I’m looking for something new in Pokemon to put money into, and I’m wondering how good an investment PSA graded japanese cards are?
Do we have any solid info on just how many were printed of the original sets? PSA pop and prices of the japanese cards seem to be lower than english cards, so I’m looking at it as there’s room for growth in terms of their value. Japan is a much smaller country than the U.S., so maybe less cards were printed for Japan? Or are there a ton of japanese boosters and boxes out there?
Any insight is much appreciated!
The pop is probably a better reflection of the historic lack of interest in graded Japanese set cards more than anything. Before 2020, graded Japanese base/jungle/fossil holos were dirt cheap even in PSA 10. There was no incentive to actually grade them for profit. I think the pop is a poor reflection of how much is actually out there. For Jungle and Fossil, you get one holo per pack, they aren’t particularly rare.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t potential. Japanese is a viable graded alternative when English gets too expensive. Additionally, these are basically the most popular sets in the hobby.
Interestingly there are actual figures of total cards printed however the exact numbers for each set we can only guess. The document is no longer available online but anyone who wants it pm me (info from research article by Waseda University):
From 20th October 1996 to the end of March 1997, total of 87 million cards were shipped
163 days total, includes 137* days of Base set and 26* days of Jungle
In 1 year, approx. 180 million cards were shipped
Includes Base set, Jungle and Fossil
April 1997/March 1998 - 499 Million Pokemon cards shipped
Japanes Cards: Older, rarer, minter=better? Not always at least when compared to English,
Older. Check. Early Japanese sets came out years before English
Rarer. Check. Many more English cards were produced
Minter. Check. Japanese cards are waaaay better made.
Better? Uhmmm…not if you consider value, Japanese cards are much cheaper, and far worse investment than their English counterparts.
If you look at pure price tag, yes English is worth the most. However, In the past few years, Japanese cards have been a far better investment when you look at ROI.
Stuff like PSA 10 1st Ed Zard has had one of the worst ROI during the recent spike. It has gone up approx 100% whereas quite a few other things have gone up 500-1000% this year.
What makes Charizard and base set a good investment is their steady nature. They are like the blue chip stock of Pokemon but if we are looking at past performance over this period, it got absolutely smashed in returns by most other things.
I wonder how many of those 500 million cards still remain today. I assume cards change hands often but do the majority of cards (especially holos) really get thrown into the garbage/destroyed?
As did mine! I was telling my wife about all of the cards I had as a kid and I asked my mom go into my old bedroom to see if any of my cards were buried somewhere and much to my chagrin, they were not.
What in the world are you talking about? For example, out of the 1000 set cards from base through Neo, name just one that has outperformed it’s English counterpart in the last year? Just one out of the 1000.
ROI is a measure of capital efficiency. It only cares about % gains and not $$$ gains. A card that is was worth $1 last week and $100 this week has a better ROI than a card that was worth $1000 last week and $10,000 this week by a factor of 10.
Not only did Japanese base have a better ROI, it was also a much easier entry point to market than 1st ed base by virtue of being cheaper. Not everyone has $five figures to throw into a PSA 10 1st ed Charizard. In fact, many collectors/investors only have the ability to purchase cards which are worth much less. This is another contributing factor to why we saw many of the cheaper cards climb so much this year.
That being said, I am not saying that your cards are a bad investment, Yes, it is definitely easier to sell one 1st ed charizard than hundreds of smaller cards. So that is definitely a tradeoff to consider. And also, as I said before, of all the cards to hold value and have that consistent growth, 1st ed charizard will definitely be at the forefront.