It was the summer of ‘21 and I overpaid for my PSA 7 2016 Staff Champions Festival. It was when I first discovered my love of Worlds promos and excitement and FOMO had a hold on me. I gave @smpratte a good payday though 
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I wasn’t buying slabs during 2020/2021 because they were stupidly overpriced.
But I did open a lot of modern. Dumbest decision was cracking something like 8 Champions Path ETBs and not hitting any Zards. Sorta made up for it when I opened shining fates and pulled two Zards tho.
But still, that Champions Path break is one of my worst losses ever because I paid $70 for about 5 of the ETBs. Obviously, in hindsight I should have kept them all sealed since they sell for $100 now.
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Damn that’s unlucky. I opened 2 cases and hit a black label on one of the zards. Probably the biggest come up for me still in the past couple of years.
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I have the most expensive 1st Ed Sabrina’s Alakazam. Good thing I plan on keeping it until I die.
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Didn’t even get me started on opening modern. I wasn’t even chasing pulls it was just entertainment for me (very expensive entertainment compared to what I normally do) and the main way I got enjoyment form engaging in the hobby. Fortunately I now get a lot of joy from buying singles and only open at most one box of each new Japanese set.
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Probably just bought too much modern to open. The absolute lack of any at msrp mad me feel like I needed it more than when I could regularly get it. Although, I’m surprised at how cards have fallen as much as they have from covid peak here.
I bought a platinum blue eyes white dragon for 3750 in 2021 thinking it would be like the gold pikachu card.
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Not to be that guy, but the only truly bad decision I made during the pandemic was buying a small lot of Shadowless cards for about $500 from some guy off eBay (it was a bunch of Charmanders, Haunters, Kadabras, Arcanines, etc.).
They were all supposed to be in gem mint condition, but most of them were in low-end near-mint condition (so like PSA 7 quality). That was really the only “mistake” I made.
Otherwise, I pivoted entirely to Japanese during the pandemic. Best decision I’ve ever made in this hobby.
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I definitely overpaid on some stuff that I thought was “undervalued” compared to Pokemon in 2020/2021, primarily MTG cards. I have no idea if I could sell them for the same now because they’re just never up for sale, but I bought them because I wanted them in my collection for some time and because I thought it might even be harder to find them down the road for the same/similar price, or even find them at all. Now of course a lot has changed with the market attitudes towards both Pokemon & MTG since then, and so it’s even harder to for me to say with any certainty on these points.
I actually purposely avoided most Pokemon cards during this time because it was just anarchy everywhere I looked, especially when Logan Paul came around. It was exciting to watch at times, but I refused to get sucked in because I had seen it (FoMO) happen in so many different markets before. Combine this with the grading backlog situation and other factors, and it was just the perfect storm for so many of the things that happened with prices and stuff.
Anyway, I’m happy to say I’ve enjoyed collecting over the past year or so. Huge drops in prices on cards that people were dying for in 2020/2021. Now the prices are down, but yet now so many people are caught up in this money vacuum situation with inflation and interest rates and other factors, which to me has created a great buying opportunity for those who can position themselves.
Not all awful buys, but definitely I’d say impulsive…
My 2020 Poke-rus CoV-2 FoMO derps:
- Several 1st ed uncommon rocket cards graded, because I wanted the set, but prices might go up
- Several trainer magazine cards for more than what graded 9s are worth now
- $175 for a PSA10 1st ed rocket squirtle because I’d just woken up, checked my email, and thought it was a PSA 10 reverse FireRed Squirtle (which would have been a great buy!)
Needless to say, the last one was a good lesson, but not what you might think: DO NOT BUY THINGS WHEN YOU’RE HALF ASLEEP; Wake up before checking email. 
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Haha, no. Apart from these three and Character Rares, I keep away from Charizard. Collecting one popular and overprinted Pokémon is trouble enough. 
Greetz,
Quuador
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Stockholm syndrome? 
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In 2020 I had purchased a 1st Ed Base Zard PSA 8 for $7,300 and sold for $28,600 six months later so I was feeling pretty cocky. I bought another PSA 8 shortly before Pokémon Day 2021 for $20,000 and then timed it to auction around Pokémon Day. It sold for $17,500. It was definitely a humbling experience and the most money I’ve lost selling a card.
In late 2020 I also paid a friend to break an entire case of Vivid Voltage (six boxes) hoping for Rainbow Pika. Terrible financial decision. However I can’t say I regret it as it was a ton of fun and one of the reasons I started collecting Modern again.
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oof that brings up memories for me. I had bought a 7 in 2019 and early early 2020 when prices just started to rise I sold it for a 1k profit. I was so excited, until 4 months after that it would have been a 14k profit
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Denied a 7k offer on my 1st ed base Charmander and 15k on my red cheeks Pikachu
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ouch
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Reading all these stories I’m glad I avoided buying a whole lot in general during the peak hype. Like others before me, the biggest regret (if you can call it that), is rather not selling some stuff that was hugely inflated back then like my English Base binder collection.
The only real, significant loss I’ve ever had on a graded card was a PSA 9 Red/Green Gift Set Zapdos, purchased for ~$400 in August 2021 when I thought the hype was over and prices had settled. I believe you can get it for around half that now, but whatever. It completed the bird trio and is still a phenomenally magnificent card.
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I sold a lot of stuff in late March and April 2020 since i was home and had the time that shot up once people realized we weren’t actually in a recession.
Interestingly, unlike others here mine wasn’t buying cards, but selling cards. I wasn’t actively collecting at the start of the pandemic, but in the early summer months I’d somehow picked up that the value was going crazy, I’d heard something about Logan and thought well I might sell some of my old cards. They had mostly 3x-5x compared to what I paid or what I evaluated them in 2017! WOW!
I was not in tune with the hobby at all and decided head over heels that the bubble could pop at any moment and sold most of my graded cards. —Lets be real, how much money would have to flow into cardboard crack for these prices to hold?— It just wasn’t possible in my mind.
Particularly a PSA 10 Stormfront Charizard that I had bought for €600 and sold for €2000, and a PSA 10 Power Keepers Charizard that I bought raw for €12 and sold for €700 seem like the worst decisions I’ve made. The Stormfront I had bought specifically as an investment (was pop 12 at the time of purchase).
I know there’s no merit in trying to time the market, but I could at least have done a bit of research (Logan hadn’t even broken the first box yet), or even listened to my partner when she suggested keeping some. I had my blinders on, this was a bubble and it was going to pop any day.
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i know a lot of people that paid crazy prices for their neo genesis holos. i have a few myself lol. it makes it hard to buy them now because people dont want to take a loss.