I think this sale and subsequent response encapsulates a lot of the issues with the current state of the signature market. And I don’t really think there’s a “right answer” to everything, but I’d like to lay out at least what I see as some of the problems that generate this kind of thing.
First and foremost, Pokemon makes signings very challenging. Artists do not have the leeway to sign when and where they want, and Pokemon places restrictions on how they can sign, what they can sign, and to whom they can sign.
Second, effectively all of the artists are Japanese, which has a much different culture when it comes to profiting. In America, it’s a much more cutthroat capitalistic culture where we understand (and even commend) people for making money at the sacrifice of morals and principles. Not the case in Japan. They really do not like it when, in their view, they have provided a personal keepsake (signature) and it gets sold.
Third, there’s a comparatively large amount of shitty behavior within the signature space. It’s a minority, but a vocal minority. You only need one person out of a thousand to chase after Arita on the way back to his hotel and it ruins the event. Add that to the people wiping personalizations and selling them, doing “to charizard,” cutting in line, etc etc.
I think this contributes to a sense of precarity for signature collectors, where it feels like these events could very quickly be shut down forever if one more thing goes wrong. Ironically, if signature events do get shut down, it will only make the market and the shitty behavior more prevalent. So when something like this happens, there’s a very fierce backlash against the seller for contributing to the negative environment. We don’t know the seller’s reason for selling, maybe they had a sudden expense or emergency. Maybe they just didn’t want the card anymore. Maybe they’re a dirty flipper and their objective was always to sell and they lied from the beginning to get the card.
I understand the backlash, even if I don’t think all of it is warranted. After all, it is the seller’s property to do with it what they wish. The major problem is that signatures are so limited now (mostly due to the actions of TPCi) that it generates these problems. And we’ll keep having them as long as the market is as constrained as it is. Constantly trying to turn something that’s considered valuable into an unsellable asset is a losing battle, and I wish Pokemon would change. But since they’re not likely to, I absolutely come down on the moralizing side of pressuring people into “tru collector behavior” if it means we get to keep signature events.
