How has your financial approach to the hobby changed?

I’ve learned to enjoy cards beat to hell (and back) because of the insane prices on some of these cards.

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wow thats fucking awesome, do you post the slabs you get on your instagram or something? that collection sounds very solid and rapidly growing lol I always enjoy a constant stream of great cards on my feed. Good luck with your soccer!

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@odds solid prices on PSA 10’s.

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thanks, the CGC non-holo market is nice if I say so myself.

& great sept sales video, keep up the YT grind.

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Just apply for another credit card, and use that one to pay for the first one. Literally unlimited money. Like and subscribe for more financial advice.

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I’ll always shamelessly plug my IG @no_rarity (I’m trying to post more, but I defiantly don’t post often)

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you got some pretty sick cards dude, cheers lol

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Where do you find these auctions/who are these sellers? Insane prices

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My financial approach to the hobby hasn’t really changed since I started in 2014 and it’s always served me well. I’ve always collected on a smaller budget and I justify buying cards by knowing that if I ever got into a rough situation I could sell my cards for little to no loss. The trajectory of the market over the last year or so has increased the value of my collection a lot, but back in 2014-16 and 2018-19 it was a lot easier to lose money on cards if you didn’t know what you were doing. I pursue a lot of my goals through grading cards myself, I avoid opening sealed product unless I’m content to completely lose that money, and I generally minimize risk-taking.

Over the last year and a half or so I’ve taken more risks in terms of buying more from Japan, but I’ve found that as long as the risk is manageable everything evens out. I’ve learned from some mistakes in the past and now I avoid selling cards unless they are duplicates, far outside my areas of interest, or below the grades I prefer to collect. I put a lot of money (at least to me) into my collection but I’ve gotten fairly good at achieving my goals for the lowest amount of money.

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lol, bro - I ask myself this question all the time… We’re lost causes!

I really appreciate your response and sharing your long term changes over time. I was really interested to hear from more long term collectors. I think risk is a fear even present today, so I’m curious what you may have considered a risk back in the day. Also, as someone who is also moving into collecting a lot more from Japan, I’m curious to hear how you’d consider that “risk” against English “risk”. Are the cards from Japan you’re going for generally not secure notwithstanding their market stability over there? Thanks a mill :blush:

It’s weird hearing your financial approach being referred to as “on a smaller budget” given your insane collection but I guess if you’ve been collecting since 2014 thats just how it is lol

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I’m inclined to agree with you lmao
I re-entered the hobby in a pure panic-mania, but I kinda realized after a while I need to chill lol. Even with the prices being higher today, they’re still really not that high. Like, I work a part-time, minimum wage job while in university, so you can see my budget is tiny lmao, yet I still find that majority of the cards I want are pretty attainable. Even the “big” ones are in around $1000, with most falling well below that. Slow and steady has made a lot of my collection goals seem very approachable.
I know you didn’t really ask for this breakdown, but I just thought I’d throw my thoughts in there lol

I spent way too much money over quarantine… nothing else to do, lost my job, got stimulus and said screw it, time to have fun. I’ve now limited my collection spending to being funded by my current collection. So, if I want something new, I sell part of my existing collection.

No more money in, or out.

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Yep, slow and steady is the exact way to go. I joined back into the hobby in 2018 where it seemed prices were already high from the jump post 2016 pokemon go. But looking back at my purchases in 2018 and 2019, I’d kill for those prices rn. Definitely my word of advice is go for your most expensive cards you absolutely want right now and dont wait a second longer to start saving up or buying them. I had to get a skyridge charizard beat to hell as my budget doesnt really extend past 1k for a single card or else my girlfriend would kill me lol. But if I had got this card in 2018, I could have gotten a psa 8 for even cheaper than what I paid for mine.

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Risk back in the day was nothing like risk now, basically you had risk of overpayment, mismanaging your funds, or gambling too hard. The market was a lot more stable so the “investment” mindset wasn’t really present, but also people didn’t fear that their cards could drop 50% in value in a few months. A lot of people would buy new product to open, but that seemed “risky” to me because if you don’t get good cards you’re out that money. “Risk” back then could basically be completely avoided by managing your finances well and increasing your knowledge of the market and hobby.

Grading was nowhere near as lucrative as it is today. Back then it was literally PSA 10 or bust on all but the rarest cards. PSA 9 copies of Japanese full arts, promos, etc. sold for less than raw price. If you were lucky your PSA 9 English ultra rare card would sell for raw price or a little above. So you really had to submit only the best quality cards if you were looking to make money. Nobody cared about any company that wasn’t PSA unless you had a BGS 10. There were 2 Black Label Pokemon cards so that market was nonexistent.

Buying direct from Japan (e.g. Yahoo Auctions, Mercari) is arguably infinitely more risky than buying from eBay. eBay’s buyer protection is bulletproof, if you don’t like the item or don’t receive the item you ordered you get a refund. There’s nothing like that on Yahoo/mercari. I’ve had cards I ordered simply not show up, I’ve bid on mint condition cards and have played ones arrive, I’ve had different items arrive than described/pictured. When it’s a $10 ex card or a $50 BW UR it’s one thing, but bidding $700 on a “complete” Mew/Lucario gift box and having the gold stars removed is tough. However overall I feel like the deals I get from Japan outweigh the rare instances when you do get blatantly scammed. With my mindset against risk-taking, I never bid more than I can afford to lose on Japanese items.

There really isn’t a lot of market risk in buying cards from Japan. Japan prices will always be the floor, and while they certainly go down, most Japanese pricing is more stable (or at least less susceptible to crashes) than English.

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Lol, thank you for the compliment!! I am very proud of my collection and I think it’s a testament to how consistently spending a little bit can add up over time. Of course I’m very lucky to be able to spend what I do, but I’ve been a student ever since I started, so there’s never been a lot of money.

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I think its important to define “risk”. It was much riskier back in the day to buy any pokemon card for profit. Now there are so many no brainer options, constant content, , analysis, data, etc. None of that existed 10 years ago. Buying anything over 1k was a massive decision.

Today is more about choosing which option to spend your limited funds. Its much easier to make a sound purchase today. Being in Pokemon during the housing recession era, I can’t even register the miniscule “risk” in todays market. Even crazy speculative meme items like black label zard have recovered in a year or so.

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This is true and something most people now and even I forget sometimes. It seems so no brainer to buy that stuff back then for how cheap it was but there was no telling it would raise over time given many of these cards and sealed product stayed stagnant for several years. And buying a card for 1k when you don’t know if itll stay 1k is definitely a financial risk versus if I buy a 1k card today, I’m pretty confident in a few years time it wont have lowered and probably will have raised in value.

My mom who used to collect in the 90s gave me crap 2 years ago for getting a wotc blister pack for “50 WHOLE DOLLARS!?” or a cp6 booster box for 90 bucks when I didn’t even plan on opening it but even then there was good signs this stuff would likely go up in value. I’d say 2016-2019 was a great era to be buying vintage with very low prices compared to know but way less risk of buying expensive cards pre 2016.

Thanks for pitching in, Scott, and offering your expertise. I think your comment intrigued me on the back of @fourthstartcg ,'s comment - the two of you seem to see “risk” differently so it’s important that I clarify so perhaps you guys can have a better handle on how you can respond:

By “risk” I mean: The possibility of depreciating value on your purchases. With that said, how do we define “value?” Seeing that this is a hobby, “value” doesn’t inherently mean monetary value as there is a certain amount of emotional value on each purchase - if purchases are made out of a pure monetary (investment) mentality, then “risk” is the possibility of a returning investment. If purchases are made out of an emotional (collection) and monetary value mentality, then “risk” because less monetary. All of this aside, it seems like things always will boil down to mitigating risk:

To Scott’s last point - I think that the experience of being present in a “higher risk” hobby 10 years ago has molded better collectors and businesses - I think of @thecharizardauthorty, and @smpratte , as fine examples - the experience of navigating “risk” (balancing risk between monetary and emotional value) at a time of extreme fragility and lacking stability is what lends to sage wisdom in a time as “stable” or “lower risk” like now. @fourthstartcg , I’d love to hear your feedback to Scott’s points.