I’m saying that art has stronger fundamentals than CGI as a general statement.
People don’t have unlimited budgets. The cards will hit a ceiling or a range where it cannot grow because the market doesn’t want to spend that much money on cardboard. Just because the group that started with Base/Pokemon nostalgia wants to doesn’t mean that all these newer, pandemic-influenced people will ever justify it.
I get that everyone has their own strategy on how to make their collecting affordable, but if you represent a significant amount of the people buying alts, then the whole hobby suffers for it. E4 may not like ‘alts’ as much as the casual modern collector, but take them out of sets or make them so inaccessible because of others’ investment strategies, and there really is nothing worth collecting at all.
Pokemon is a lot larger and prints a lot more, but you cannot sustain a hobby with just investors alone. All of these franchises and brands need new blood.
It’s the double edged sword of TCGPlayer. It’s difficult to manipulate prices or enact buyouts if the only marketplaces you have are eBay and social media since there is no central control. TCGPlayer also has no data transparency, fake sales galore.
If E4 didn’t exist and I couldn’t find people who actually enjoy the art, I’d have left quite quickly after returning. I can’t stand 99% of the influencers. It’s not just the wrong mindset to have in a hobby, but in life. Just always looking to take advantage and manipulate others. Hard pass.
Charizard, eeveelutions, and pikachu have the most “fanatic” fan base / collectors in the hobby. Everyone else is a minority compared to those big “three” when it comes to popularity and obsession. We see charizards in almost every modern set. There are so many to pick from that everyone is all over the place on which one is the best modern zard. Almost every set has a new zard as one of the chase. As for the eeveelution fanatics, this vmax came out of the blue and it was a stand alone from any previous sets. They really decorated this moonbreon compared to its predecessors. I think maybe hidden fates umbreon and darkrai/umbreon tag team promo were the only other “big” modern ones I can remember that made some waves and they didnt even come from booster boxes. Everything else was meh… I dont see why the moonbreon wouldnt top any chase card in modern including the latias + latios. The fact that its the first big hype umbreon in awhile and comes in the greatest eeveelution set of all time, helps its value a lot.
Regardless of pull rates, people love this set. Team Up, Cosmic Eclipse, Evolutions XY, along with many other modern sets are about $900 - $2.5k. I dont see how Evolving Skies cant compete with those or topple them in the future. Yes, evolving skies was released at a point where more people started to hoard more boxes but I believe its lvls above many other sets and will hold strong none the less. It just may take a bit longer to get to that lvl. Greatest Eeveelution set to ever be released in pokemon history I mean… Thats really it. I also believe it will be considered a top 15 - 20 set of all time in the years to come. It checks all the boxes to be one. My opinion.
I really don’t think anyone is opening Team Up, Cosmic Eclipse or Evolving Skies en masse at those prices or that box breaks will be a hot ticket. The breaker cannot guarantee their buyers anything. I mean, unless people are really that dumb and have done no research on pull rates.
I think it’s impossible to compare booster boxes from Gens 1-4 to 5 until now, or especially 7 and 8. You can’t really get a dud box from G1-4 when holos are either the highest hit or second highest whereas in 7 & 8 a full art is still considered a dud box.
I think any booster box could be sold out from a ripper n shipper if the person is high enough up on the popularity pole. Rusty, Pokerev, etc could probably take any box, divide the box price by 36, add something for their profit, and it will always sell out, regardless of set.
Disclaimer: as long as the random set (Team Up) hasn’t been opened up in mass via these methods in the recent past.
Is that because they can’t do math more than anything though?
Base Set Charizard is 1 in 48 packs (holo every 3 packs, 16 holos)
Moonbreon is 1 in 1,749 packs or 48-49 booster boxes.
Even a full art in EVS, any full art, is 1 in 27 packs which means that there’s a chance that hyped up break’s highest rarity pull is a normal VMAX worth less than $1. The whole box’s contents might be worth less than a pack.
I know many are degenerate but enough to make a dent in all the sealed product moving around? I don’t think so.
Youre right. There are plenty of people who can rip these and so many influencers that do it on a daily basis that profit from it. Regardless if they are ripping these boxes or not, the box prices are still continuing their climb. Still a fun set to open.
If you were replying to me, I was strictly talking about modern boxes. I didnt mention WOTC at all and used the word modern specifically. As for my opinion of ES being top 15 - 20 set of all time in the future, that has nothing to do with price but in general of the arts in the set and how many people love it. Just so theres no confusion.
Turns out Evolving Skies is still out in the wild. I decided to buy this for the heck of it at $12 (I believe the other pack is Chilling Reign). Not a great price point, but to my surprise after a quick eBay search, turns out these can be sold for up to double:
I have a feeling everyone knows evolving skies is being manipulated at this point, but no one wants to say it, or they just dont care/feign ignorance which is fair.
I think he/she is referring to the idea that its mainly being bought up by speculators instead of collectors and that feels like manipulation. I dont personally think it is being manipulated but I would bet that most buyers/holders are speculators and not box collectors
