Collectibles investment strategy: buy a card for X amount, share it with your million followers and claim it is a 10X value amount card. Voilà 
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That’s only because there’s 5x the number of PSA 10 1st ed base Charizards to how many graded Illustrators are out there.
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Population isn’t the main factor of a card’s value. It’s certainly a contributor, but it’s definitely not in the driving seat.
I’ve posted comparing the Illustrator and Charizard before: 10 years ago Illustrator was $8k and Charizard was $750; today Illustrator is $225k and Charizard is $220k. Percentage-wise, Illustrator has gone up by 2,800% whereas Charizard has gone up by 29,000% - 10 times more. I’d be surprised if Illustrator is still a higher value card than Charizard in the next 5 or so years if current trends continue.
Unless someone actually bought Scott’s $2m copy which has been sat on eBay for months, Logan’s claim that this is a $2m card is incorrect. That’d be like me claiming the 3rd Place 2012 Spring Victory Cup is a £2.5m card because that is the only one up on eBay right now, or more realistically claiming that the 6th Grade 2009 Design Contest Arceus is a €6,000 card; it’s value is not that figure until it sells.
As for why I don’t think $150k is much of a steal for an Illustrator card: of the last 2 raw copies to sell one was almost half that at $86k - and I think that was a pretty fantastic price for a card which raw 3 years back was worth 7 times less than that (~$12k).
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Fast forward an hour, I just saw someone share the “kid”'s most recent TikTok and it shows him meeting up for cash, refusing the “low” offer of 90k and then saying he’s meeting Logan Paul today and getting paid 150k or whatnot and that the video will be up soon to let everyone know how it went… then scroll onto Logan’s IG story, and he rips it up and shows its fake, punches a window, now he’s getting stitched at the hospital lol…
So I guess I was right and there’s likely a more “detailed” full out video op going to be released in the coming day(s)… all about content guys… wait until Graham Stephen actually does a video on his whole thing about the pack he bought from Logan (I think he hit the Gyarados)… a guy like GS gets the top top tier of YouTube CPMs premiums to advertisers because of his audience and the content he creates… he’s done 2 back to back update videos with Kevin O Leary who (as many of us know, is a huge huge Wine lover, drinker, and… collector! aka he holds massive positions in certain product and trades in it)… one of the videos was on Kevin giving him an audit on the way he split his financial portfolio so far and mentioned to him how he felt he was overextended into Real Estate and that he needed to dilute that…
— the following blobs of text are the observations I made and interactions I had with other highly famous celebrities and influencers who spoke about or mentioned or interacted somehow some way with Pokemon or the hobby itself today, for some of you who are less present and involved in all the online stuff and the eSports world and all the other YTers and IG influencers, could be interesting unless this was all mentioned elsewhere but Ive only seen people talking about Logan Paul so far today lol —
What happens when their next update video which seems to be something that might become more frequent (and I’m only saying this because as someone who has met KOL, been following him since Season 1 on Dragon’s Den – I’m Canadian, was in Uni with his son, etc.) the guy loves the camera but his YT channel and social in general do poorly for the type of wealth and actually the type of content and value he can add + he’s a natural… GS has worked VERY hard to get to and build up to his social media following as well as being a super stand up and transparent no bs type of influencer and he’s managed to completely game the YT algorithm in his favour that only few people consistently are able to do… (can always look at Devin Nash content on YT he loves digging through all this stuff and the numbers blabla if this interests anyone)… so he gets to give KOL social media/YouTube “clout” that helps bring up Kevin’s numbers which are doing better and because since Covid it seems he started trying to do more lives and grow his online footprint and platform + Graham Stephen gets to engage and create content with someone I am sure he looks up to and finds inspiration in… win win…
Now, Graham Stephen didn’t even really announce anything about him putting up the commons/uncommons/energies from the pack he bought from Logan Paul (he did that because like many others, it’s a write off and good exposure/follow up video content for YT/etc. + I’m sure it felt nostalgic to him). Graham is a VERY risk-averse and highly calculated investor and what he teaches falls in line with all that… BUT he’s also a hustler and a shark in sale and business. Guy puts up the listing for the commons, puts a clever listing title “Logan Paul’s YT Box Break Auction PRoceeds go to charity blabla”, posts on IG that his listing is already at like 3800$ USD… as of right now that listing is at 15k+ USD… so what’s going to happen here? He obviously didn’t list the Gyarados? Why not? He’s not going to be a rookie, he’s going to send it to get graded (legitimise its authenticity blabla give it an actual value blabla we all know this its our niche fine)… where as everyone was cringing at all the misinformation being tossed and the no respect being put on Item Finder’s name etc. during the live… we all know that at this point EVERY PACK FRESH ESPECIALLY 1st edition card from an energy to the Zard is worth getting graded. Had GS been a bit more informed or knowledgeable on the subject, he would have sent them in with his Gyarados as well no? Whatever he decides to do with the slabs after aren’t relevant here, sell them and donate, hold and keep forever, etc. but tomorrow morning when he wakes up and sees the auction is at 15k USD+ I almost guarantee you that will be enough (if he isn’t already secretly lowkey holding all kinds of positions or some big Pokemon collector/speculator to begin with) to get him to look into it. Start asking the right people the right questions, maybe start making up purchases, etc. Maybe he starts tweeting about it, maybe puts some more IG stories, maybe he plans out a whole 10-segment video series on collectibles as alternative assets and maybe some people from this forum might even be invited to speak on behalf of the Pokemon space… there’s thousands of different ways all this can trickle through lol… and point with Kevin O Leary is, next time they meet or talk or maybe share a tweet exchange publicly or a reaction, etc. it might be in regards to Pokemon or Pokemon can get mentioned even for a second and the impact will be massive…
More notable people who spoke about Pokemon today that I witnessed. TimTheTatman. Guy streamed later than usual, I tuned in like mid way to his intro, and all I was hearing was the words Pokemon at least 50 times in the first hour lol… LootBoxTV did a dono for 250$ (he reads his donos of 25$+ so its a very cheap way for brands to get in front of large highly targeted audiences for CHEAP… he has on average 40-50k people watching at all time for 8 hours a day) and asked about a Collab or wtv (theyve done one in the past where they sent him a box to open on stream if I remember correctly) anyways the chat was going crazy… then later he gets an “offline dono” which means reads in your head not out loud, but he still said it and he goes “can we do a collab? like dude Id love to but like man like how would we even do this or what would we even do” etc. and he flat out just says what it was hes like “Guys so theres this super big Youtuber in the Pokemon space LeonHart and he just asked me if we can collab chat you guys want to see me do some. Pokemon stuff” blabla… notably he kept taking his phone because he was being invited into POGO raids and shit I think he just downloaded the game and he was starting to play freshly… what happens tomorrow when him, Nick Mercs and Cloakzy get back on track to their morning routine… lol buckle up boys because things are about to get crazier than they have ever been or will be…
Hate him or love him, hate it or love it, but Logan Paul will be the new face for Pokemon speculative buying, reignition of collecting to groups of people who feel nostalgic, etc.
Oh yeah, and not that many of you know who this is or even care but one of the guys who bought a pack is Faze Kay from the Faze Clan and who lives at the content house near Logan Paul and where all the big LA YT and IG people are right… not sure if you guys saw from Faze Apex, Temper, Jarvis his little bro, etc. and all their socials on Friday… they legit set up projectors, decorated their whole cinema room in the house with Pokemon stuff, got dressed up in costumes, whiteclaws, food and snacks, print outs of PSA 10s of each holo and their worth, etc. you could tell it was for a whole planned YT video about to come out “we paid 11k for Logan Paul’s pack and watched him live stream for 3 hours” blabla…
Don’t ask me why I saw this, but Faze Kay is the older brother of Faze Jarvis (kid who got banned by Epic for publicly live streaming on Twitch where he was a partner + a pro Fortnite player and a Faze member using an aimbot and cheating like just for content purposes and it’s been the biggest thing in that space until Doc got banned recently lol in terms of drama) anyways Jarvis and Kay have MASSIVE social media followings and presenses… their engagements on YT views is ridiculous… LeonHart and UnlistedLeaf wish their sub to view ratios were near these guys (they get multi million views per video)… WELL, Jarvis who did NOT buy a pack it was his brother and didn’t even post anything or make any big buzz about it apart from the fact he was showing he was at this viewing party… just started following PokeRev on IG… a guy with 2.2M followers just started following Rev today… and unless Rev mentioned this somewhere or something, one can only think that Jarvis may have now been inspired to maybe start picking up some stuff and collecting / investing / flipping and was just seeking an individual they can trust and who is big on social media for the space to get in contact with…
LoganPaul interviewed Nadeshot like a few weeks before this break (founder of 100 Thieves that has Drake & Scooter Braun as seed investors in the company)… everyone who has been following Matt for years knows this guy is massive on the whole sneakers and limited drop merch vibe (100 Thieves has essentially been called a merch company over an actual professional eSports Org lol because of the hype and sell outs their merch drops get)… there’s no chance this guy sleeps on this “hype” since he is the EXACT age group of anyone who has that base set nostalgia vibes… + he has that whole gambling personality, I remember him streaming live blackjack back in the days or like CSGO loot crate openings and crap lol…
What is currently happening and going to continue to happen dwarfs anything any one of you can remotely think of or reference to any historical moment or period in this hobby. No Justin Bieber days, no POGO bubble, none of that… this is at the bare minimum 1000x magnified currently.
Oh yeah even KeemStar was tweeting in very KeemStar rage fashion during the opening about how Logan Paul was defrauding everyone and he should be ashamed or some shit like that I remember reading it on Friday lmao
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You seriously should consider a tl;dr
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This reminds me of another problem that has been annoying me lately. The proxy cards that have been popping up and slowly invading ebay. Really annoying. Having to scroll past–proxy, proxy, proxy, proxy…
Soon it seems it will be any card worth more than $100. Really a shame. Keep that bullshit on etsy. Or better yet, gtfo.
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That’s what the little — “”" — part was, basically don’t read if you’re going to quote and comment about how you want the tl:dr and I offered a tl:dr of what you could expect to further read if it was of interest, which I purposely added to avoid this type of comment, but I guess it’s impossible to avoid… my apologies if that wasn’t made more clear and I unintentionally sucked you into a solid few minutes of reading because you suffer from that OCD-like condition that just doesn’t allow you not to do something or finish something even if no one is forcing you to!
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Yeah this!!! Man I always saw them here and there, but NOW.. EVERY marketplace is FULL of them if you search pokemon or charizard + eBay’s new algorithm has completely messed sh&t up and I’m being bombarded with proxy listings!!! I wish there was a way to just tell eBay that you do NOT want to see proxy listings or filter them out and if ads made their way through blackhat keywording or SEO techniques into your regular ads or listings that you could report them and have them removed asap to discourage them from that practice
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They are garbage and should be removed. People are also paying for them at high prices when they are still being sold on etsy for what they should be… next to nothing. Rubbish.
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Collectible Guru authenticated the card for him?
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People writing essays about a joke in a instagram story in this thread lmao
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@pichufan, I wasn’t referring to it’s sold price but rather how infrequent the illustrator is available in an easily accessible marketplace.
You mentioned there were more six-figure sales of the Charizard than the illustrator and I believe a reason for that is because there’s less illustrators for sale.
There has been 3 illustrator sales which they all sold over $200k since the Weiss auction publicly. While for the Charizard there has only been private sales over $100k and a few public sale going between $40k to over $200k during the same period.
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No, anyone who isn’t new to the type of content that is created on social media platforms saw that one coming… but if you’re referring to my essay, I was just dumping my observations of the day in terms of notable people and the type of effects we can expect since I know there’s a few of us who really enjoy watching how these things roll out not to mention it’s always cool to see people you might have a celebcrush or wtv on talking about things that are so dear to you…
@pichufan, I appreciate the like… lowkey I was hoping you’d read my post haha because over the past year of lurking here and reading your threads and posts on your blog I genuinely enjoy the research and observations and all the information you source and put together and come up with some banger content!
My point is or the tl:dr is that Logan Paul or Collectibles Guru or Gary V or Justin Bieber are just a grain of salt in terms of what is yet to be seen and by who… Pokemon is an 100B+ franchise in terms of lifetime value, they don’t dwarf, but they knock out Star Wars, MCU individual franchises, every Disney franchise, out the park… Pokemon speaks to almost everyone on the planet, but more than anything, Pokemon speaks to and falls perfectly in line with the demographic of mid 20s and mid 30s of people who are in positions of having stupid amounts of money and that sit in front of extremely large and highly engaged audiences/fan bases who spend massive amounts of money on things they like or things that are hype already. It’s like second nature to them. And once they get in on this as well, the collective force and impact will be HUGE. Not to mention the major brands and big thinktanks of fortune500 companies that will be looking to capitalise on the current trend or get into the space or get a piece of the action any way they can that are already working on dozens of different things.
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TLDR of the TLDR?
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Even more big names are getting into pokemon and there’s lots more conversations happening on social media about pokemon. So grab hold of your knickers and get ready for a ride 
.
Hype train has only barely left the station and had a long journey. Choo choo
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True, really annoying indeed. Most of my searches now include something like “-proxy -fake -custom -replica -orica” at the end to exclude all that garbage in my search results.. 
Still doesn’t exclude the heavy played unlimited edition Base Set Commons being advertised for 2k+ USD, though. 
Greetz,
Quuador
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I looked to the whole stories and i can’t believe what I just saw. So stupid videos, him breaking a window, angry of it’s fake card, at the hospital with bad cut…
How can human be so… I don’t have enought words.
Can I just unsee this?
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The true story here, it seems, is not huge social media zoomers being introduced to high-level Pokemon TCG collecting, but rather us boomers being introduced to the strange and confusing world of high-level zoomer influencer strategies.
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Yeah I just thought the same.
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