I think in a collectibles market, one must have some level of interest in the collectible they are investing in. I really can’t see the average person looking at Pokemon cards as a plausible investment for them unless they have interest in Pokemon. Collectibles markets need to be researched more than your regular investments (stocks/bonds) and if people don’t have that interest, how can they make the decision to invest?
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To be successful in collectible investing you need to understand what the community wants and what type of thing excites them. A limited release trophy card from a tournament years ago where a mother and her child had to compete to win will see much more success among avid collectors opposed to 200 fates collides boxes, but if you’re an outsider who doesn’t know the community, you might just think that a newly released box would do better (Rudy)
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I think this portion is only true because most times you aren’t even doing the investing in the stock market. You hand your money to a broker and they do all of the leg work.
I would say stock market investing is vastly more intensive in studying/research then collectibles
Yeah, stock market research is more intense. Just to clarify my point, I think there needs to be a passion for Pokemon to invest for the average person. Someone who can easily afford the top tier cards doesn’t need to do much research. Pokemon cards are way more speculative than stocks. We have almost 100 years of information of how the stock market has performed compared to about 20 years of Pokemon cards. You can follow a financial formula to make a smart stock investment decision. With Pokemon, we are working with limited data and the infancy of a market.
I would not be so quick to say that stock investing requires more research than collectibles. You are saying this from the perspective of someone who had probably poured hundreds or thousands of hours into the games/tv shows/movies/memes/whatever.
Consider the perspective of someone that has zero knowledge about pokemon. Step 1: learn the names and characteristics of 900 fictional creatures and their relative popularity. I won’t hazard guessing what takes more research but I would not underestimate the level of brain capacity required to have a decent understanding of Pokemon or other collectables
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Scalability and ease of entry hasn’t been discussed enough here either.
Someone can click a few buttons in a brokerage account and have 6-8+ figure sums entered into investments in equities or debt instruments by close of business that same day.
If I wanted to enter Pokemon with 4 or 5 figures I could spend a half hour or so and click a few buy it now’s on eBay and be all right, but then I need to receive them over the next several business days, have a place to store them, and carry that risk of damage/fire/theft etc. while in my possession. I also need to worry about authenticity and find a way to be sure of that, deal with potentially fraudulent listings and sellers. Start talking about 6 or 7+ figures and these become exponentially more difficult if not outright impossible. 6 and 7 figure amounts are relatively small time in the world of investments.
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Come on, PFM - you know you REALLY only have to know 1 fictional character to make money in this hobby…
Lopunny.
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Stocks are easier overall. You can’t pay someone to invest in collectibles, you can with stocks. You can’t immediately buy everything you want in collectibles, you can with stocks.
There is a reason financial institutions aren’t crawling over each other to buy charizords, they require more effort and understanding.
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Shhhhh… you can’t just publicly give away this information freely!
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I should have added this to my earlier post to throw in some fancier technical terms.
In addition to scalability, fungibility, liquidity, and productivity are something more classical investments like equities and debt instruments have that collectibles can never have. MSFT is MSFT. If I buy one share, I own the same exact thing Bill Gates does, just in lesser quantity. I can type into an exchange “MSFT ask” and see an objective price and volume for which I can transact that stock on demand, nearly instantly. Same thing goes for bid. There are thousands of individuals and institutions with public offers out for major stocks at all times that can be browsed at any time. Unparalleled price history and information. I can collect dividends on long term ownership as well as most classical investments are productive assets.
If I buy or sell a charizard there is no other charizard exactly like it. Even if same grade we have “strong” and “weak”, we have consecutive labels, we have “420XXXXX” labels, the inevitable “69XXXXX” labels of 10 years down the line, scratched cases, print lines, centering etc. There is no way for me to instantly transact that item, and there is no set price on it. The fees are exorbitant when compared to equity transactions and the time frames eternal.
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Of course stock investing is easier with brokers, but I was speaking on trying to personally invest instead of using a broker, especially with extremely limited knowledge of the market.
But it’s mostly all semantics anyway, since you can just go to a broker and hand them your money, but there’s nothing like that for collectibles
Not exactly the same thing but, haven’t you ever heard of Patreon? Lol
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Depends. Mostly I buy what I like. But if I see something that goes for $200 on sale for $100 I’ll buy that up all day
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I invest in my happiness. Can we please ban the word invest on here or at least screen posts for mod approval? This forum used to be interesting to read and now it’s just variations of this question every day.
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Or you could start topics that you find interesting.