collector. Collecting and understanding the history behind Pokemon cards as simple as it may seem to an outsider looking in, is more complicated and nuanced than any other endeavour I have pursued lol.
That is why I believe we see these apparent great rises in price, it is brought on by the fact that generally people are becoming woke to how important Pokemon is to the fabric of our generation.
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False argument.
If u flood almost anything with half a years supply you would have a negative impact on the market.
Half a years trading volume of Apple getting shorted in a week, Apple will go down double digests.
Half a year of any commodity will tank the market.
Maybe something like an Illustrator or Action #1 can withstand it as they so rarely go in sale half a years could be absorbed.
Increasing market supply by over 20 times and saying it will crash doesn’t show the items price is a bubble, it shows it will be repriced, most likely heavily downward like most assets.
I can’t buy into this argument. If 20+ got put on the market at the same time it would depend upon how aggressive the seller is being. If they won’t sell for less than 20k, the price doesn’t change; if they’re willing to let it go for 15k, we see it go down in price to 15k while supplies last; if they are willing to let them go on auction, they go down in price rapidly then bounce back when flippers are done flipping.
Also, this pretty much has been going on with PWCC/Probstein123 constantly keeping one on the market, and nothing’s happened.
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The point is that most people bought their copies under $5k. I bet a lot of them would accept $10k if it really came down to it. Just the fact that there are 100+ examples gives buyers considerable power. If you can’t buy this one just wait for the next one. If we see more than 1 or 2 hitting the market at a time each sale is likely to be marginally smaller than the last.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not entirely firm on my position but I can see some parallels to the gold stars a few years ago. Certain factors will have to change but I just don’t know if there is enough money in the market to sustain the growth Charizard has seen. All I’m saying now is that growth has to level off. With the massive growth this card has seen in such a short time it’s very possible that we could see a decline in the near future. If the price is sustained over the next year i I would be much more inclined to say that this is no bubble. Nobody can say for sure.
I can respect your opinon, but I do think you need to reconsider how small just over 100 copies is. Not to mention, there’s nowhere near 100 copies available. Gary alone brings that number to under 100. I haven’t counted how many people on the forum have one, but you take those away and I’m guessing you’re down to 80 that are not locked away in collections by members of this forum. We’re nowhere near the majority share in the number of collectors there are and yet, I’m guessing, you’ve removed around 25% of the market.
100 is Trophy card level numbers, not booster pack numbers. We’re also at a point where that’s pretty close the the exact number there’ll be. I’m fairly confident we’ll never see 200+ Gem Mint 1st ed Charizards, but even if we do we’re still at trophy cards numbers. Recently the Legendary Bird Phone cards were hitting rediculious prices, Scott’s been getting high five figure offers for his trophy cards, I just personally don’t see much evidence that Charizards will go down in price based on population. For me that’s an argument for the reverse.
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In 2015 you could trade 1 psa 10 charizard for 5 psa 8s. Now you can trade it for 15-20 8s, that ratio is not sustainable, either the 10s drop in price or the lower grades rise and I think there’s to many lower grades on the market for that.
I think your wrong, the spread will likely get bigger. From my experience in comics either go high end, PSA 9 (so-so) PSA 10 or go lower grade. PSA 8 is kinda like mid grade, add Near Mint to the lable, it’s not MINT. The cream rises to the top. As you said, there are too many lower grade copies, but what you didn’t say is there aren’t enough PSA 10’s. Honestly, prices are still chump change for Pokemon cards, when you compare to other collectibles. Getting the grail of a collectible of this caliber for $20,000 for the highest grade will look like a good buy in the future.
Give you an example. Comics go 9.0, then 9.2, 9.4 etc until 10. 9.8 is really the highest grade, they just give out a few token 10’s here and there.
Guy is selling a raw copy of a Black cover book at a friends booth, black covers are really hard to grade ultra high. Tons of dealers look at the book, they pass as they all think it’s 9.2 or 9.4, forget the grade. One dealer takes the chance, buys the book for $2,000. Gets the next highest grade, $20,000 comic. In comics each .2 is multiples of the lower price. The same is going to happen with Pokemon in the future for key cards. Look at it like this, 5 PSA 8 =9, then 4 PSA 9 = PSA 10. You have your 20 times multiplier and it’s not so bad when you look at each individual upgrade.
The reality is trading 5 PSA 8 for a PSA 10 was a steal and the 8’s where overvalued or the 10’s where undervalued, half full/half empty kinda thing…
In comics it has become buy ultra high grade or very low grade (only on very expensive books, like at least $1,000 and up for a 2.0, this is very low grade, anything lower might not be complete). People with money want the best, people without money just want a copy. The middle is a lot harder to sell.
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I think the price trend of the PSA 10 1st ed Charizard has fully dissociated from the trends of other examples of this card. There’s many cross-over collectors/investors from sports and god knows where else with some deep pockets who would only ever consider buying the PSA 10, nothing less, and will drop $25k without even thinking about it.
It’s a collectible that’s transcended our realm of Pokemon and is now in the hands of the broader collectible universe if that makes sense. Many people of this community still can’t comprehend it because they’re still looking at this card as its former identity of a Pokemon collectible as opposed to what it has become, a piece of memorabilia.
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Just to add to this, think about the current age of those who originally grew up with pokemon and realize they are now give or take 30. This means that more people who are older and appreciate pokemon have money now. The demand of the higher end pokemon card hobby use to be driven by a bunch of starving artists in college… now they have real jobs and money. Socially and psychologically speaking… people this age should continue to increasing a demand on what you can consider vintage pokemon, because to them it is memorabilia.
This could explain a gradual steady price increase but probably not a five figure change in about a years time.
Supply and demand explains it, simple!
Well it comes down to your intuition as well.
1st Ed. Fossil, Rocket and Jungle cards just aren’t that rare compared to 1st Base or even 1st Neo sets. I wouldn’t compare them to 1st Ed. Base cards.
Trophy card numbers? There’s no trophy card in existence with 100 graded PSA 10 copies…
Never said there were…
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He was obviously comparing Trophy Cards as a total to Charizard PSA 10 as they have similar numbers.