I sold a very expensive card to a guy who said “oh this is my grail card, thank you so much, I’ve been wanting it so long etc etc” only for me to find it slabbed on eBay literal weeks later. Thankfully, I got the last laugh as the card never sold and the price plummeted. 
But these people are everywhere. Don’t trust anyone who tries to butter you up in an exchange.
I definitely subscribe to the opinion of ‘do what you want with your money/ items,’ but, so long as it does not impact the community around you. It is a little much that someone would make such a statement about something publicly, only to flip it so soon after. I don’t want to assume there was malintent, perhaps unexpected financial troubles pushed the person to sell.
This is what really bothers me. It’s unacceptable to harass the artists. The resale market going wild for signatures only increases the chances that something bad like this will happen, imo. Further, this is not only disrespectful to the artists, it puts the entire possibility of signing events at risk. It may make artists reluctant to do signings and beyond that, it could potentially impact their professional relationship and job illustrating for Pokemon. If an artist lost their job, or had their personal life effected by something like this… it’s awful and shouldn’t be happening. Of course, that’s not even mentioning that Pokemon could also just be like “no” at any point and crush signings moving forward. People just take the fun out of everything and then good people end up suffering the consequences. It sucks.
To Future Collector (written in Japanese)
Do Pokemon really think that the artists will ever outshadow the Pokemon? That’s impossible.
The only way to control this is increased supply not more restrictions.
I would never want to buy an autographed card, but if I had the chance to get cards autographed by my favourite artists I would love to go. It’s all about the experience for me.
It’s less about artists actually doing it and more about the perception of brands and how they are can be potentially tainted by negative publicity, especially when it comes to something that be perceived as selfishness and being above others. That’s why idol groups get a smack down down from their agencies when they express a desire for more independence or why even minor drug usage is such a taboo in the Japanese media world.
Just by reading Saitous thread, I can tell this situation bothered him. Reminding them that how much they’re loved goes far. I didn’t care that he retweeted, I rarely use twitter. I just wanted to get my message across. I’m glad it did.
You’re a good dude for doing that, I’m sure it restored some of his faith in humanity.
I hope future signings are like Worlds. People hiring employees and/or dragging their kids through 10 hour lines to insta-flip the cards is really gross.
Back in '18 and '19 they used the bracelet system where competitors would (randomly?) get a signing slot. I remember people paying upward of $200 for a bracelet even back then. Meanwhile at Baltimore, there were offers of $2k just to get a spot near the front of the line on Sunday. As long as the financial incentive exists, there’s no going back.
In '22, it was two non-artists that only signed a poster. The sign for it randomly appeared (on Saturday I believe) with 12pt font in the middle of the gigantic hall. For people who weren’t there, they basically had a line-up (or queue because UK) and made you pop one of those trouble board game dice rollers. If you got a 6 you were given a bracelet until they ran out of slots. I heard that somehow people even gamed this system and somehow they ended up signing more slots than were given out.
The demand is so massive today and the money is there. As long as that is true, signing events will always have an element of “grossness”. There will necessarily be a barrier to entry - whether it be some kind of lottery or a financial barrier - because the demand is so high. If there’s an easy way around the barrier, you will have people take it regardless of how anti-social the behaviour is because the financial incentive is there.
