@nish, 100%, yes.
So since it was my post that sort of spurred this I wanted to clarify my feelings about this just for the record.
There has always existed a tension between the âhobbyâ aspect of PokĂ©mon and the âbusinessâ aspect of PokĂ©mon. These two concepts are not mutually exclusive. They overlap and intermingle and one fuels the other and lots of people are both. But there have always been participants who are in it âfor the hobbyâ or in it âfor the moneyâ since the earliest days of the game. It is easy for these people to be at odds with each other because they have different goals. The hobby collector wants cards. The business collector wants money. There has to exist a negotiation between parties because they need each other.
But the tension we have right now is different because people are actively and aggressively chasing fortunes and are very public about their intentions. âInvestmentâ has entered the PokĂ©mon vocabulary in a way it previously has not existed. You can call it the Logan Paul + Logic factor or whatever you want, but the truth is that the perception of PokĂ©mon has changed. If you are a âhobbyistâ, thereâs a good chance youâre a lot more skeptical towards the âbusinessâ side of things because you have spent the last year being inundated with investment hysteria and watched the value of cards increase more quickly than they have ever increased and reach heights that many normal people could never justify. People who bought in are willing to wait as long as it takes - which you are right that it is their right to do - leaving hobbyists to just sit and watch.
This is where the newfound animosity comes from. Groups that used to coexist with some tension are now at fundamental odds. You demonstrate this yourself. The purpose of business is to make as much money as possible off your products. Why shouldnât a business person sell for as much as possible? They have every right and incentive to do that. Thatâs why theyâre here. But that money doesnât come from nowhere and the person paying that money is probably going to have some strong feelings about how much theyâre spending and why. A lot of would-be buyers see the current prices of PokĂ©mon as exploitative and unnatural, a bubble waiting to burst. People feel the hobby has been taken advantage of and theyâre the ones paying for it. I think as much as people are entitled to sell things for as much as they want to, people are equally entitled to their opinions over the money they are personally spending.
You are also right that PokĂ©mon is not a right, itâs a hobby. People do not have to buy PokĂ©mon cards. But I am sure the feeling of being rapidly forced out of something youâve been doing for much of your life because all of a sudden itâs a playground for speculators and investors does not need to be explained. It feels bad. People are entitled to their opinions about that too.
I have listed things I didnât want to sell but would sell if I got an amazing price for it. I have taken advantage of being the only one for sale at the time to try to get someone to cough up the asking price. I donât feel bad doing it either because I know this is what it takes to raise money to put back in to my incomplete collection. This is the reality now. I donât blame anyone for how they contend with this reality. But I donât blame anybody for finding it, as a whole, really distasteful. I know that I do.
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Putting me on blast lmao but I still stand by what I said. But I am also in the category that if you think something is overpriced, move on with your day, not worth wasting time over something so minor like that.
Yeah typically my mindset is thereâll be another listing, just wait for that one.
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@stagecoach I couldnât have said it better myself. You make some excellent points. So I recieved a ton of quotes on this topic. So let me set the record straight so no one is confused then I can butt out of this thread.
Anyways my original point was it would be a lot more simple if sellers simply listed a buy it now price on all listings. I never mentioned a certain dollar amount. So if a card last sold for $300 for example today. And you decide to sell one next week why not aim for $300 or even $350 or $400 etc. You get a lot of sellers listing a card that sells today for $300 for $600 immediately instead or $900 with best offers. Shit sometimes even $1200 haha itâs extreme sometimes. As a collector it gets annoying. Iâve sold off a few modern cards but at no point in my life will I ever feel the greed to list a set card over double to triple last sold price. Trying to list a little higher is fine but there should be some reasoning.
This is hard earned money being spent by many members of the community. No one likes feeling taken advantage of. Throughout this crazy year and a half Iâve stayed collecting. Every check I spend as much as Iâm comfortable spending after bills etc which obviously come first. I donât ask people for 2018 prices or 2019 etc. Iâm more than willing to pay market price even plus some if needed to secure whatever card i want for my collection. I love and cherish every card and i feel grateful to even own them especially for how old and rare these cards are. I try to stay positive no matter what. I went on a tiny rant the other day when I got screwed over like many others by Probstein123 on eBay. The post I keep getting quoted from I was agreeing with someone else about something to do with greedy eBay sellers or the market Iâd have to double check.
Anyways sorry for long post and you really summed it up well stagecoach
Take it easy yâall and please no more quotes on this topic. 
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Itâs quite the stretch to claim to be taken advatage of when you and the seller both agree on a transparent sales contract. No one forces you to buy.
Thereâs always the option to wait for a better opportunity, buy a worse condition copy or just move on to a cheaper collection goal altogether.
If asking prices really are way too high across the board, they will come down on their own eventually.
I know this situation all too well, but sometimes you just have to be patient as a buyer.
Sorry dude 
I want to pull this part out because I think itâs something a lot of collectors (myself included) are struggling with in the current climate. When covid first hit in March 2020 and we saw the first big boom, there was a sense it was going to be temporary. People were staying home, spending less money on travel and eating out, and lots of folks were rekindling old interests or taking up new ones to pass the time in quarantine. All signs pointed to it being a temporary influx that was worth waiting out. Eventually conditions would improve and people would lose interest and prices would normalize to something more manageable. I definitely put my buying on hold from March-September 2020 thinking it would be a waste of money to buy during the quarantine boom.
But that ended up being a mistake because prices did not contract or diminish at all. They just kept climbing up and up and up. You can bet I am kicking myself for not picking up my Lugia when it was $700 now that itâs $1,300+.
When I bought my PSA 8 1st Edition Charizard in 2018, I paid $2,500 for it. It was the most amount Iâd ever paid for a card and I thought to myself there was no way I would ever spend like that again. The value of that card now is now like 6-8x that. If I had not bought it in 2018, I never, ever, in all my life would own one. So I am extremely glad I bought when I did because that was my last chance. When I see whatâs happening now with Neo sets, I have a lot of anxiety over âwaiting it outâ because I had my own close call with Charizard. Putting purchases off last year was already a mistake and now buying them is even harder than it was then. If things are only going to go up from here, patience is a luxury I canât afford.
But this is kind of a separate conversation from what we were already talking about. But this is also why I message everyone who takes offers with the average price of the three most recent comparable sales and ask if they can meet it. Not because I am trying to lowball them and swindle them out of a vast fortune, but because itâs now or never!
Might be a fake bid to give people false confidence others see it as real.
The guy on eBay was just hard hall negotiating, I wouldnât take it too literally.
A day in the life of a Pichu collectorâŠ
I had stopped getting email notifications for âpichu psa 10â but a few good listings had popped up recently so I reinstated it⊠now Iâm now sure that was the best decision.
i.imgur.com/ZiiOmvY.png shows more of those 76 new Pichu cards listed today⊠I count 7 actual Pichu cards there.
I remember a time when people used to accurately describe the items they were selling. Bloody kids these days ruining everything. 
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Darn those unexpected medical bills! This was a day after he purchased a PSA 9 Fan Club Porygon and then asked me to declare it as $15 on the customs form.
I would encourage all sellers to add this one to their block list. This guy is just trouble.
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Iâm sure the seller is very nice and they have great reviews, but have you ever seen somebody post an entire manifesto in their item description before?
link
Lol I guess it is better than no description at all.
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There is no chance of that selling but damn that was a riveting story by Jerry
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That would make a great copy pasta for elite four memes
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Iâm kinda speechlessâŠ
I donât know whether to add to watch list, ask for lower price, or just buy the dang thingâŠ
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Feels
^ This 50 post buy thread creating a bit of spam lately
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LMAO. âPlease falsify customs info because if not Iâm not going to buy even though we could have easily discussed this prior to buyingâ. Gotta love people.
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Another great, exemplary eBay user for everyone to aspire to be. No really though, block this idiot.
Canât stand people who waste my (and other prospective buyersâ) time like this. Childish.
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Do me a solid, Bro! Câmon Bro⊠