An increase of 3x over the course of 2 years is nothing like a 15x increase in 6 months.
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So there are rolex’s that have gone up 15x-20x in the span of a few months and maintained that value long term without any retrace?
No, absolutely not to that extend lol. Only crypto compares.
If we all know the market will tank, who are the people still buying
FOMO is a helluva drug. The way a blow off top works is that it becomes a game of musical chairs. These periods never last more than a few months. History tends to repeat itself because human psychology does not fundamentally change.
Recently there were normies waiting hours in line to buy silver at 120 after it did a 3x in months.
Given how massive pop cards like Grey Felt Hat still keep going up in price, ‘fundamentals’ have to an extent already been broken.
I said it a few times over the years but many veterans might be afflicted with relative population memory of what relative low population is. It starts similar to objective low population and then diverges quickly obviously.
It doesn’t make any sense that when demand or participants in the hobby continues to increase that relative low pop. never changes. Now personally, I’d rather people think for themselves rather than let a min-wage, 5 second attention worker decide on a subjective number but this is the current state of the hobby and I doubt it’ll change much given modern society. If anything, it’ll probably get worse and worse.
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Ohtani is better than Trout, but this video shows how quickly things can change.
@cwebfan23 isn’t saying these other collectibles don’t have value. But buying into any collectible when it goes parabolic this quickly has a history of not holding its value enough to justify those prices.
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It only crossed my mind a few weeks ago but nothing stops us being in a multi year bubble that started in covid.
The dotcom boom started in the 90s and went for years with small blips inbetween until it finally popped.
Idk the future for every card but i can certainly predict ponchos/grey hats/modern is gonna catch a lot of vendors out
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What I find interesting is that if these people are involved in both crypto and Pokemon, they should be able to see how much of a scam crypto is. They have moved in unison for awhile but Pokemon, just like every other physical asset is physical. Crypto is nothing but a speculative vehicle Ponzi scheme and yet it continues plodding along even if some things like NFTs have died.
This is interesting as well and as @dalewilliamson said
We’ve often heard variations of people wishing or opining that if everything went to 0 it would be great since there’d be opportunity to pick up a lot of cards that became or always were out of reach. If that is truly the case, then Pokemon can never end up a meme coin because as those buyers filter out, some people will return and perhaps we are at a stage where enough people have been exposed to the TCG with genuine interest that the cycle will just find its equilibrium and continue on as opposed to crashing and burning.
It also helps that Pokemon is a giant ecosystem, biggest franchise etc but also that we’re talking about art. In the end, the card art looks good and you can’t take how it looks away from it.
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fleer jordan is basically the sports equivalent of 1st edition charbar if u look at the price history for both they do they exact same thing 
(in psa 10 idk shit about any other grades tbh)
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The market isn’t normal or reasonable but every time we go through this the price floor increases. I think most people on here won’t be the one shelling out record prices only to get burned on the relist but whoever these people are they do end up having an impact.
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Then it’s just Ohtani
A couple of points to respond to this:
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On the one hand, this is absolutely correct. Most collectibles that go up like this do not maintain their inflated values forever. That being said, Pokemon cards are arguably the greatest collectible ever. Charizard will never tear its ACL or take PEDs. Pokemon also has a proven history of rapid multi-X increases in price followed by years of stagnancy. At this point it’s a historical precedent rather than an aberration.
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I don’t think people who are experienced in Pokemon are buying 10k WOTC holos or 5k stamped EX reverses or 50k for “low pop” hype cards. I am buying a lot in this market, but high-grade hyped PSA cards are absolutely not on the menu.
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Recently the market has felt a lot more like the 2020-21 highs than it has felt over the past year or so. Incomprehensible prices on many cards, logic feels like it’s been thrown out the window, and everyone seems to be of the mindset that line go up forever. I wonder if people are looking at history and thinking that if a retrace comes, they just need to hold for another 5 years and then prices will skyrocket again. So many cards have eclipsed their 2020-21 highs, even while others have never got back to those prices.
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no one buying low pop wotcs for 10k+ and ex reverses for 5k+ will be able to hold for 5 years, i think 99.9% of cards at this point are far past their 2021 versions and there was still a massive dump between 2022-24 (u can look at tons of examples on pwcc sales history of ppl buying and reauctioning the same cert losing upwards of 5 figures)
the only cards really that i can think of that still have massive losses from 2021 are stuff that were bought on huge misinformation (“rookie” charizards) and weird shit like pokeman mtg backs. even 1st ed charizard psa 10 which is basically the poster child of pokeman covid hype has blown past the 2021 comps (although this one has already started to come down and i can see it retracing pretty quick coz its always at auction like every 2-3 months )
there are some that prolly slightly above like alot of old back jp lower tier trophy stuffs but i dont think alot of those have really come to auction recently and the market has kinda shifted away from them anyway
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Are you comfortable in saying what kind of prices you are paying for these things now compared to what they were in 2023?
I ask because it honestly feels like every facet of the vintage market has gone loopy beyond reasonable participation, I can’t even finish binder goals without throwing up because Aquapolis Psyduck is $200 for a MP common card I’m gonna hand draw it on the back of a receipt to fill the spot before I pay that.
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Whatever happens, this made me lol
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Sure, I’m buying cards anywhere from 2-5x their 2023 prices all the time. Tapping out every time the market goes up is not a viable strategy, at least in my experience. Whether it’s cards I want for my collection or cards I intend to grade/flip/sell I have no problem paying multiple times over what I would have in the past.
However, I try to avoid things that are very volatile just to minimize my risk. If I do have a big purchase I want to make I’ll fund it by selling off other cards,
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100%. Junk wax era lasted a solid 8 years. Comic book bubble lasted 5-6. Many people on this forum would benefit significantly from researching the histories of other collectible hobbies. There’s a lot to learn. These sorts of market cycles can last quite a while.
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Imagine only grading 700 cards in a day and being on the same board as PSA
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I’ll say this: I just bought a vintage (or, by some WotC purists’ definitions, “mid era”) box for roughly 5x what it was worth in 2020. Do I feel like a sucker? Kind of. Especially because I was literally scoffing at the price of that box on this forum 6 years ago.
But something I think people don’t think about enough is that 6 years is actually a really long time in the context of Pokemon cards printed in the late 90s/early 2000s. A card released in 2004 is ~40% older in 2026 than it was in 2020. That’s honestly not insignificant. It’s a test of time, in a sense, that the demand has continued to stay strong for that era.
Of course, don’t buy the $200 Aquapolis Psyducks lol. Not that I need to dissuade you from that. But PSA/CGC 9 Aquapolis/Skyridge holos? Prices on those don’t seem outrageously crazy to me, tbh. Or $400 for a PSA 9 1st Ed Neo Discovery Houndour holo? Doesn’t seem that crazy to me.
On the other hand, many “good” cards genuinely are crazy right now. Like PSA 10 prices, especially on things like EX Series reverse holos..those aren’t prices I’d pay unless I was super comfortable with an extremely high probability of losing that $ lol.
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psa 9 hasnt really done much for most cards and any actual “collector” should really just be buying 9s if they wanna focus on value for card quality esp since no one including psa themselves can actually differentiate between a 9 and a 10
whats a psa 9 yanma gone from maybe 100 to 200 bux from 2024 to 2026 whereas a psa 10 has gone from 3k to 66k
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Something I’ve not seen mentioned (maybe it has been said somewhere but I missed it) and one reason why I don’t follow the notion that almost everyone buying in this market is just some scummy investor with no love for the hobby itself and that all the ‘real collectors’ are leaving the hobby completely, is that it’s very easy to justify making bigger and bigger purchases for the cards you want for your collection when they seemingly always go up in value over the long term anyway so can double as an investment. Whether that’s a reasonable line of thinking of not is another thing…
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Its probably because people that have been collecting for a long time notice whats organic or not faster than anyone else can, and arent comfortable buying at what they think is the top of what theyre used to.
People that have a genuine love for Pokemon already know what cards to buy as an “investment” before a set even releases. The critical thing here is that before the boom most people just bought what they liked (some still do), and left some rarer cards for collectors that actually wanted them for their collection. Youve probably noticed that many people can utilize this knowledge to their advantage nowadays, or not really care like they have been. Its alot of FOMO being created from all sides.