Even so it’s still a card which has gone from being readily available for $2 to hoarded by a few individuals and sellable for $110 in under 12 months, regardless of whether that was from someone on YouTube, someone on Discord or wherever else. It’s a product whose value exists from hype rather than from natural growth. Was it worth $2 last year? Probably not considering what it was. Maybe it’d fit in the $10-$20 range to match some of the other Nintendo Black Star promos released at the time. Should it be worth $110+ now? Strikes me as a bit odd that you can pick up stamped Worlds promos from other years for cheaper than this unstamped card.
Looking at my purchase history, I picked mine up for my shared artwork collection from T&T on the 15th June 2019 and I paid $1.99. 1 year and 13 days later T&T has 31 copies available starting at $199.99. If anything I imagine T&T have more of them for sale now than they did a year ago.
Edit: I’m not saying its value is a bad thing by any means. I just used it as an example of how something can be hyped up to the point that it increases in value twenty-fold in the space of one year (fourty-fold if any of those T&T copies have sold). It shows how powerful word of mouth can be when it comes to a card’s value: last year it was nothing, this year it’s something which will be out of reach to a lot of people.
This is exactly what I was referring to above. You have drawn false conclusions due to lack of information/knowledge. The new price isn’t surprising at all. If anything the $2 you paid was artificial.
Here is what actually happened: The card sold for $100 via pwcc. That is what triggered the buyout. That was the market correcting in real time. Someone paid $100 via pwcc, then supply changed and prices increased. Not a channel hyping anything. The classic case of flying under the radar until the pwcc auction.
Also this card has unique art and wasn’t released in a set and sold in stores nation wide; It was primed for a buyout.
The idea that every card increases on a stable slope is fallacious and as we’ve seen many times in Pokemon, historically incorrect.
Just because a card goes up by a lot doesn’t mean its value is artificial. It took me awhile to realize this myself, but just because you can’t understand why a card is selling for what it is doesn’t mean the price isn’t real.
I’m not saying the price isn’t real - people are obviously willing to pay that amount for them - I’m saying the price has been artificially hyped to the point its at today. Once the sellers who performed this buyout run out of stock will it maintain its value? Who knows. If the buyout hadn’t happened would it be a $100 card today? Probably not.
It’s a card which has a lot of supply in the hands of people who bought them intentionally for the sake making a quick profit. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s the sort of point that when bought up leads to backlash from those who either bought the card at a higher value (who are defensive of their higher priced purchase) or don’t want people to know about the value increase in the first place (in case it hinders sales).
This conversation is great. I am sure there are many occasions where something is not nefariously manipulated by an individual or a group of individuals but a few people start buying them and talk about it publicly and then a bunch more jump on it after seeing the price spike. Even a few people can drastically change the prices on cards in a few days, particularly when the supply was fairly limited in the first place. Buyouts are gonna happen more and more as pokemon gets bigger and more money can be made, all the reason why people can benefit from increased transparency.
The card sold for $100 before the buyout…You are writing fiction at this point. I laid out exactly what happened in simple terms. The first $100 sale was pwcc, that isn’t an opinion. Then, after the first $100 sale, the prices on everything else naturally increased. Literally the market correcting in real time. It couldn’t be anymore cut and dry.
What a card is ultimately worth is purely subjective and based on peoples feelings at any given time. How a card got to its current price is a matter of objective realities. Scott has cleared up how it got to its current price, but whether it should be valued at that price is completely up to the market IE people’s subjective opinions. Some could argue it got bought out and has artificial financial attention on it, thus people are buying it at these prices not because they want it but because they plan on flipping it for profit and thus the price will likely come down. Where others might argue that the price jump just brought much needed attention to the coolness of the card and genuine collectors want to buy it now for their collection even at the new higher price. Often it is some of both. I think this is where education and experience becomes vital in trying to predict where the price might go in the short term for the flippers and resellers and for the investors in the long term.
For a raw card or graded card? I’m talking about raw “near mint” cards today selling for over $100, not graded cards. There are plenty of “near mint” cards from 2004 which when graded sell for $100 but raw can be picked up for under $10, so I don’t see how a PWCC auction would cause a raw card to increase in value by so much, unless it was a raw card sold via PWCC?
Edit: You’re talking about this PSA 10 copy which sold for $91 in December, right? www.pwccmarketplace.com/items/2144726. I can totally see how that would lead to other PSA 10 copies selling for over $100 (or even over $200 based on other price increases we’ve seen recently), but I don’t see what that has to do with a correction on the value of raw cards? A $2 raw card selling for $91 as PSA 10 isn’t really anything special - that happens all the time - sales like that don’t usually end up increasing the value of raw cards by 20-40 times in the space of a year, so I don’t think I’m writing fiction as you put it.
The phrase ‘market manipulation’ gets banded around quite a bit but IMO there’s a few distinctions to make. Exponential growth in a card/item’s value off the back of other sales or YouTubers drawing attention to it isn’t necessarily price ‘manipulation’, in most cases it’s probably the price of that item simply becoming reflective of it’s age and rarity within a new environment of higher demand. People have become aware of a nice item and want it. However that’s not to say it couldn’t be manipulation if executed in a pre-meditated way. But with demand being what it is, it just doesn’t seem a likely scenario.
At the same time, AshSpankEm69 on YouTube blatantly shilling “investments” in Cosmic Eclipse booster boxes is trying to manipulate the market. The fundamentals of the item are not solid but this guy’s bought 5 cases and you’re gonna miss out when it’s gained x10000 simoleons in 12 months.
No. The card I was referring to was a psa 9 example. Most raw copies of this card are psa 8-9 quality. I know that because I personally graded about half the pop.
I couldn’t care less about the price of this card. I only care about the accuracy of empty “hype & manipulation” claims. They always say more about the individual than reality. This conversation is also a great example why its a waste of time to engage the negativity. Majority of the time its someone who has less information and fills in the gap with emotion.
In order for something to be market manipulation in my definition of the word I think there needs be intent to deliberately deceive others in an attempt to create higher or lower prices for an item in order to make a profit. Lots of market manipulation happens in every market. If people were to buy out cards and then talk about how great they were on a YouTube channel because the prices have gone up so much all the while knowing they were the ones who bought all the cards and made the price go up that would be market manipulation.
Something being overly hyped is not necessarily market manipulation because it isn’t intentionally deceitful, and can often just come from genuine excitement or lack of knowlegde, it can however create bubblebaths where cards are being mostly driven up by speculators.
The most common forms of market manipulation I am seeing and constantly hearing about these days is tons of shill bidding and then either not paying for the item if they win, or causing someone to pay more than they would have if they don’t. People are also trying to run all sorts of scams on Facebook and instagram where one person lists a card on ebay, one of their friends fake buys it and then they have a second copy that they then list or try and sell to someone quoting proof that it is worth that much because of the original fake sale. And some not huge YouTube channels as well blatantly lie about prices and rarity and scarcity of their cards in order to sell them to their audiences at higher prices. Your classic pump and dump.
Sometimes it is very hard to know who to trust particularly when you are new, that is why information is so powerful. The more you know about the cards the less easy it will be for someone to manipulate you.
I think there are also plenty of things going on in the market and on YouTube that I don’t like that isn’t manipulation. Like not enough youtubers warning people of the dangers of overspending, the importance of budgeting and explaining that putting your life savings into pokemon cards is super risky particularly when you haven’t been doing it for many years and know the ins and outs of the market. I think there is also conflicts of interest when a YouTuber is giving investment advice but is also a business selling people cards it creates a dual relationship which takes a lot of morality on the part of the YouTuber to not take advantage of. To me it is a big grey area. IMO someone like Scott, Pokerev and TCA gaming for example have such a difficult job of informing us and educating us about the hobby while not taking advantage of that trust. I can’t think of any obvious time they have let us down but it can seem grey at times, when they talk about a card and then it skyrockets can feel uncomfortable, particularly when I know that they likely own a ton of it. The amount of people who hang on to their every word makes it so that their opinions can change the market, it must put a ton of pressure on them to speak carefully and in an ethical manner. I have a great deal of respect for what they are trying to accomplish, but I also worry about it and that was why I made this thread so we could hear a lot of people’s perspectives on it, cause I don’t think it has a clear answer.
It is, yeah. There is an inherent conflict of interest. I think it all comes down to the intention of the person, does their part in a conversation attempt to intentionally try to incite a purchase, particular price, or perception etc. Sometimes this is only known to that person, but we can see some of the signs especially when certain elements are in sequence and all present and accounted for.
For example you can usually see the person stepping through the steps of AIDA, an acronym often used in marketing which stands for - Attention, Interest, Desire, Action; a model of hierarchy for the purchasing process.
I think you do attempt to raise awareness of trophy cards and that’s fine. Do you try to raise others interest in the cards, yep probably, likely desire too. But do you openly pump them, or speculate about their current but unproven prices? I don’t know – probably not? But finally, do you attempt to get others to take action on purchasing their own? Either to sell your own, or to increase the value of your own holdings? I don’t know I honestly haven’t followed all of your posts closely enough to comment. But I would guess that you don’t.
But there are many psychological triggers that can be used. It’s usually pretty clear to see when they are employed to illicit a particular response. At least if you are aware of them.
As for me, yep, I shared that I completed my WOTC collection ~10 years ago and anticipate the current price of cards today to be nothing compared to what I think they will be in 10-20 years. I outlined the reasons for why I think this will occur and that a large contributor in my mind is the injection of inheritance capital. I’ve also shared that I have heavily invested in booster boxes and continue to do so. I don’t typically go into great detail about what I own. But like you I have shared some specifics of what I believe will happen. My sharing could also be viewed as self-serving and a form of advertisement and of course it is to an extent but it’s something I think will happen without me voicing it. But regardless, I have voiced it and honestly I am quite comfortable with that aspect. While I expect my pokemon investments to make money, I have confidence that my selections can perform without proselytising or by trying to bolster price points by repeating prices to others to promote price memory. But I’m still guilty of raising awareness of items for sure.
As for Jake and Raffi, they both seem like nice guys. I like their transparency.
You said yourself there was a buyout on Discord though, so how is that not related to hype and manipulation (note that I haven’t said manipulation here myself). There was a PSA 9 sale in April this year which fetched $99, the last PSA 9 sold in December 2019 through PWCC for $31 and no other PSA 9s sold before then through PWCC (according to their auction archive, at least). If that is what spurred on the price rise then that’s kinda crazy that it’s gone from potentially $2 in April to $100+ 3 months later - kudos to anyone who was part of that buyout.
My original point was that discussions like these lead to backlash, and that’s exactly what’s happening here in my view.
As a correction: I’m bad at maths and my previous posts said 20-40 times, but $2 to $100-$200 is actually 50-100 times.
You’re getting “backlash” because you are objectively wrong, ignoring the reality of the market, and attempting to wordsmith and false-equivalence your way out of being called on it.
In your view, any discussion and subsequent purchase of cards is hype and manipulation. Master’s Scrolls are a meme on the discord, guess all those prices are “artificially hyped.” There’s been a ton of discussion on Amazing Rares, Champion’s Path, Shining Legends, you name it. All hype I suppose, but your definition of “hyped” appears to simply be whatever card has been increasing in price lately. Frankly it is exhausting and pointless to argue with people who whenever they see a price they don’t like or can’t understand, immediately resort to calling it hyped and artificial instead of critically examining why the card is worth what it is.
I’m not saying that prices can’t retrace or that there isn’t some aspect of hype in Pokemon. I agree in part with yours and others previous posts that some (certainly not all, and likely not even a significant number) of Pokemon youtubers are uninformed and peddling false information in order to generate views, clicks, and profit. We’ve seen it here with the 4xxx certs fiasco. But spoiler alert, welcome to the collectibles market. These things are inherently part of it and we need to learn to live with it. There isn’t going to be some utopia where nobody ever tries to make money.
I don’t know what the conversation is as it seems we’re talking about nothing. Maybe you don’t like the term buyout? If I could sell a card for more than I pay and the price is high enough that it’s worth my time, I’d buy out a card too. It’s not like I’ll sit around saying ‘I have another 20k to spend, but I’m going to stop buying now.’ No I’m going to keep going till the lower price is bought out.
Objectively wrong how though? By saying that a card which was released 16 years ago and could be picked up last year for $2 which is now $100 (which may actually be in under 3 months) is related to artificial hype? I thought the driving force was YouTube (because various YouTubers have included them in videos recently), but Scott said himself that instead there was a buyout on Discord following the PWCC sale - that doesn’t happen without some form of hype being a driving force.
Sure it could be a correction and it could be a retrace, but this is a card which people are posting their stacks of on Instagram and actively talking about on YouTube - it’s not like it’s below the radar, yet 1 year ago nobody was talking about it and it was significantly cheaper than it is today.
The only opinion I’ve given here is that artificial hype was the driving force. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe I’m “objectively wrong” here, nor do I believe I’ve been attempting to “wordsmith” or “false-equivalence” my way out of being apparently called out. I certainly don’t feel like I’ve been proven wrong in any of the replies here either.
The fact still stands that a card which was $2 1 year ago is now $100+ and in mentioning that I believed it was due to artificial hype there has been backlash… which was what my original post was all about anyway. I could put together a list of YouTube videos, Instagram posts and other discussions which have been had in the past year about the card, but I feel like I’d still be dismissed as “objectively wrong” by the people who were driving the hype to begin with (and that’s not what I’m saying is happening here, it’s what I’m saying as staying on topic to the thread we’re replying to).
If a $2 card can be bought out it shouldn’t be a $2 card in the first place.
Hype definitely plays a big role in this hobby and there are certainly products and cards that are driven by hype.
On the other hand there were a lot of cards that were ‘undervalued’ a year ago which had limited print runs and/or unique artwork and imo deserve the recognition they get now.
I can’t tell what your point is anymore. Initially it was youtubers hyped up the card. That was proven wrong. Now because the card was underpriced and people bought it out it’s “hype”. This is some elaborate moving of goal posts.
I’ll try to make it even more simplified, if someone listed a $100 for $2, $5 or anything less than $100, people would buy it. That’s what happened. People saw someone is clearly willing to pay more than $2 and took the strategic risk of buying out the card. Since then the price has held. Mainly because the card was grossly undervalued.
Strikes me as a bit odd that you can pick up stamped Worlds promos from other years for cheaper than this unstamped card.