Yes, it is more common now to trade cards plus cash for bigger cards. That is why eBay sales tend to be lower in price due to all cash transactions.
If I had a card and it doubled or quadrupled in price, I would be very happy to trade it toward a bigger and better card that I couldn’t ever afford in cash. I would rather put the card toward another bigger card and maybe some cash (depending on the other sides) for my own personal collect.
Or even, people that see their cards rise in value very fast, want to “insulate” the value by putting it into cards that didn’t have a lot of growth or negative growth to realize the profit increases.
This happens all the time and how most of the vendors actually make money. They aren’t making the money that you see in the “I’ll buy at 90% market value” purchases. It is more in the trade/upgrade & wait-it-out model that more capital is realized.
As Charlie Munger puts it:
“The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting”
It’s the frequency and manner in which the card and pricing is being discussed and framed that it is making it seem like “pumps”.
Meta.Kai has an incentive to discuss whatever the flavour of the month, headlining card is because he runs a business within the space – and is on instagram no less. Money always has and always will attract eyeballs and boost engagement, but it also seems distasteful to many within the hobby who were here when these cards could be bought for pennies relative to current prices.
I also think the consistent surge in pricing seems unsustainable to many, myself included. I don’t have skin in the game with Ray, but I do with other Gold Stars, and the bull market has me feeling uneasy. For me, it’s not the price itself, it’s the constant exponential jumps we’re seeing sale after sale – primarily driven by FOMO. Discussion around these cards is encouraging that FOMO, and that’s my personal gripe with it. These are still mass-produced cards, and I don’t personally believe they should be selling 8x a TMB Trainer, 4x an SSB, or 2x a Pika.
I understand the market for them is slightly different, especially with ENG vs JP, but the growth of gold stars feels extremely inorganic compared to other “grails” in the hobby. You can get into the semantics of what is organic or inorganic, but I don’t see any discussion around Gold Stars outside of their monetary value. To me, that is a red flag.
Trades for grails are common but you’re not really going to see people trading up a bunch of lower tier PSA 10s for a 1ED Zard. Auctions instill confidence, private deals like these don’t inspire much of anything. I’ll be paying attention to the TAG 8 on eBay.
It’s almost at 16k which is pretty good for the tag sellers out there since last sold on 130 for a psa 8 was 15k ( not including the 19.8k sale since it had a mba sticker on it which why it went way more )
Greninja Gold Star PSA 10 going for around 1-1.2k currently. I marked mine up because of the swirl and it sold in less than 24 hours of listing at that price. Definitely not the standard price currently.
Examples below:
I’m not justifying anything, I’m just telling you the current market price and current conditions. This is the 2nd Gold Star Greninja I’ve sold and I have a few more out for grading that will get sold when they come back. Just updating the prices and confirming a new high.
PSA 9 Gold Star Rayquaza is still undervalued and this proves my point. Just got offer yesterday on it for 65 K!! Absolutely wild times we are living in. Supply is way less than Demand
