Hello fellow masters! I wanted to make this post in hopes some members of the community can give me some insight and potentially opinions on the sets mentioned in the title.
As I’ve fallen deeper and deeper down the Pokemon rabbit hole (Bunnelby if you will lol) I have found that most of my collection goals reside in the 1999-2009 range. My whole life I’ve had painfully expensive taste and of coarse Pokemon is no different .
3 sets that seem to hit the hardest for me are Expedition, Aquapolis and Skyridge. The eReader style plus art work is a favorite of mine and from what I have read on several threads here and other places, they seem to be some of the least printed official sets along with sets like Deoxys and a couple others. Rarity is big for me as a collector so they certainly check that box.
My research on these cards has led me to this post. I’m seeing major leaps for these sets prices going back to mid 2023. I don’t want to get too much into speculation of why this has happened but the answer to that may help provide an answer to my 2nd and 3rd question:
How do these prices compare to the Covid boom for these sets?
Do you see prices for these cards going back to the 2023 prices (at least relatively) at some point or do you think a new “low” will be established?
In your opinion do you think they will continue to rise for the foreseeable future before there is a drop off (assuming there even is one)?
Long term, and I do mean long term (another 15-25 years) I think these cards will do phenomenally well (like many from the WOTC era). Not only are they, and will continue to only get more scarce, they have unique designs and are still part of the WOTC era which will always be the “true vintage era” IMO…
Does anybody disagree with my long term outlook on these sets in particular?
I completely understand anything relating speculation of the market is just that, speculation. So I take everything with a grain of salt and won’t take it for “investing advice”. I’m just really curious to hear from others who didn’t take a break for 23 years .
Thanks for your time everyone.
P.S. If you ever have any cards from these sets for sale feel free to reach out.
The prices have come up again a lot this year on WOTC (including E-Reader) and Modern has continued to march higher. 2022/2023 was a good time to buy E-Reader and WOTC compared to Covid times. With this said, I have seen sales exceeding or matching Covid boom prices depending on the card even during 2022-2025. Crystal cards for example have held strong valuations overall, especially Charizard and Lugia.
I highly doubt it. Unless we go through another period of drastic deflation & tightening like we did in 2022.. I can’t see a time where these cards will go back to those lows anytime soon. There could be another re-trace, but it will most likely be somewhere between these new highs and previous high levels. About all you can do is try and score auction deals that come up from time to time that are slept on, or wait and see.
Based off the sealed supply & prices, there’s still a lot of potential with these cards. That is a big thing going for E-Reader is the lower (or what appears to be) much lower supply than other WOTC sets (esp. Skyridge). The only real con if any is the fact that a lot of people don’t look at E-Reader cards with the same nostalgia as earlier WOTC since Pokemon hype/popularity was really starting to cool off it seems. They are simply more niche sets overall, even though they are great sets with a lot of great cards, artwork, etc.
Not entirely, I think they will do well also. I just think for now and the longer term the money and stronger demand will point more towards earlier WOTC and E-Reader will most likely remain more niche but still a strong option. I also think Modern has really shifted collecting priorities more than expected, which could dampen the expected growth of some of the vintage sets compared to what people may have imagined since 2020 or even before.
Regarding Expedition (it is all I know):
The prices of all cards now are higher than they have ever been.
The really crazy prices seems to only affect the popular pokemon or cards. Some starters in both non holo/reverse holo have tripled in price while most other cards have maintained the same price point for the last 5 years.
Luckily I sold off 90% of my graded e-series cards late last year, so I dont have to worry about being rich.
I really enjoy ereader era and I’ve felt many have been undervalued for quite sometime. Many popular Pokemon have seen a nice jump in price over the last year but I still feel as though some of the less popular Pokemon holos are criminally undervalued. Especially is sub 10 grades.
Long term I feel the less popular ereader holos have some of the highest growth potential of any wotc era cards. When you compare the prices & population, the numbers just don’t add up currently.
People have started noticing this on the more popular pokemon and the prices have exploded recently. (Gengar, Umbreon etc). I have to imagine the others will follow suite at some point.
Thanks for your input. I’m noticing the same exact thing. Which sorta makes sense. People who collect/prefer vintage (like myself) who finished with the earlier sets are going after other WOTC sets and targeting Pokemon they are familiar with. At least for me, I don’t see how well a Gen 2 common, non holo pokemon will do long term in terms in value and I have no big interest in them (there are some exceptions) in terms of fandom. Plus I don’t think I will realistically be master setting anything from the eSeries anytime soon so why not start with my favorites. So I’m guessing others feel the same which the market is reflecting.
Do you see these prices leveling out for said Pokemon? Or continue to rise?
I have been buying a few of the common cards, especially in skyridge the last few years, and I’ve seen the raw un-gradable copies being bought up… IDK what that means. Speculation, collector interest, but what I do know is that combined with the relative scarcity, the prices we’re seeing may not change much for a while. Are they rare? No. Are they desirable? Perhaps so. Especially some of the popular commons. Similarly, I’m seeing an increase in Vs set, FINALLY but with slightly less interest in lower grades. But Vs does have that same visual aesthetic and is more rare, so who knows… less variety, TBH.
Funny you talk about Skyridge. On somewhat of a impulse purchase. I bought a sky ridge box topper Charizard in a PSA 10 recently at the last Atlanta collect a con.
I also won a coin flip for it (cri
I think the see through box toppers are really cool :]
Yea I agree about the prices. Between what I’ve had for responses here and some more reading I’ve done, there is no reason to believe these cards will drop that significantly especially considering they appear to still be on the rise.
I do feel however that even the commons from these sets aren’t so “common” anymore at least the high graded copies. We are going on 25 years and the pop counts for these cards are relatively low (compared to earlier WOTC and modern commons) and probably won’t change significantly going forward. So it’s my believe they have room to grow too.
I think the market is going to have a big correction in the next year or so, which implies prices around the board will fall.
How it has worked in the past is that prices fall but never drop back down to their previous lows (from the last market cycle). This isn’t guaranteed of course.
After a market downturn, the popular sets like base set unlimited are usually the first to start growing again once the market is back to a healthy state.
E-series takes a little longer to get rolling.
It’s hard to say whether the lower demand cards will rise in price substantially. A non-holo, expedition marill is more expensive today than it was 8 years ago, but it is quite insignificant (maybe $0.50). I can still buy a reverse holo of the card for around 8$ which is about the price I paid 8 years ago (perhaps with a couple more specs of whitening).
This tells me that the availability of these cards has not changed during that time.
I think a non-holo cubone selling for 15$ is a little ridiculous but the art is beautiful. People always seem to rationalize paying extravagant prices for cards now and then.
If you’re asking me, is it a good time to buy some cards for your collection. My answer would be no… but sometimes you can get a good deal and other times you might just like a card enough that the price doesn’t really matter.
Maybe a non-holo cubone will be worth 50$ one day.
As someone who has been collecting e-series holos for the past couple years, I’ve almost completely put them (and many other goals) on hold during this boom. The few I’ve picked up this year were of less popular species that only saw marginal increases ($20 - $40). I think there is a huge risk buying cards that have increased 3x - 10x in such a short span of time, especially when said increase is on the magnitude of several thousands, or several tens of thousands. Buying a card at an ATH and losing $100 is much different than buying a card at an ATH and losing $10,000. Patience is a virtue.
The cards were criminally undervalued before the boom ($300 - $400 for some PSA 10 holos), so I don’t really see them going back down to those levels again. The popular species and Crystals will probably remain high for a while, and will likely grow well in the next favorable market cycle.
Yea I’m not targeting the big holos for reasons you outlined. I’m hopeful some of those prices will go down and in the meantime will target some of the popular non holos and less popular pokemon for the time being. I’m ok with the fact prices won’t recede back to what we saw a couple years ago (sadly) but I’m hoping to find a happy median. Just hunt for deals in the meantime.
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