Took a stroll down memory lane on some ancient sites and the ptsd of prices during the no man’s land era of pokemon really hit. $21 bucks for GS Ray, $10 for a booster pack. $135 for the box
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Yes that was a time with significantly less demand. At least that is the best copium I’ve found. 
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Surprisingly enough the guy that started this particular business and his nephew are still active on eBay not much left over but still around. I get my diamond pearl, HGSS packs that I like to punish myself with from them. I was messaging with him and he replied to me in all caps. Hits different
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I miss those times dearly. Things were so exciting getting back in at those days. When you could take a trip to your past, revisit pokemon for the first time in 10+ years, a young adult… and things were super affordable. I went insane buying base, jungle, fossil, gym packs for $5-10 a piece, and eventually boxes for just $100-300. Neo sets were completed in whole for $50. I remember buying a complete rocket set for $75. And again, I thought that was a major commitment, but I justified it as buying nearly 100 cards so it was fine.
I remember scoffing at a shadowless charizard NM being $50+ so I bought a LP copy for $30 and just couldn’t believe how expensive that was. Blastoise was $15, Venusaur was like $10? Geez. My biggest regret is how much I wish I had fallen in love with E series then as I do now. I remember hating the borders. I now view the era as the finest creation. And I’m well aware those cards were even cheaper than the shadowless cards then.
This is 10 years ago now. I wish I could say price memory affects my purchases now, but how could it? Prices are absolutely insane for even the most mundane vintage cards. Do you want them? Yes. Does knowing about the past bring about anything but pain of wanting the old days for me? No. I’ll always miss that time. I hated 2020 so much. There’s such a fond memory of looking at those old rediscovery days of N64 memorabilia, pokemon, yugioh, etc., when no one cared. And I could have it all to myself!
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I was the worst. I used to hate the “shiny reflective” cards I would just give/trade them away for non holos because I thought they were a bit over the top and I just wanted the normal looking pokemon.
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What has helped the most is collecting all the cards from certain artists. Really makes you appreciate every aspect of the effort put into each card. especially with the commons and uncommons
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Like back then as a young lad I didn’t even know booster boxes were a thing. Bring me back to that time. Just buying a few packs from some long forgotten community staple game store
Price memory for me is more like a “look how far we’ve come” thing. I love how much Pokemon has grown, and while there are new pains, I wouldn’t trade it to go back to pre-2020. We lucked out picking a great hobby that’s performed so well.
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I will say I wouldn’t trade the community aspect that we see today for anything back then. It’s no longer just us looking at cardboard in a grandma’s basement. The player community has kinda always been there but now there’s a group for everyone
Every time I see threads like this I start foaming from the mouth thinking about all the cards I passed because ”I’ll get it cheaper later if I just wait for a while”
Smh
I was too busy spending my disposable income on my stupid saltwater fish tank. I remember buying a $70 fish only for it to die the next day. Good times.
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Salt water anything are bags. I used to be a starfish guy, why? idk cuz I thought they were badass
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This is where my goldfish brain comes in handy.
Do I remember buying team rocket packs for like $20 in 2015? Yes.
Will I remember that when I’m looking to buy them again someday for many times more? Probably not.
Do I know what I had for breakfast today? Defintely not.
Semi-related but this is actually drives me crazy when talking with my grandma. She hates buying a tank of gas now because you don’t get a set of steak knives with it like you did in the 50s. Or that a hershey bar was a nickel.
So if I start actually getting price memory I try and push it out of my head because I know it’s a losing game.
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It’s is and it isn’t tho. Gas sure. But that price is controlled by a centralized system, opec which will inflate or deflate the value as needed. There’s always the possibility everything pokemon will go to zero. Do i personally believe that will happen, no but all this shiny cardboard could die off
I get what you’re saying, I wasn’t attempting to say that gasoline and Pokemon cards hold the same functional value, just that price memory shouldn’t hold you back from buying something that you want.
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Not to derail this thread by taking it in a completely different direction, but isn’t it amazing how spoiled we truly are in the west?
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1st world problems but god I love it.
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All good interesting back and forth. Market value is truly a strange thing and generally you are correct price memory only has an impact on people that are taking losses and/or are making decisions based off emotions not unbiased information
I do miss being able to buy any Lv. X tin i wanted for $20 or less. I opened just about every one that came out as a kid. It’d cost a lot more than $20 to buy them again 
On a more recent note, I wish I had bought more things when I got back into the hobby in 2019. Would have been able to make significant progress on some of my current goals…
I too find myself nostalgic about the early 2010s period of Pokemon. The days of clear wrap Shadowless 8 starter deck boxes and green wing mysteries, of red logo Fossil boxes rejected as least desirable and Skyridge as the cheapest E-reader set. The days of Freshmagma, of going to the post office when they still had proper post offices to pick up a little brown package after work that you had looked forward to the entire week. The days of 240p youtube with BW wifi battles in leaked japanese, the days of BCBM’s and FCBM’s, of seeing stores packed with HGSS Triumphant and Platinum Arceus and thinking modern tcg was going downhill which was rather insignificant as vintage was readily available everywhere online and there was plenty left to collect.
Oh woe of bittersweet remembrance…
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