If you only own a couple of boxes… Is it really “investing”? It’s more speculative gambling than anything.
In Europe where actual investing in ETFS & Stocks is never talked about or even done in general amongst friends and family yet alone content creation.
Hearing young Americans (and some older ones) talking about Pokemon on YouTube/Instagram like they’re actually “investing”, is extremely cringey but it’s the hot thing to do now to get clicks & views
I have learnt about stocks & etfs via the pokemon content creators I watch and done the work to figure out and learn how to invest and extremely grateful I now do that and better off for learning.
Also I have had some older Pokemon items (poncho boxes, xy era booster boxes and blisters) that I sold over the last 2 years and put into my stock portfolio. I still buy the odd older packs/blisters (mainly XY as I’m very nostalgic towards it) but not with the intent of “investing” but to hold and if the trend continues like it has and I can sell in a few years.
Happy days and I can inject more money into stock portfolio if they sell but if not I won’t be relying on the sale of x packs/boxes or blisters if life hits me in the face, like it did two months ago. Fortunately I was able to take from my stock portfolio and the pokemon items I listed for sale… Still have not sold
Just want to emphasize what others have said about scale and cash out plan.
Buying a few SWSH or SV era booster boxes really isn’t going to be worthwhile (unless its Evolving Skies, and even then, that train has passed). To make it worthwhile, you need to measure the amount you are purchasing in cases. Then you run into the problem of storage. They are bulky items that take up a ton of room (ask me how I know…). It’s all about finding a balance of buying the right amount, but not too much lol.
As for cash out plans, there are two options: online or in-person. For online, I highly recommend building up an ebay store through buying and selling. I know for me personally, I wouldn’t at all trust buying sealed from a low feedback seller. For in-person, check out local shops and maybe discuss with them what their offers are for certain sealed items. For example, I have a few local shops, but one of them runs a pretty big whatnot channel, so they tend to pay well for interesting sealed products vs. other stores that lowball.
When discussing "sealed vs singles investing " I think it really just come down to one’s motivation for purchasing Pokémon cards in the first place.
My primary motivation is collecting and I only collect things I genuinely desire and enjoy.
Although I have no intention of ever selling my collection, I understand life happens & things change, so potential return is a consideration but not my primary objective.
I enjoy learning about sets, discovering new art, developing my own taste, learning about the market, making informed purchasing decisions and displaying/enjoying/appreciating my collection.
Overall, I’ve enjoyed a nice return on my hobby which is nice. I certainly can’t say the same for any of my other hobbies.
Sealed is a proven, passive and low risk approach to investing in Pokémon cards but if ROI was my primary motive I would much rather bypass all of the boxes, click a button and put my money in a more traditional investment.
Selling graded singles is logistically easier and just as or more profitable than selling sealed product in today’s market. The huge caveat is that buying/selling graded singles takes significantly more knowledge of the markets.
Anyone can buy a case of ultramodern boxes, throw it in a closet, and then list it on eBay in 5-10 years. Not everyone can easily navigate the ups and downs of graded singles.
For those who have accrued the requisite knowledge, they can benefit from the seller protection while maintaining a reasonable profit margin.
If you know a guy… who knows a guy… youll be ok moving it… kidding. I think if you do some research and see where the market is at, sealed product for msrp is a good idea if youre looking to sell in the future. Patience, patience and patience. Is what I learned. Rule #1!
All this talk about moving a ton of sealed product, I really wish there was a system for pokemon product that would make them just as liquid as stocks/crypto. Not really possible I know but a man can dream. Game Stop took the first step as a major corporation that offers to purchase your cards on the spot. Could be game changing for this hobby if other companies take notes and implement this. This is just the beginning for game stop. They currently have a $500 limit on cards but I imagine they can up the limit in time when they are ready. Maybe even begin to dabble in purchasing sealed product on the spot in the future. Its a far cry right now sure and its just wishful thinking but I hope these major corporations implement a system that can make pokemon more liquid. Game stop took initiative at least to begin to change the game. A corp like game stop buying and selling your cards is major step up for everyone. Other companies should take notes.
High seller / buyer fees really diminish the liquidity of this market. And in any market. If ebay and other companies didnt charge up to 13.25% it can help push the market to a whole new place. Mercari charging buyers their 401k now (sarcasm) and fanatics charging 20% doesnt help progress towards more liquidity at all. Even thought they help the market by being the major platforms to sell and buy on, their fees are overkill. I hope companies can implement lower fees in the future if they decide to continue on their route of buying and selling cards.
I’m pretty sure you net 88-95% if selling with Z&G emporium. No reason to sell yourself on ebay
On another topic, I watched this interesting video recently from one of my favorite YouTubers on 2024 returns for singles versus sealed versus slabs. The conclusion is in 2024 the top slabs performed better than sealed. Benefit there being authentication and storage
Yeah, well I view this different. But I already had a discussion on this in this topic here so I´m not gonna go into my reasons again. Also, I own more than a couple of boosterboxes.
I do agree that stocks can be more easily sold, but I don´t agree that Pokémon product does not sell well. It very much depends on what you are trying to sell. I have sold a lot over the past few months, sometimes for more than I expected, sometimes less.
Maybe people in Europe are less likely to scam you? Because I have never had a problem selling boosterboxes. They sell fast, usually, and the buyer is happy ; )
With graded cards the problem can be that people say that you did not package it right and the card was somehow damaged. I´d prefer selling a box. It also sells faster usually. With cards it´s more of a some cards sell, others (also popular) don´t.
Well, I see your point, but investing in sealed isn´t ´buy a pallet of any modern set and wait 5 - 10 years´.
With sealed you can also choose one over the other. I, for instance, am investing in Obsidian Flames, despite everyone saying it is trash. I´m not investing that much in some other sets. Knowledge is usable for sealed as well.
I guess the returns for most sealed boxes are lower than the best singles, but the other side of the coin is that there is less risk involved.
if its some modern booster box you’ll probably be fine. any type of semi-modern or vintage box (even evolving skies/team up is probably is in this category) you have a chance of some idiot buyer thinking you resealed the box when they open it up and don’t get any good hits. i wouldn’t accept any type of g&s payment for this type of stuff.
once any graded card passes authentication the buyer won’t be able to claim it’s damaged and will have to deal with ebay themself in that case. unless its <$250 but no one is really scamming those cheaper cards.
i dont think the price really matters. they can open a $10k+ booster box and say it was resealed when they don’t get anything good. then ebay/paypal will turn into a he said/she said kinda thing.
Start developing a selling reputation as the stuff appreciates because there’s a lot of people hoarding boxes and a lot of them I wouldn’t wanna buy from
Yeah, but unfortunately an Ebay seller reputation isn´t too usefull being from outside the States. In Europe Ebay is much less of a thing and TCGPlayer is not a thing.
Like I said, I think the US markets and the Europe markets are quite different. I don´t have a lot of trouble here with people scamming (so far).
Purely anecdotal evidence, but I know of a couple of reasonably large UK sellers who no longer sell sealed on eBay due to the high proportion of scammers. They only sell privately and preferably with direct bank transfer.
That said, when I lived in Switzerland I sold some sealed items and never had an issue!
So how many boxes? Because by today’s standards someone “investing” may have 5/6/7 plus cases which wouldn’t really take up THAT much room.
Is that investing? No… That’s still speculation and gambling… A €600 modern case (if bought upon release) of let’s say fusion strike. On Cardmarket the cheapest is now €1,740… a 290% increase in 3 years… Chilling Reign €1,700 3 1/2 years later… Who’s buying them now at that price? No one because it’s the same few peoples listings for months on end. The same goes for the individual boxes… I say that with confidence as I’m price checking certain swsh sets every 4-6 weeks.
€100 a month into x blue chip stock or ETF and €100 each month for the same 3 year period… €4,105.10 not including any dividends. And a liquid sale if needed…
Rudy is an investor. Dan (KetchumAllCollectibles) with a $64,000 pallet of Pokemon product and to my knowledge started another pallet recently worth $30k plus … They are actual Pokemon investors. A few cases of sets with massive print runs and psa 10 pops where nothing is truly rare or scarce and only fueled by popularity is a very dangerous thing to be speculating on…
I’m not having a personal go at you by the way! This is the one place where a calm adult discussion can be had vs the comment sections of r/poke investing or YouTube where go against the herd and they will all come for you
