So the pop on Gold Star Rayquaza is worrying me lol
The PSA 10 pop has gone up another 3-4 I believe since 3-4 months ago , I could be mistaken
The PSA 9 pop has gone up from 208 LAST WEEK to 214 …
Is there just a surplus of people finding these rays for great condition on platforms raw , or are there most likely people cracking and re submitting for a higher grade , especially for the PSA 9 pop reports that’s a huge increase in less than a month
I’ll gladly take your worries off you! Sell me Rayquaza gold star PSA 10 for $200 since it’s not that rare now. I’m taking a big risk too… 
Dr. Alleybro or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the PSA 9 Gold Star Rayquaza
Maybe not really the right thread, but are there any examples of cards that became popular or surged in price a long time after their release, and then consequently had a lot of quantity come out from the woodwork?
I feel like if the cards aren’t graded within their hype/release period, they will never really challenge the population of cards that were hyped upon release even if they were of the same rarity.
Maybe this is just logical and common sense, but for example Charizard is basically the king of Pokemon and graded cards so the population of its cards dwarves the rest, but if another Pokemon were to ever gain popularity down the line, I don’t think it’s possible for them to reach the graded Charizard numbers.
For example Legendary Treasures holo Zard has a pop of 1,593 - more than the other 29 holos combined. It has nearly 1,400 more than the next most popular holo, but since it’s been a decade since Legendary Treasures, if a future Pokemon from the 29 were to get stratospheric popularity, it’ll probably never manage to match the Zard pop.
Not sure if this is the right saying but along the lines of a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Well I feel like a newb. Where do you find these release numbers? That seems super useful!
It’s not a matter of finding exact numbers most of the time, you just get a vibe based on how something was released and how many are available on the market. It’s just one of those things you learn to do over time
Ok I see what you’re saying. I mean I can draw general conclusions easily that set cards are always going to have WAY more copies than event cards, etc. But its tough to know how many of a special event card are produced until its too late ya know? Like take the Worlds 2023 deck. At this point for all we know the prices could hold, decrease, or increase depending on how many they actually print. Demand seems high. But by the time we figure out how much they’ve printed to demand it will kind of be too late right? Like you’ll have either jumped on it and overpaid or sat on the sidelines and missed out.
Unfortunately, that’s the way it is sometimes. If everyone knew how many were produced and knew whether another print would be available, then there would be little price volatility to take advantage of in the first place. Population cannot help here either because it’s a lagging metric.
Everyone will have different risk tolerances. For me, I prefer buying things generally when they get to a point where no one is interested in them anymore and they aren’t the hottest new thing. Typically you’re paying a much more realistic and stable price even if it means you potentially missed out on a good deal early on. It’s also a lot easier to decide if you really want something or not at that point because you aren’t caught up in the hype.
This is REALLY good advice. Thank you. I think getting back into collecting lately, I’ve been buying way too much. I need to slow down and make sure I’m buying things I really want and buying them at the right time and not during FOMO.
It’s interesting. About a month ago the Star Birth Charizard Alt Art (103) started to jump way up in price. I was afraid if I didn’t get one now I would miss out. I bought a PSA 10 copy for $375 + tax and shipping. Recently with the buyee mecari coupon and the fact that card has declined I was able to get two PSA 10’s for about $150 less! If I had just been patient to begin with I would have been better off.
If you have a goal/plan on what you want to do with your collection, FOMO kinda fades away since you have something to focus on.
Also good advice. I think the problem with jumping back into the hobby after a long break is that you feel like you missed out on so much and so you are rushing to buy up everything before it’s too late! Oh but wait, that’s just FOMO lol.
PSA website.
For example, this webpage URL below is for Evolving Skies’ cards population (how many of each card graded so far, subjected to change anytime):
https://www.psacard.com/pop/tcg-cards/2021/pokemon-sword-shield-evolving-skies/198449
It’s hard to time though.
Star Birth is already 1.5 years old, so you’d think its price would be stable. I guess you could argue it was before it shot up - but that’s another thing as well, sometimes when they shoot up, they continue to do so and sometimes they retrace - which one is it?
I think that if a card hits a price that you are willing and able to pay to have it, then you should go for it and forget about the price trends that happen after. They aren’t really relevant anyway unless you aim to flip it.
Right I thought they were talking about release numbers though which is different than the pop report. I regularly look at the pop report for cards but who knows how many other cards are out there ya know?
This may be a weird take but before getting into the whole grading thing and having a marketing background, I had always assumed POP was often times more used simply as a marketing tool as opposed to a show of “rarity or exclusivity”. I could go to the store, rip a pack, and send off every card in there for grading, and I can almost guarantee I’d have a POP 1 of nearly every single card in the submission.
I think a more telling factor of value or exclusivity is the statistical likelihood of a particular card having more copies in existence than what have made their way into slabs, and beyond that, the likelihood of those cards being of grade-able condition (i.e. many base set cards were primarily children’s toys, before popularity and the collecting community pushed substantial interest in preservation of condition).
So the jump from 180 PSA 9 Gold Star Rayquaza to 214 under a year isn’t something of concern with Population ? I’m thinking that its value and its popularity of the card might go away if the POP gets higher if people don’t see it as a rare card anymore ?
Could be silly of me too think this since the 1st edition cards like Charizard have HUGE amounts in PSA 9 and there value or popularity hasn’t gone away lol
I spent a lot of time in the stock market (and the crypto market at one time as well), and perhaps unsurprisingly the speculative collector’s market has similarities in behavior. There’s an old saying that “the market has priced in” the value of a particular speculative asset based on both its past and future prospects.
The value of let’s say Gold Star Rayquaza in this example, is largely based on the likelihood of copies existing in the wild, and in grade-able condition. It was a very rare card for its time, specifically at a time where Pokemon wasn’t at a peak in popularity (thus adding to less copies of it ever being produced) and now due to age, the likelihood of clean copies existing has gone down dramatically.
Charizard in particular is the absolute peak of market demand in the hobby, so even if there were substantially more in existence to be graded, I doubt there’s enough to satisfy any meaningful amount of collectors or speculators.
That’s my two-cents anyways, I’m always open to being wrong.
So the Rayquaza will have its rarity of finding one in mint condition going for it while the Charizard has its huge popularity always keeping it as a wantcby collectors , I see what your saying , I guess time will tell if the ray gets as popular as the zard
Something like that yep. There have been a few “sleeper” pokemon grails that have popped up over the years as people try to recreate the popularity/value “lightning-in-a-bottle” of Charizard, ones like Rayquaza, Umbreon, Pikachu (although this one arguably has as good of a value proposition as Charizard since it’s the literal mascot of Pokemon), etc.
If I were to invest in those personally it would be in cards such as the Gold Stars. Those are dead-ringers in my opinion for long term value and exclusivity. Really any Gold Star is a safe bet. Shinning cards as well, specifically vintage ones. They’re just obscenely hard to find in good condition, they came out after Pokemon’s huge first wave settled down in the US.
From my observations cards during that period have very high value propositions relative to even older sets just simply due to the lack of interest in them at the time they came out, resulting in less existing most likely. A good example of this is the reverse holographics from legendary collection. Very little interest in them at the time, but clean copies rival their base set counterparts in price on the market.
last month I graded a Charizard and Pikachu Gold Star at CGC 9.5 (which would be a 10 now) … these were purchased second hand and I never really thought they would get a grade like this, I just wanted the cards authenticated
(I probably should have submitted to PSA or BGS, but was testing out dropping off cards in person … that part went smooth, the timing on the big company changes not so much!!!)