Typically, when we discuss liquidity it’s often framed in the context of a seller - “How fast can I convert this card into cash”. On the buy side of the fence, this translates to “How fast can I find and acquire a desired item”. I’m sure many of you have personal experience of illiquidity from the early days in the hobby, or maybe from this week chasing a difficult to find card. Between all the market places, YouTube, social media, and the massive spike in demand over time, it’s sometimes odd and perplexing when you can’t find a product or information regarding a product. I’m certain I’m not the only person to wonder about this, but it appears that the speed at which the market moves and the visibility today it creates this “double edge sword” effect, which brings me to my main question.
How has your opinion of liquidity or lack of liquidity changed over time with the sharp growth of the hobby?
Do you view Illiquidity as an indicator of an opportunity to buy certain undervalued/underrated cards that are not in the spotlight? OR do you view Illiquidity as an indicator of a poor cards/niche products etc. whereby there isn’t critical mass of interest to drive transactions. Do you view illiquidity as both an opportunity and an adversity? Why or why not? Let’s try and avoid the obvious anecdotal examples like “Base Set Charizard is super liquid”, or “Base Set 2 Jinx is Illiquid”. I will kick off the thread with my own example from this week.
Due to the Giant Art Thread on efour last week, I was acquainted with a beautiful card from L2 Reviving Legends, the Scizor holo in Japanese 48/80. I immediately did an eBay search which resulted in three raw cards in played MP-LP condition for $50 - $60. The price itself seems high (but not insane) however there were no mint cards or listings whatsoever. I took it a step further and searched for sealed booster packs of Reviving Legends. This resulted in one listing for $250 after adjusting my search multiple times. This got be thinking about my liquidity question above. Has Reviving Legends always been illiquid? Am I just living under a rock, and Reviving Legends is stonking super hard and I didn’t notice the huge influx in demand snapping up product? Is this a set that’s super niche where collectors are sitting on cards/product and prices have not gone up enough for people to dust off their items for sale? Are collectors chasing the 6 Legendary Dog cards and shredding the rest of the sets as they go? Is illiquidity here good or bad and how has that changed from years past?
I would love to hear what your thoughts are, and would greatly appreciate any specific examples, and how those examples changed your perception of liquidity/illiquidity in your view. You do not have to address Scizor/Reviving Legends specifically. Feel free to opine with your own take.
I am really curious to hear peoples replies and thoughts on this.
Personally, English cards under $100 have always been super liquid for me, especially in PSA 8-10 grades and from the base - team rocket sets. On the flip side, more expensive or niche Japanese cards (golden era promos) have become more Illiquid than this time last year, as I’m typically not trying to undercut everyone in a race to the bottom. Graded supply as well as availability has definitely increased in the Japanese sector, and while demand has also increased there is also a lot more patient buyers.
While there is never a “defined” market value on cards, more often than not I see Japanese cards getting auctioned as the seller just wants to cash out quick and move on with whatever profit they can get (typically because of their low cost basis from buying raw, then grading), which of course results in a lot of lower than I’d like comps. A good example of this is Japanese eSeries holos. They are getting auctioned off weekly now, whereas 6 months ago the majority of sold listings were from Buy It Nows. $15 grading at PSA has opened a lot of options for people looking to make a quick buck. If I wanted to fire sale, I’d definitely be auctioning rather than just undercutting all the other Fixed Price listings.
Grr that was a bit of a rant, but those are my initial, unorganized thoughts.
Interesting points. On a relative basis, the Japanese market overall has seen increased in demand, so theoretically the liquidity has increased as well? Is that consistent with how you’ve always viewed the JP market previously?
This might be a hot take that belongs in the unpopular opinion thread, but I don’t like the term liquid within the context of buying/selling Pokémon cards. I do understand it’s relative to whichever specific item we may be talking about but the entire hobby is illiquid. Most cards or items need to be listed below “market value” or put in a 7-10 day auction to be liquidated. Then they need to be packaged and shipped. Most of the higher end items are sold privately and can require days of negotiations. Compare that to a stock that can be sold within seconds at the click of a button regardless of its price, that’s liquidity.
Again, I understand it’s relative to the context of Pokémon, I hope this wasn’t too negative. Sometimes I think we get so deep into the hobby that we forget how niche it is.
Demand has increased for sure, but set cards and more common promos (CoroCoro, Vending, old back promo cards) have had their supply explode past the increased demand, at least in my experience. Maybe not in the 10 grades, but the majority of sales are happening in the 8-9 range anyways. Even Base No Rarity has seen a massive pop explosion in the last year. Over 30% of the 10s, and over 50% of the 9s have been added to the pop report.
In my experience: the cheaper the card, the more liquid it is (with a few exceptions like base set Charizard or modern chase cards).
You can obviously auction anything and generally get pretty close to fair market value, but with cheap cards or modern chase cards, you can set the price to fair market price and someone will buy it rather quickly.
I’d say my collection is more liquid than ever before though honestly. The demand is still pretty high compared to the mid-2000s.
I agree with you. From cash to real estate there is a whole spectrum of assets with variability. It was really more of a question of has your idea of speed/volume of transactions changed overtime say from 2005 vs 2023, and how does that affect your mindset and collecting.
Right, I went on a bit of a tangent there sorry about that
From my perspective just about everything is more accessible in terms of availability than ever before and I love it. I love having access to sales data, being able to research different items and releases before making a purchase. It really adds to the fun of discovery and the confidence I have when making a purchase.
The liquidity of Japanese cards has definitely increased, but it’s still not even close to that of the English side. At least in my opinion (I’m sure most would agree). I like Japanese cards a lot better and I know many people on E4 feel the same way, but the fact of the matter is that Japanese is still more “niche” than English, even with old back set cards. English has a wider demographic and will always be more liquid.
However, the popularity of Japanese has certainly seen an uptick over the past few years as buyers search for cheaper options. Japanese isn’t always cheaper (particularly when it comes to modern), but for vintage stuff like old back holos, EX cards, etc., it generally is.
I think vintage Japanese is reasonably priced as is, regardless of its relationship to liquidity.
I am not sure that I would say illiquidity is a benefit for the buyer, as there is just so much vintage Japanese available. Look at any Sunday eBay or PWCC auction and you’ll see thousands of listings. The availability in auctions outweighs any buyer benefit from it being less liquid.
