Alex is toxic and I despise all of his videos. Glad to hear he is banned from here
Watching the video, this guy keeps repeating gambling terms. So this is quite fitting
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Beyond a certain point, it is impossible to converse intelligently about this topic. It would’ve been impossible even if everyone was sitting in the same room, and either knew each other, cared for each other, depended upon each other or at the very least got a little oxytocin from looking at each other.
As soon as money or emotions are on the table, the “social” aspect of the hahbee is nothing more than a conveyor belt for turning insults into dopamine. And that’s just the talking part, imagine actually trying to do something.
When I clicked the thread I just knew it would be this dude 
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To be clear, I’m not referring to financial motivations for collecting, but rather psychological ones. I recall Smpratte emphasizing the contrast between then and now of the experience of a collector.
If you look back, cards were more mainly played by kids during the original boom. To classify as an adult in 2010 means you have to be born in 1992 or earlier. This makes the only adults really the ones who collected during the original boom and not any of the younger Gen 2, 3 or base yet. One other big factor was the global recession was still having large impacts. Forget about the 18-20 year olds in 2010 who were still in college age, the 22-24 year olds who were trying to enter the work force were struggling to find and keep jobs. The economic decision to buy cards that for the most part that had little value and also had a social stigma against them was not something most people wanted to do. Those who did are the ones that tend to have the crazy collections today but given the economic times especially, I do not fault anyone for not buying cards back then.
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Just to add to Dragonwarrior’s points; the scale of everything was different, the sellers were different, the buyers were different, the seller-buyer dynamic was different, the people who sold then who still sell today are different.
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A lot of very good things have already been said in this thread and I cannot add a lot to the points made by @pfm @Josh @Ratequaza @mthursty and @fourthstartcg. A lot of those YouTubers (and also people on r/PokeInvesting) are really toxic people (and a lot are usually also super hype driven).
I am lucky that when I came back into collecting Pokémon cards I mostly did this due to nostalgia reasons and because Pokémon was always a huge part of my life (especially the video games). A huge part of my childhood collection already was Japanese (because my dad had a lot of business in Japan back then and always brought me cards from his business trips) therefore I focused on vintage Japanese from the very beginning. I also have a rather small modern collection but my focus always were Gens 1 to 3. Therefore, the current hype is actually a blessing for me, as I am able to get a lot of cards for my collection for really cheap prices as the main focus is on hyper modern.
I occasionally buy modern product with the intention of selling it later down the line (mainly English or German boxes or blisters) but I bought(/buy) most of them well below MSRP or at MSRP at times where nobody really wanted them and they were sitting on the shelves for weeks. I posted the story recently in another thread (Rise in modern cards - #4 by Gstiess) where people bought out all of the hyped up sets while the same store had Brilliant Stars / Astral Radiance blisters just lying around for -30% of MSRP. I mainly do this to fund parts of my vintage collection.
My only advice to everybody is to just ignore those super toxic people (and don’t jump on every hype train). E4 is one of the least toxic and most knowledgeable places when it comes to the Pokémon TCG so I am really glad to be part of this community.
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As the thread is comparing Collectors to investors, I meant to highlight that there are various motivations for collectors too. To collect in 2010 generally meant doing so for your own reasons, even with social stigma as you mention. Now there is less stigma and there can even be social reward.
Economically speaking, I feel that Pokemon was relatively accessible to 18-20 year olds back then compared to now. Weren’t WOTC era booster packs a few dollars? Though as you mention there are other reasons why people would not be collecting at that point (being college aged, looking to the enter the workforce. Other priorities to their older selves). I am not thinking in terms of any groups being at fault in regards to this dialogue, rather to highlight what is being compared here when we talk about ‘collectors vs investors’.
The line between investor and collector can also be blurred psychologically. Someone might tell themselves they are investing, but the instinct is actually to collect and vice versa. The motivations can be mixed together too ofc.
This just seems like rage bait to farm engagement tbh.
Nonetheless, we’ve seen what happens to collectibles when theyre driven primarily by investors or ‘stonkers’ and less by genuine collectors, and those collectibles end up failing in the end. Because you can have a collectible like pokemon which long term has only really gone up, but there are still downslopes. And in those downslopes, if your primary buyer of said collectible is just an investor, they will panic sell and leave. Meanwhile, collectors will continue to collect through the spikes and drops.
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The point I’m trying to make is that there were probably not any true “poke investors” back then. Yes packs were cheap but they were cheap for a reason. There was no market. There was no history yet of items going up over time and people being drawn in. Besides the economics of investing a large amount of money during a recession back then in sealed product, logically it did not make sense since cards had nowhere the value of what they were in the 90s and that was 10 years prior.
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To be a Pokemon investor back then would have been a very rare thing for sure!
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At first I agreed with this statement- without collectors, there’s no demand based on the cards themselves (the competitive scene aside, which is a smaller driver of value for Pokémon).
But thinking about it, it does seem like some things can have value propped up solely by speculation. Precious metals and crypto being two examples. The usefulness of these two categories does not justify how valuable they have become.
Now, with those, you can at least be somewhat certain that the supply will not change significantly. Conversely, it wouldn’t take much for TPC to ramp up production of cards. Your investment is relying on them not printing more cards on a whim one day. For “ultra modern” this seems like it ought to be an untennable risk. But hype and stonk beasts are gonna hype and stonk I guess.
Speaking of hype- social media makes money too. Some part of this is content creators just trying to keep that machine going.
The fact that people are taking advantage of collectors is the only thing that bothers me. Collecting used to be fun, but when investors/scalpers just buy product to force us to have fun is where I draw the line. Hype will eventually die down, and prices will become what they should be eventually. It doesnt take some sixth sense to see, but Ill let people spend how they want, and speculate/hype up cards they just heard about from Tom in accounting.
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Seen a lot of the same in whisky where there is often the split between drinkers/collectors and investors. In reality there is often a lot of overlap in the categories, but a lot of the anger issues come out when there is new people who don’t care about the hobby come in to make a fast buck.
Drinkers/players happy to plod along as long as they can get the stuff to get by.
Collectors aim for the long term, often just for the fun of it. Over time the long term ones also become investors because their collections become so valuable they ‘have’ to sell some. These tend to be less bothered by the investor bros because they have so much of what they want already from when it was cheap. By default become big investors because of the value of the collection.
Newer collectors tend to flip/scalp some products to fund their hobby because it’s more expensive when they entered the hobby. They’ll tend to pick up a few boxes/bottles but leave stuff behind for others to get. Become small time investors as a result.
The aggressive investors/scalpers. Only in it for the money, strip a shop clean of anything good. Get in a fight at a store. If someone does a nice thing online and prices stuff at rrp or similar will buy it all then instantly resell it and so on. Tends to get the more recent collectors/players angry because they push prices up and stop them getting the collections they want, and have no love for the hobby. Use bots and the like to get ahead, and because of the profits can continue to fund their bots/people standing in a queue etc.
You also see some people/shops who are trying to control the market, buy up all the rare product and only sell it at high prices meaning there is no way to get it unless you go via them. It basically makes it a safer investment for those involved but is horrible for the actual collectors who miss out as a result of being priced out due to monopoly practices rather than any real demand.
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I was thinking that you probably see the same thing in so many other places. Video game collecting, lego collecting, watches, shoes, etc…
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also surprised no one has mentioned the costco videos for eggs. same deal as blooming waters but these are literally eggs lol
Clicked on the video, watched 0 seconds, read 30 seconds worth of YT comments to see the kind of video it was, and to be honest - scrolled right past all the E4 comments here in this thread…
Who the hell is consuming this dross? Honestly, people need to learn not to even engage with stuff like this. I don’t care how involved with any aspect or any side of this hobby you are… giving this kind of shit one second of your time does not do your life any good whatsoever.