The best strategy for modern is work a job and buy the cards to enjoy!
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Thereās no rush to buy modern product within the first year of release. Occasionally you get an Ultra Prism or Roaring Skies scenarioā¦ if you want to āinvestā in collectables, donāt buy the new and shiny stuff unless itās exclusive and VERY different like a Scream Mimikyu.
If you want to invest in any Hidden Fates product keep in mind that the release schedule is stacked for a few months and that they will print it into oblivion like any other Pokemon product. Give it 2-4 years before you touch any of this set. Even if it goes up 10-20% in the first 2 years youāre better off putting your money somewhere else in the mean time and capturing that stronger return after 2 years worth of a popular product has been opened.
TCPi isnāt going to say no to money
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This was posted on Aus fb group. What do people think of this?
Worldwide shortage? One distributor got screwed over? Huge demand from America lead to an Australian shortage?
Also gives a little insight into print numbers to an extent.
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This is the best advice youāll find on the forum regarding investing.
An example of needing to look at every given item:
PSA 10 Hyper Reshizard is selling for $475 +/- $50 or so. Itās come down a lot from $800 when it first came out but still doing well. There are currently 256 PSA 10s (and 145 graded 9 or below) in the POP report. The set is still in print and will be for a long while.
PSA 10 Charizard ex (Fire Red Leaf Green) just sold for $530 with the two previous sales coming in at $560. Itās been a bit up and down with price but chances are you can get one for $550-600. There are 171 PSA 10s (and 444 graded 9 or below) in the POP report. The set has been out of print for about 13 years.
PSA 10 1st Edition Dark Charizard (Team Rocket) is selling for $550 +/-50 or so. Price has held fairly steady in the $400-600 range over the last two years. There are 377 PSA 10s (and 1,348 graded 9 or below) in the POP report. Set has been out of print for 17 years, give or take.
Generally, any Charizard card is a good investment because Charizard is a fan favorite and the most well-known Pokemon in the English market. The question you should ask yourself is not whether Charizard card X is a good investment, itās which card is going to give you the best return on your initial investment. Hell, if youāve got $450-600 to drop, there may be much better options. But I know where Iād put my money if I was investing.
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Regarding the German market for anyone interested: The last comparable set Dragon Majesty sold out immediately and was never restocked (at all shops I know of). The prices are often around 50% to even 100% higher than the english ones. It was pretty much the opposite of Shining Legends, which still sits on the shelves of my local drugstore at MSRP.
Now, I preordered 6 Hidden Fates items at 3 different locations in July and got all of my preorders cancelled. The pin collections went from 17ā¬ to 25ā¬ to even 30ā¬ and they still sell because people are afraid of missing out again. Many shops never charged below 29ā¬ for the preorders. Shops are charging 79-89ā¬ for the ETB, because even 69ā¬ boxes are sold out. For Dragon Majesty, all prices stayed that way so far.
I donāt know what to think of that and I would love some information on the distribution behind that. As far as I know, thereās one big distributor for Germany (Europe?) that many shops buy from. Do they create artificial scarcity so shops can always charge higher prices? Or does the printing simply not meet the demand? Itās such a big difference from Shining Legends. 
Hereās hoping theyāll restock/reprint them back to MSRP.
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scott dropping truth bombs on modern as usual
the prices for single cards of the sets is as high now as they will probably ever be, and once the ETBās and tins are released, everything will drop and stabilize bc lets be real theyre not gnna limit the printing for this cash cow
on a completely different note, the sleeves for the etb box are beautiful! im getting a couple just to have sleeves for all kinds of legendary bird cards. also i want that glass mosaic promo in 10 its so pretty
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I heard that there was only 1 printing of this set so after the tins and ETBās, thats it.
Thereās a big distributor in Germany, yeah. But there are also a lot of small distributors across Europe. Theyāre usually not too transparant about amounts of products theyāre getting or whether or not products are being reprinted in the future. So for us as shop owners, itās hard to gauge whether or not we are even getting a second batch after our first initial shipment. For Shining Legends, there was a second wave. For Dragon Majesty there wasnāt.
So prices can go above MSRP if our collective gut-feeling tells us weāre not getting a whole lot of a popular product with high demand. Thereās no such thing as an artificial scarcity when it comes to modern product. In Europe, itās just hard to get product in the first place.
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There is definitely something going on with the distribution of this set. Either the store I pre-ordered from didnāt get their stock for the release date, or didnāt get enough of it.
I pre-ordered both pin collections about a week before release and the store usually ships products so that you get them for the release date. Iāve heard nothing from them and also have received nothing. I went to their website to check the stock and it only says āproduct unavailableā.
So either they didnāt get their stock yet, or didnāt get enough of it to fill all ordersā¦ Havenāt heard anything from them regarding my order yet. Maybe Iāll send them an email and ask the whatās the situation with them.
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Let us know their reply, Iām curious as well.
Because I did get my entire order and on time. But, as a small store owner with no huge clientele, I didnāt take any pre-orders. So perhaps a lot of stores had way more demand than supply before the release date? We were all warned that the products sold out globally and info about reprints were unclear at best, though. And last year, I couldnāt even get my hands on the first pin boxes released for Dragon majesty. So Iām willing to bet that every store learned from that moment and applied that info to their strategy on this similar release/product.
But still, looking at cardmarket.com, Iām the only one with loose English boosters and one of the few still selling the English Mew and Mewtwo Pin Collection boxes. In the entirety of Europe! Perhaps some stores are waiting a week or two to see where prices land? Thereās obviously big demand for the set.
Iāve got no clue whatās going on either. 
Been spending some time on Deriums and Nostalgics twitch and from what they are saying, this is a special set for collectors and there is only 1 printing of it. Besides the tins and ETBs, there will be the HF pokeball AND a HF ultimate shiny gx collectable box too that will be released sometime in Nov. With Cosmic Eclipse also releasing in Nov, it totally makes sense that this is a special set. Pokemon canāt keep up with supply as it is now so they are not going to be printing HF and CE at the same time, thats what I think anyways.
Also, I think the business model of reprinting sets to the point where everyone has all the ultra/secret rares might be over. If anything, Pokemon will just select the good ones that people like and add them to the next or current set at the time without just reprinting and ruining the value of the whole entire set with numerous reprints.
Thanks for the welcome too btw!!!
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If they did huge print runs once they can do it again.
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They have also announced the Ultra Premium Powers box which releases on November 15th and has 15 packs in it. I donāt see them printing a limited amount of this set with the amount of Ultra Shiny GX hype they had with the Japanese set. When that set dropped the prices skyrocketed and then settled down, way down. Iād expect much of the same with this set but weāll see how retail looks with the ETB.
Thatās why the Mythical Collection - which seems to have been the basis for the Hidden Fates set, to an extent - canāt be reprinted, or at least shouldnāt - due to the fact it was a part of the 20th Anniversary. A quasi-limited-set label wouldnāt be too remiss.
Well, I didnāt send them an email because my order was shipped yesterday. I guess they had some delays with shipping.
It still says unavailable for the products on their website though, so I guess they sold their whole stock before the release date. Thatās my guess.
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Nice to hear youāre getting your order! And the delay makes sense; can you imagine packaging all those orders at once? Iām sure they sold a ton of pre-orders since the demand for this product has been astronomical ever since its announcement. If I would put all my current Hidden Fates stock online at once, I wouldnāt be able to package all orders and meet the promised delivery time either.
Iām curious to see how burned out everybody gets after these 2 pin collection boxes and the Elite Trainer Box releases. Those premium and ultra premium boxes sound nice in theory. But to the average person, those prices sound like a lot (though per booster youāll be getting a reasonable price). Those promos they include are really tempting, thoughā¦
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Do you have a link for this? I canāt find anything searching for Pokemon āUltra Premium Powersā on Google.
This set will tank in value from over-printing. PokĆ©mon TCG will want to milk this to the core considering we are nearing the end of the sun and moon era. Hell we will probably get a āBest of Sun & Moonā set like āBest of X & Yā.
Anyone consider they might have just short printed the pin boxes based on previous sub sets?
Iām also seeing panic for no reason when they have 4 more products coming out that contain many more packs.
Donāt touch singles right now as they are extremely inflated.
My tin foil hat thinks they put the pin boxes out to determine how much of the other products should be printed.
Logically, it would make sense for the Pokemon company to do a hell of a lot more than one print run. I donāt see why they wouldnāt as theyād be leaving a ton of money on the table by limiting it to one run. Playing devils advocate here, but Pokemon (and Nintendo especially) has been known to hate money at times (example being the NES Classic upon initial release). I guess only time will tell. Personally, I hope its printed more than evolutions.