To be ambivalent is to have mixed feelings or contradictory feelings about something.
Pokemon is not always black and white, but infinite shades of gray. Many cards, sets, events, releases, choices made by TPC/TPCi, choices made by auction houses, and polarizing pokecelebs can be positive and negative, fun and miserable, exciting and boring.
Have you ever experienced ambivalence in the context of collecting? Does it affect your collecting behavior or enjoyment of collecting?
This is the second of several threads on navigating collector emotions. Please see below for those previous threads.
As far as i remember probably 10 years ago, pokemon tcg collecting wasn’t that of a mainstream hobby. I had fun collecting for myself but couldnt bring up to my peers about the hobby itself because I thought it was so niche and card collecting was a thing here back then
It was fun affordable and nostalgic but quiet and lonely
Since the covid/logan boom, it went mainstream got alot of attention and even the evening news is picking up the the pokemon tcg craze.
Its much more acceptable to publicly say Im a pokemon tcg collector since it’s more acceptable to the public now.
Something that was fun for me alone went public where more people accept the idea of being a pokemon collecter, how ever invenstment speeches and scams have plagued the hobby.
As much as I envy the position of being ready to liquidate and never looking back with easy 10’s scored through $7 bulk tiers by October 2020 (and I really do envy it) I’m also excited about what the future holds for prices. I have not given up hope that my collection will benefit me significantly someday.
I’m sure many of us have seen cards we love in PSA 10 explode in price, beyond anything that I’m willing to pay. For me I’ve loved BW/XY since the moment I touched pokemon.
On one hand I’m happy that BW/XY is getting the attention it deserves, and the glorious 5ban cards are becoming more popular.
On the other hand I feel defeated knowing that I’ll never be able to responsibly buy my favorite cards in PSA 10.
On my third hand I feel annoyed seeing uncnem on the gram pumping these cards simply as a way to make money.
I have been ambivalent about card purchases and sales frequently during this boom. To purchase or sell. Always in flux. The ability to sell some cards at crazy prices to perhaps purchase that grail is so tempting. Then if you do sell there are taxes, so you need to sell more. Also selling high means buying high. Do I really want to buy now? It’s a constant mental argument
I’ve wanted to make a thread on this topic for some time.
Fluctuations in the market will almost always balance if you are buying and selling. Much of the profit made from selling XYZ card will be lost by overpaying for XYZ card if the transactions occur around the same time period and within similar market categories. Similarly, selling during lows will provide less profit, but the costs of the next purchase will also be comparatively low.
The best solution is to sell when prices are high and buy when prices are low, but that is unfortunately not how collecting works. Many of our goal cards only come out during boom periods when owners are cashing in, and others could only be reasonably afforded with the profit from booms.
So here we are, constantly juggling the purchases and sales to min/max. It’s maddening, and we won’t know if we made a good financial decision until many years later. We also have to grapple with the emotional choices of selling loved cards that may be difficult to find in the future for the chance at achieving a larger goal. This ambivalence is the life of a budget collector.