The idea is to already have a home before spending tens of thousands on Pokémon cards, even though I think the loan market in the US is much riskier because of variable interest rates and many other things that I don’t know about.
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In a perfect world you would have a home, your mortgage paid off, your 401k or w/e your retirement fund is called maxed out, household expenses for you and your family taken care of /before/ you think about dropping 5 figures on a piece of cardboard encased in plastic with a 10 label on it.
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Since I sold off a good chunk of my cards last year during that market, I will owe the tax man a good bit…
I wonder if he’ll take a PSA 10 FA Mario Pikachu and call it even 
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The new gold standard. The governmemt will back US currency to PSA slabs
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With all due respect, what’s up with the cynicism and jealousy on this board lately? I’ve been lurking for years, but it’s getting very tiresome.
Why do you make so many assumptions? You do realize we just went through one of the biggest equity bull runs in human history? Stocks, crypto, metals—everything has been melting faces. The population reports on high end vintage range from say 20 to 200 for 10s
There are millions of millionaires who grew up with Pokémon.
Then there’s also a massive amount of people buying into the store of value narrative, and even more people simply money laundering. Pokemon is everything NFTs wished to be. You can laugh all you want about it, but there are people who are vaulting these cards like they’re a Rembrandt or Monet.
How many fuck you money people in America, UAE, China or Japan decide to become species collectors for Pikachu, Mew, Charizard or any legendary? I promise you it is way way way more than whatever the pop report is for every of these vintage cards.
Everyone I know who bought six-figure cardboard in the last two years is a liquid multimillionaire and a genuine collector with the exception of one who wants to diversify.
You know how they treat these auctions? They go on gixen and bazooka some ridiculously high number in there because they simply want that card. It only takes one more of the same species collector with pockets to go full bazooka aswell and that’s how you end up with these auction prices we keep sharing in this thread. I am guilty of this aswell.
It’s not rocket science. Supply and demand. Alot of demand, very little supply. It’s the exact same playbook in every other high end collectible auction market, be it artwork, watches, coins, whatever
Do some irresponsible people exist who are all in on vintage with debt, unpaid mortgages, and no retirement fund? Sure, but they’re the tiny minority, they’re not driving these record prices. You also have these kinds of people in every other market, it’s not unique to cards.
Iirc you also said
“Guys, it’s irresponsible to hold on to your cards if they went through a 100x.”
Are we playing financial advisor now?
We get it, you’re a binder collector. But this board has plenty of slab collectors as well and you don’t see us seethe and cope endlessly.
Live and let live. No offense.
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Oh my god, ending with no offense, CLASSIC
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>another binder collector who’s jimmies are rustled
There is no need to be upset
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Welcome to the fourum
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Thanks!
RoyalOak is smpratte’s anger translator
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I know you guys love selling your cards at a 10000% markup, but you can also be intellectually honest.
There’s nothing normal about this market and many cards have simply become disconnected from their fundamentals. Think what you want though, it’s not our job to convince you. Everyone feels like a genius in a bubble.
The “market” and demand aren’t fixed in stone, as people are extremely superficial nowadays. I see no cynicism here.
P.S. love the use of “binder collector” as a derogatory term lmao
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I am also a binder collector, just not exclusively and it’s clear that it’s exclusive binder collectors who have such a big issue with the graded card market lol
In regards to what’s normal, see
https://www.elitefourum.com/t/the-giant-japanese-market-thread/31400/6226?u=royaloak
Pokemon pumping fits the current debasement era perfectly. If you didn’t notice even silver tripped within months. They will ALWAYS gonna keep printing more dollars but they will never print another corocoro mew anon. Same can be said about metals, bitcoin, land. All things you should be owning before you go bazooka on pokemon for “investment” purposes
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As an exclusive PSA 10 collector, I genuinely cannot stand binder “collectors”.
What is the point in keeping cards locked away, rarely getting to see the light of day? To sit quietly tucked into a bookshelf corner, praying for Timmy to crave a 2-minute dopamine rush of blowing the dust off and hearing that crackling plastic symphony of sticky pages being turned?
It’s a sick joke. And don’t even get me started on how they negatively affect pop reports. How they purposely manipulate low pop cards by not submitting their pack-fresh-triple-sleeved-top-loaded vintage pulled 20+ years ago, that was vacuum sealed and stored in an indoor storage unit that is temperature controlled 24/7. Only to be pulled out of a bin every couple years and posted online to tease, asking if it’s “worth grading”. Spoiler: they didn’t.
People can say whatever they want about graded cards, but it’s the best way to collect and contribute to society. Think of all the real collectors that would be stuck at a dead end job if it wasn’t for this beautiful market. You binder collectors are trying to put some of us on the street. Shame on you!
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Best satire on e4 for 2026, nice!
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Your post is exhausting and each sentence feels like a completely different assumption.
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Are we really saying 5k ex reverses and 20k wotc holos are normal now? Horse saying Man meme
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Great post, but it also makes me think of something
We were doing some emptying together with my parents at their house. Lots of vintage objects that falls in the category, too valuable to just get rid off at the bin, but not valuable enough to spend time and energy auctionning it. They built this mental construct in their head for decades that what they had stored all this time was worth something. But because it isn’t very high value or exceptional condition, now I had to make them realize that what they cling on to, is mostly valueless from a monetary point on view, though sentiment prevents them from disbanding at a price judged unfit.
I often see binder collectors who thinks that they are sat on amazing value because of the awesome cards they kept “mint” or “out of the pack”. But that is the same as my parents putting the blinds to not see the truth, in that if they sent those binder cards to grading it would in most part come back six sevens and 8s, and the imaginary construct would get shattered.
So the sarcasm of your post was great, but I think the idea of so many psa10 sitting in old binders is misguided
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there are millionares who buy good cards who would have thought?
Huh? The guy i was quoting didn’t think of it lmao. You are making no sense.
Edit, why did you delete that part again?
I didn’t know binder collectors expect PSA 10 prices?
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@eeveeteam obviously was talking about the majority of collectors who don’t have millions - because that is the majority.
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