For those that appreciate the unique release and rarity of the big hitting Trophy cards but can’t afford the price tag, it would be great to hear about your favourite cards and views on interesting releases that are more affordable. It seems to me that the top-end of the market has accelerated so much that there’s a ‘giant chasm’ in terms of price to all those not-quite-trophy cards beneath such as Grand Party, Pokemon Card Laboratory etc.
For example, buying a mint Tropical Wind has become difficult but how about the Tropical Tidal Wave cards. What’s the consensus on the 7 language print commemorative collection that was given out to players at the start of the Worlds? The PSA pop is very low but since they were given out to all participants I assume the actual supply is quite high?
The worlds promo’s are a great place to start for anyone looking to get into “trophy-esque” cards. It’s what I collect as I think they are some of the best cards out there.
As for your question about the supply of the cards, there aren’t actually that many of the competitor copies out there. For the 2004 tropical wind, I believe the number of competitors was 310 (source: pokegym.net/community/index.php?threads/worlds-update.9776/)). In theory, that would mean 310 of the basic stamped copies exist for that year. However, there is always the chance of extra copies and whatnot so a safe presumption would be under 500-1000 copies of that year.
For 2005 which is the first tropical tidal wave year, I had to do a bit of digging, but I did manage to find a general number of players for that year. In this article (POKÉMON ORGANIZED PLAY ANNOUNCES 2005 TRADING CARD GAME WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS | GamesIndustry.biz) they say that “More than 400 players of this intellectual sport from over 30 countries will be awarded the chance to compete at this invitation-only event.” So I think its safe to say that there were under 500 competitors for that year. So again, in a perfect world, there are under 500 of the regular stamped competitor copies for that year.
As for the rest of the years, I haven’t really looked into how many competitors there were, but I am sure they are out there somewhere. I would assume the numbers only got larger from 04’ as that was one of the lowest points in the hobby. Overall though, even the basic competitor copies are actually quite rare from the numbers we have provided to us. I wouldn’t hold my breath for an explosion in the PSA pop report for those cards if you were looking to pick them up.
If i remember correctly, in 04 they only gave you the card you won. So if you were top 16 you only got that card, not like how they do it today where you get all cards you won.
Edit: Also with the 04 ones, they had a card that was unstamped for anyone that came to the event. for a while the stamped and unstamped were graded together by PSA so the POP numbers for it are off
It really depends what you’re after. If you’re looking to make a profit you’ll probably want to stick with cards which get talked about a lot (like the Masaki promos, Trainer Certification Card and Pokémon Card Laboratory mentioned above).
If you’re in it for the rarity aspect I’d recommend looking at Battle Road promo cards - a lot of those are still incredibly cheap in relation to their overall print run. As an example, a PSA 10 149/PCG-P Rainbow Energy sold on eBay last year around the same time all the Logan Paul hype was going on for just $39 despite it only having a distribution of around 200 cards. If you’re interested I’d advise checking out the Master List of the Rarest Pokémon Cards - that attempts to list all cards with a distribution under 1,000 and a lot of them are readily available for very little.
Since you mentioned “obscure” cards: 1. Go to Bulbapedia 2. Go through every single card ever released 3. Write down every card that doesn’t mention an english release in the info on the right or that says “In Japan, this card was awarded…” in the info text. Unique art and/or unique stamps for days (/weeks of research)!
The distribution has varied year to year from what I understand. At some point, you used to get 2 copies of each placement up to where you were. I had a friend who got Top 8 in 2012 (woo Beaches) and got 2x Top 8, 2x Top 16, 2x Top 32. I got Top 32 in 2015 and got 2x Top 32.
Last I heard around 2018 era, you would get 1x of the placements up to your actual placement, where you get 2x. So if you get Top 16 now you’d get 2x Top 16, 1x Top 32.
I could dig around for more concrete info but that’s what I’ve heard and experienced first hand.
I would like to add that I believe they changed that in 2012 for you to receive the whole line up down from your place. But 2004-2011 didn’t have that as concretely from what I know and it would generally be the place you got and that’s it.
I think soon, even the lesser/minor trophy cards such as the design cards, AA, and pearl will be too expensive. If you want one, this is the year to get it.
There are a bunch of cards prize cards that are pretty valuable such as Lapras 58 l-p, gyarados xy-p and umbreon 140 xy-p that are very expensive in Japan but I don’t think are mainstream yet. Sometimes bulbapedia doesn’t convey the distribution of these cards well. I find that looking at the card prices in Japan can help point you in the right direction.
English Victory cups and Legend Pikachu Medals are really bang for your buck no.1/2/3-esque cards.
Not only are they affordable, they look like cards awarded to the number 1/2/3 players (and they actually are) with their artwork representing just that. Compare those to cards like a Legend Copycat or Charizard V SR, although rare and awarded to winners, don’t really tell much of a ‘trophy’ story from their art.
I’ve been collection STAFF Prerelease cards. The 3 Charizards are the most expensive, but the rest are pretty obtainable. They are possibly not printing them anymore, and they look great with the gold STAFF stamp. I say they’re underrated. Some say they are a bit niche. But they are low print overall. I’ve heard estimates of around 1000 Evo. STAFF Charizards cards printed, but who knows what the print runs are for these cards, and it depends on the time period of release. Anyway, they are not trophy cards, but they are a fine investment.
Not quite trophies but the PLAY promos are awesome and each have unique artwork (that english sets later stole lol). I love the story behind them and still affordable for most of the cards in set.
Trainer mag cards, Japanese exclusive ex / lv. X, cool Pikachu promos, sets where the texture is better in Japanese (eg PokeKyun). Just going off what I enjoy to collect myself. For rarity, maybe Mewtwo and Zekrom recent prizes (not the rainbow rare HR).
Champions festivals, city/state/national championship promos. Yuka Morii promos. Any card that when you figure out a character collector’s master set is the actual rarest card with the consistently lowest market availability. If its affordable just buy it. If its not just buy it.
Thanks for all the answers guys, some really interesting ideas and resources!
I think there’s a good opportunity with some of the more unique, exclusive, modern release stuff that has high popularity and has always had a decent supply but is now phasing out. A prime example would be the Mega Tokyo’s Pikachu which is the rookie cosplay card and is a Charizard themed Pikachu. My strategy is to build a bit of a position in raw mint copies and get them graded, in 5 or so years’ time I hope they’ll have appreciated significantly.
Given where prices are nowadays these kinds of strategies are so important to fund collecting other items!
