It is very easy to comprehend.
Less “sealed” product= more rare= more demand less supply.
Boxes are going to continue to skyrocket come these next few years so get them while you can.
Why is it ridiculous?
I’ve got several “NM” that are better than my PSA8, if you buy the card and got detailed information about the card i don’t see why this is ridiculous.
Multiple reasons:
1.) “NM” could also mean a PSA 7.
2.) Grading fees.
3.) Convenience.
Why would you pay $40 for a raw PSA 8 quality copy and then have the grading fee on top of that when you can just buy one already graded in a PSA 8 for the same price? That in and of itself means that there should be a distinct difference in prices between raw copies and copies that are already graded.
So yes; it is ridiculous.
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Of course it could mean even a PSA 5, thats why i said that if you got lots of pics, good seller reference, etc. A true NM could easily be 9, worth more than a PSA 8 or 7. If you buy the grade then sure, but if you buy the card is not ridiculous.
Card > grade for the vast majority of cases.
Except that wasn’t the discussion. The discussion was why there is a difference in price between PSA graded cards and ungraded.
If you just want the raw card, then by all means, it’s fine. But buying a raw card at a PSA 8-9 price just to get it graded in a PSA 8-9 is not a wise move. You’re better off just buying the card already graded.
Its your money, all i’m saying is to be careful, theres a high chance of a retracement in the short term due to lowering interest (nostalgia from sitting indoors all day) , recession, and you have peak social media interest and quarantine going on which is causing these hikes. Yes product becomes scarcer but so does interest. These boxes sat around for such low prices for the longest time and people seem to ignore that fact. None of us even as collectors really cared for them until they started moving last few years. And now youre seeing prices 10x in 15 yrs, jump 10x in 2 years. Thats too fast
For your consideration: also have to ask who and what type of persons are buying these cards and products for thousands and for what purpose. And what would make these people sell.
Anyways, just my opinion i day trade stocks so thought id throw in my 2 cents. Some of the signs i see now are the same signs at the end of february before the massive stock dip. Big buying frenzy for 6 months before the drop. Drop was about 30%. Just be patient now wouldn’t be the time to buy, there should be an opportunity in about a year.
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Oh alright, got your point now. Yeah then in that case it’s kinda pointless to spend that money just to grade it.
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Pokemon cards are absolutely nothing like stocks. It’s apples to watermelons. Pokemon cards are tangible assets that people love due to nostalgia, artwork, etc. Stocks are intangible and do not create that same type of emotional attachment.
I do agree that I think some of these cards can retrace, but the stock comparison is not linear whatsoever.
What you are saying is exactly what people were saying during the Pokemon Go boom in 2016. Now look where we are. Prices have dramatically increased since then.
And for what it’s worth, prices started increasing long before quarantine.
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At this point we should start taking bets to see who’s right. It’ll be fun looking back at these threads and prices in the next 9-12 months. Life is certainly going to change, but no one is certain if that change will positively or negatively impact pokemon.
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Also the stocks tanked because we shut down the entire economy, it wasn’t organic. These are the same people that predicted Pokémon cards would tank with the economy. Now they are coming up with excuses why it surged.
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I watched a old Primetime Pokemon video. It’s 6 years old. He explained the most expensive shining is shining Charizard unlimited going for $50. 1st edition going for $100 and were talking pack fresh too. He said they would make good investments and he could see them doubling in price in five years… Ok well where is my pack fresh 1st edition Shining Charizard for $200? I’d love as many as possible for that price please 
I dont think we are going to see the same growth that we have in the last 2 years anyway.
We will probably see growth but much slower.
I bought a sealed box for about $1.5k, now 2 years later it’s about 7k.
Do I expect it to be worth 35k in 2 years? Nope… but I can hope :}
I don’t think they are too dissimilar. Markets are comparable because of many factors, including: supply and demand, psychology, perceived trends. Not everyone purchases for collecting so it’s not as clear cut as you may wish to imagine. There are distinct market elements at work and those elements work across all markets.
You mention the Pokémon Go boom, and a boom it was. Pokémon cards and in particular base set cards, suddenly saw massive spikes. But do you remember the prices didn’t hold? Most of the cards retraced to same extent they rose. The reason being, whilst everyone was focussed on the cards during the height of GO, the cards already available became a hot commodity. Everyone wanted that nostalgic hit and this caused prices to increase – basic supply and demand. However, many of those who had cards in storage pulled them out to admire their sets and the value they currently held (unaccounted for or latent supply).
Next thing you know, Go starts fading as the social media focus shifts away. As this happens, the focus also shifts away from cards, but you know what, they now want to cash in, thinking “now would be a good time to sell because there probably won’t be a better time because of this unforseen hype”. So they make the decision to liquidate the assets, but they aren’t the only ones with this idea. The wave of supply that previously hadn’t been in circulation suddenly came onto the market and dragged down much of the gains it had attained.
A lot of flippers had a field day (flippers are this markets equivalent to day traders, they have no commitment, loyalty, nor attachment to the items that pass through their hands).
Was the retrace deadly to the market? No. Did it provide a significant reduction from the peak, sure.
But they have since made up that ground and moved beyond it.
Price outbreaks are healthy. They highlight the cards that people want which are in circulation, and this in turn allows those with ungraded copies to get theirs graded if possible to satisfy that demand. But the price increase is that indicator – it’s like a duck whistle calling the ducks out of hiding so that they may become present and accounted for and transition to those who appreciate them more (financially, and perhaps emotionally).
I have no doubt we will see a readjustment when PSA gets through its backlog.
But the backlog itself is something to consider.
For example, if demand outpaces PSA’s ability to grade in a timely manner - as in demand continues to outstrip supply for cards that perhaps are more available than previously thought, then by the time the supply reaches the market it may already have pushed the prices ahead enough to make a retrace less likely, or to become non-existent and just cause the price of particular cards to become stagnant for a period of time.
The situation the market finds itself in at the moment, is different from previously in that people would purchase at a slower pace – meaning attention was divided amongst multiple places, hobbies, priorities etc. Most people would be looking at various points of the market and taking their time to collect as there was no urgency. Now though, almost every collector has all at once been looking at the market with the intention to indulge in their hobby.
This lead to a lot of panic buying because the attention given to collecting was again at all-time highs and it drove heavy competition. It’s like when everyone became focussed on groceries and then stock piled, only to find they had more than they realistically were comfortable with of food, toilet paper, hand sanitiser etc. Some of it was due real demand, a lot of it was driven by fear however. When people don’t see prices continue to increase at the same rate as they have been, and perhaps in some instances recline, then many won’t see the urgency, or will be tempted to sell some of their positions. We’ve seen it before.
But once people can undertake more social hobbies again, attention will likely shift away from cards for many, only to boomerang back again sometime in the near future. On the flip side of the coin, who knows how long it will be before people will feel comfortable socialising to same physical extent as prior to covid, given the current climate? Nobody knows.
In summary: Market cycles. Don’t deny them, work with them.
I’m personally bullish long term. Short term, not so much. I say that as someone who isn’t actively seeking anything for my collection either, as I’ve said before.
You won’t find me prothletising to others to buy as much as they can for example, because
I take more of a tempered view as I’ve seen the damage that too much hype can do to a market (housing, bitcoin, etc). All I want and all most people should want is stable growth.
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I generally agree with your perspective (for raw cards). For WotC through EX-era sealed product, I think it would take a near-exodus of people from the hobby for prices to decrease any relevant amount. I realize you weren’t necessarily talking about sealed product, but I think a distinction should be made. The prices are mostly divorced from the value of the cards, which can be seen with MTG. Fallen Empires cards are exactly the same as they were 15 years ago (if not slightly less now, actually). Yet Fallen Empires boxes steadily rose from $50 to $250 over the past 15 years. People underestimate the effects of supply on prices – slight, continuous decreases of supply can have very large impacts on price.
But, relative to COVID-19, I agree that there will be some price retraces. I don’t think that there will be near-total price retraces, though, like was seen with Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go brought a lot of hype back for Pokemon and with it a significant amount of speculation. I think the price increases from COVID are more organic and less driven by speculation. People have more time on their hands to purchase cards, of course, but people are buying the cards due to much more organic desire, and not due to hype (in my opinion, at least). Pokemon Go was mostly a fad, and a lot of the demand it brought with it for Pokemon cards was connected to that. I think the contexts are very different. But I do think there will be some partial price retraces on raw and graded cards, but I don’t anticipate ever being able again to, for instance, purchase PSA 9 exs for $25 like you could before COVID-19.
Of course prices won’t indefinitely increase exponentially. But it wouldn’t surprise me if that $7k box is $12.5k in 2 years – which would be an identical RoI for you.
I think we are likely to see more neo set holos hit the market in 6+ months or whenever the general PSA turnaround time will be from now. I also think the same for the e series and ex series, as again I think there is a lot of grade worthy supply that is waiting to be brought into circulation upon seeing these price increases.
I don’t consider anything beyond WOTC as part of my long time collection, but I have binders full of ex series cards in pristine condition which I will eventually get around to grading with the intention of parting with, and I’m sure there are many others in the same position who have suddenly become more motivated to grade and sell too, for example.
Perhaps I am grossly overestimating the amount of people, who knows. I don’t mind either way.
The GO boom’s biggest draw was the base set and that’s what it mainly haled into circulation from people’s storage. This Boom will likely draw out cards from mostly the subsequent early sets.
Boxes have always crept upwards, so far, as you said, and as I’ve posted before. But they do generally stagnate when cards aren’t showing vigour.
I have been thinking about the effects of covid on booster boxes, which seem to be a mixture of: Relative Price Increase (in relation to everything else that has risen), Speculation (a few reasons, perhaps?), and Organic Consumption.
Relative Increase, in that people are willing to pay more as demand rises, as it has, which is pretty basic.
Speculation, well let’s look at three examples: Flashfire ~$1300usd (6 years old) and almost definitely not getting a reprint at this point, but wow. Then lets take a mid-point second example: Burning Shadows ~$130usd (3 years old), I would be more inclined to guess that it isn’t going to be reprinted at this point and that is why it is starting to move up in price when many previously appraised it on the assumption it could very well be reprinted. Our third example: Unbroken Bonds ~$205usd (1 year old). This price seems strange to me. If it continues to be in demand this much, it is almost certain to be reprinted. Well that is what I would logically think. Modern boxes are hot potatoes of risk for short term investors.
However I wonder if the Pokémon company is more reluctant to reprint full box releases after the previous backlashes and with more consideration to the collectors going forward, yeah I doubt it, but who knows. It’s one those boxes where people hedge against because of the popular nature of it, which would show strong growth in the future if not reprinted, but is also of seemingly higher risk if it is reprinted.
I invest in boxes in more of an even spread throughout the series because you never know which boxes will come out in the lead in the end. I think the speculative nature of boxes is appealing during this time however as a flight to safety for capital, for some people who are cashed up and concerned about the economy at large and think sealed product is largely a safe bet.
Organic Consumption. I can only imagine just how many more booster boxes people are cracking open at the moment than during pre-covid. People are bored and actively collecting sets through opening packs, not that this is anything unusual, but I would wager the rate of opening has increased. An interesting thought is we’ve always said that pre-go era boxes were printed to a far less extent than these days. But I wonder if covid has helped absorb a lot of the excessively printed set boxes of more recent times. It’s food for thought.
I’m invested in boxes, I’m invested in cards, I try to remain unbiased but this is my disclosure.
Interesting thoughts. As far as ex series cards, I’m really not sure about the supply. I’ve really been trying to get a handle on the print run size of the EX-era sets, and from what I’ve seen the print runs seem to have been dramatically less than every WotC set except for the E-Series sets. If all it takes is increased prices to lure EX-era stuff out of collections, I don’t know why it’s so rare to see EX-series boxes relative to WotC boxes. There are thousands and thousands of sealed Unlimited Fossil/Jungle/Base boxes out there, but I’m really not even sure if there are 100 (50?) sealed EX Deoxys boxes left. With the fact that they went from $500 to $15k+ over the course of the past decade, one would expect to see them hit the market occasionally. But they don’t even hit the market anymore (maybe there’s just a few people hoarding 100 boxes each? I’ve just been shocked). And it’s not just gold star sets like EX Deoxys – it’s literally every EX set. The market presence over the past few years of boxes from all 16 EX-series sets combined is a fraction of the market presence from basically any given Unlimited WotC set except for E-Series and maybe Neo.
Perhaps sealed product availability isn’t a good measure of supply. But even then, the supply of EX-era cards also just seems much lower. You might be right that there are a ton of people like you with NM/M EX-Era cards that just haven’t gotten around to selling/grading them yet. But unless people have PSA 10 candidates, one could pretty easily get PSA 8 prices for nice raw copies of exs right now. The prices of ungraded cards have increased so much also that you would expect that to draw out supply, but the supply has wittled down to nothing and they just aren’t hitting the market. Perhaps people just don’t realize that cards from that era are worth something now since they were so cheap for so long. Or maybe the print runs were just lower than people realize. I think it’s probably a combination of both factors.
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I don’t know if they were printed less than all of the individual WOTC series’ boxes, but definitely less than base set unlimited boxes.
So you mentioned a few main points for discussion, being:
1. Why do I think some boxes in particular are not appearing as frequently for sale as others do, or have done in the past?
I actually think the reason for this is people speculating based on popular sets. I think many of the core boxes that were perceived to be successful were purchased, hoarded and sat on with the intention to sell much later. They were low risk, with high reward if they paid off in the future. Meanwhile a lot of the sets at the time seemed a little more left-field and were likely imagined to have less staying power after the inclusion of many new Pokémon in addition to an ever decreasing fan base. These were then likely not to be considered interesting investments. There were many seemingly better investment opportunities at the time, including the stock market, property, etc. Pokémon TCG was just a baby.
In general it seems the more popular the sets, the more sealed product seems to survive in circulation. In other words, my thinking is that most of them were opened at the time of release, with unfortunately, not the same kind of supply left available now. Supply has really tightened on a lot of early boxes and the prices reflect that.
I love watching box openings, but I have to admit, when I see old boxes being cracked open at the pace we have been witnessing on YouTube and through flippers, it makes me a little sad for the future. Perhaps at the ripe old age of 33, I’m just getting old and sentimental.
Lastly, I don’t think they hit the market anymore because they ascended. What I mean by that is they’ve reached a tier where their rarity has proven valuable and will likely continue that way, and the owners think to themselves, why sell the golden goose if I don’t have to?
2. What do I think about the current market conditions regarding supply of ex series cards?
I really don’t think there is a shortage of supply, I think it’s out there, but the vast majority of it hasn’t been worth a great deal and that affects what gets graded. I still posit there are many people with PSA 10 worthy ungraded cards whom at some point will get them done. All of mine just went straight to sleeves and binders for example, stored away for another day. A lot of people crack cases and never get around to selling their duplicates. At the time it’s often not worth it, but if it becomes worth it later, then that’s a very small risk to reward ratio.
But I do think, them being cheap for so long is definitely the point. Many people need to be incentivised to get their supplies into circulation.
3. Is sealed product availability a good measure of supply?
It’s funny because you often see people attempt to form a ratio or compare the price of cards to the box and make an assumption based on that relation.
There are 2 prime examples:
a) They will say the booster box price is X, but the cards in the box are only Z which seems low for the box price, on this metric they are undervalued! And therefore on this basis alone will go up in price.
b) The cards from this box are worth Z, but the cards in the box are worth X which seems low for the cards price.
One of these examples is true. The other is false (at least on that data alone).
If you haven’t figured it out already, (A) is false. Just because the box price is high doesn’t mean the cards should be, too, not even relatively. You see the factor they omit is demand (popularity of contents), supply (how much is available). Cards don’t provide supply, they only satisfy demand. In other words, the box can be expensive, but if the set isn’t popular, nor in demand, the cards will remain of little value, meanwhile the sealed booster box can remain highly collectable. A great example of this would be the diamond and pearl series, of which the majority of consumers have very little appetite for, resulting in very cheap cards. The boxes, however, demand a premium.
(b) on the other hand allows people to see that booster boxes are a source of supply and if the supply is cheaper than the demand, clear calculations can be made.
So to answer your question, I don’t think sealed product is a good measure of supply. It is only useful in determining the supply of the particular sealed product, which are themselves a separate commodity.
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Hey guys not trying to interrupt but I simply wanted to ask if anyone has time can someone post new 2020 prices in this thread for booster boxes so we can look back on this year’s later like original post I know it’s a lot of work but its a great reference point for the community
@mcorey777, you should make an e4 time capsule thread. price references, what’s trending, events, good jokes, dblast, popular content, etc. then we can all look back and say what the fuck dblast.
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