First off, first post here, so idk if I am doing anything dumb, plz shove me if I am not supposed to where I am not.
I wonder, for retro cards, (foreign languages outside of Japanese) are they mostly untapped for the price spike 3 years ago?
The reason why I wonder that seem to be the case, is that I combed over other ebay sites recently, and it seems like those cards are mostly in the pre-2019 levels at this current moment, and I picked them up for much better price than their english and japanese counterparts.
I really doubt it is just luck that I ran into these prices and listings.
Yeah, it’s less about luck and more about organic demand. I assume by retro you’re talking about late 90’s and early aughts non-English/Japanese cards. Most of the foreign language versions of early cards just don’t have an incredible demand and the prices reflect that. Given the difficulty of tracking some languages down, I personally would value rare languages of very old cards like Polish, Dutch and Korean immensely, but overall it has and will always remain that the niche languages are cheaper than their English & Japanese counterparts. (There are a small number of exceptions obviously)
I was actually looking to E-Series era actually. I think they fall around the same category since they are still under WoTC.
I paid around 175 USD for Rev Foil Crystal Ho-oh, and 500 USD for Rev Foil Crystal Charizard, both of which are German. Neither of which, that don’t have any really bad dings on them to complain about for something that old (at least from the pictures when I brought them).
I guess it is also good that the Skyridge Rev Foils tend to be more affordable, since otherwise they fall completely out of my price range.
Well with Crystal cards you’re getting into that grey territory where some people see foreign language copies as a more attainable method to acquire the super expensive artwork they really want (and a select number of species collectors wanting to find every single language.) $175 doesn’t sound bad though for some of Kusajima’s best artwork I fully support collecting the different languages
I fully support collecting the different languages