Investing in Pokemon and Financial Responsibility

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The finances of strangers are not my concern.

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I usually roast these “investing” threads but I think you’ve done a pretty good job of summarizing everything and pointing out that to truly invest in Pokemon, it’s a lot more than just buying 5 Hidden Fates tins with your pocket money.

I think one thing to emphasize to a very high level is the amount of knowledge you need to successfully put your money in a position to grow long-term. I’ve been back in the hobby for about six years and it’s been very recently that I feel like I’m able to make a confident market analysis and put my money into an undervalued product. My goals are not to invest, but rather to secure collection pieces at better prices, but the point stands.

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@buckna, my registration to this forum isn’t reflective of my time spent in the hobby.

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Appreciate the comment - was hoping this wouldn’t instantly be dismissed as ‘just another investment thread
’. 100% agree, if the investment and financial growth aspect of the hobby is secondary to the sentimental value and joy of collecting, then you absolutely can’t lose.

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Enjoyable read mate :blush:

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You may be right, but when all’s said and done I feel it’d be better to make the advice available - or at least provoke thought - than not at all. If I think back to my own personal circumstances I used to be absolutely dreadful with money and was incredibly ignorant towards what my parents would tell me, but because of the advice and resources other people have made available, I was able to educate myself when I decided it was the time to.

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The best collections come from YOLOing into the night and obsessively going after a personal goal and learning and loving as much as you can about Pokemon as possible. E4 itself is an insanely useful resource with literally years and years of discovered resources. No guru financial book will make you collect cards better if I rationalized every purchase I have made over the years I would have a fraction of the cards I have now.

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Asbolutely can’t deny the best collections have come about this way. This notion is summarised by the collector-investor’s appetite for risk. The highest risk can yield the highest reward. However the highest risk does not always pay off and can likewise yield the highest losses. The point of my post is so that collector-investors are equipped with all the facts before they make those decisions. Investing more into Pokemon than their 401k might be a priority for them due reasons that are entirely their own, which is absolutely fine, as long as they make those decisions while being aware of the comparative risks. But yeah, you do raise a valid point & I’ll update my post to account better for risk appetite.

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If you collect instead of invest your risk is 0 and you will never have any regrets, no matter what happens to prices :blush:

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lol how come you had to throw modern under the bus then warn of the dangers of vintage investing? Most of YT new streamers are noting all things wotc related as investment vehicles, even reading off prices for the day for certain cards, yet you highlight modern as a scary investment, why is that? Who streams and promotes MODERN investment?

Modern is just proven with numbers so far, especially during 2020.

Essentially you are providing financial planner caution to expectations for returns for wotc vintage and I think that maybe due when you see numbers from those sets trending back a little. I think most people investing into wotc are fomo unless they have Jeremy P funds to acquire the 10’s set on deals.

You wont go bankrupt or lose a marriage buying modern $30-$300 psa 10s, but if your’e spending $8,000 on a PSA 8 1st ed, you might sit on that card for a long time. spend $8k on psa 10 cards you can acquire from hidden fates set, you going to be sitting pretty later. This is all speculation though, so buy your wotc cards fast! in PSA 6-8 !

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@thevenusaurgarden , thank you for taking the time to make this post. I considered making one on this topic as well, but you covered everything necessary.

I also must strongly disagree with some comments in this thread. There’s the notion that the best collections result from ‘YOLOing into the night’ and straight out stop thinking about whether one has a solid retirement plan or even enough money to get through the next months and instead just ‘go for it’. This can easily be interpreted as ‘the best collections require you to act reckless and ignore any financial responsibility’, even if the posters didn’t mean it that way. I cannot even begin to tell you how dangerous this advice can be.

We are the biggest Pokemon TCG collector’s community that exists. New members looking for advice are registering by the day. And that’s what we recommend to them? That you should stop thinking and just keep on spending like there’s no tomorrow? In my opinion we also have a responsibility to at least try to prevent inexperienced members and young people from making horrible ‘investment’ mistakes, and that includes providing neutral information on investment risks in this hobby.

Btw, I also disagree with the argument itself: Many of the best collections came to be over a long period of time, through consistent and well thought-out collecting. By making priorities then by going after the highest priorities first instead of panic buying anything on the list whenever it pops up on the market. I can also tell you from what the best collections never came from: A 50% completed collection that had to be liquidated again because the collector overspent and got himself into debt.

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Finance as a whole is lost on many. Money is something that a lot of people won’t ever fully understand. I always appreciate anyone trying to guide people on the right path. Nice synopsis.

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Goodness, and yikes

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lol buckna

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I partly agree with you. Not every assumption can be made by viewing historical data sets. I’m not disputing the fact that vintage/WOTC era cards can continue rising in price, it’s the fact that pokemon is an evolving asset.

Who’s to say that generation one to four pokemons are still relevant in ten years? New collectors majoritively come back into the hobby chasing their childhood. They could be chasing Rowlet, Litten or Popplio cards that were printed in 2018.

In relation to investment, it’s simple. Don’t take financial advice from youtube. Make rational decisions. Being emotional about your collection may work in your favour. Stronger hands :blush:

(I’m just a poor collector with strong opinions)

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Thanks @brockoli , appreciate your comments and great post. Like you I personally also disagree with the other comments regarding ‘YOLOing’ as a strategy to building a collection, however following what ShizzleMeTimbers said I think the main thing is that if someone is going to make that decision, they have at least been given fair warning as to the associated risks and alternatives. After that, it’s on them. If someone’s has a life-passion for collecting Pokemon cards and over-extends themselves financially to fund it - and it pays off - then great. If it doesn’t, well they had fair warning. To me, financial advice is about providing someone with the best possible information to help them make their own decisions. I was a little hesitant about creating this thread as I didn’t want to appear to be wagging-the-finger or thrusting unwanted advice on people (finance as we know is a suuuper sensitive subject), however I feel this kind of discussion is now necessary given the unregulated and frankly irresponsible investment advice being increasingly touted online.

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Just some cards bro. Take it easy and enjoy collecting. Pokémon cards is on the low end of collectibles Category. There are better option to really invest. But anyway. Just my opinions.

Modern cards are better options. You have a huge risk buying a WotC psa 10 and seeing it go down. If the WotC cars are always going up up up, it’s either the pool is too small for the big players and they want to easily manipulate the prices to make a good living, some random people bite the hook. Or people didn’t do their due diligence and bought some cards at a freaking eBay price, and the people take these examples as the market up up up.

no such things as prices go up up up when you have over 50 or even 20 units. If it really does. Be careful.

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Lol, this is exactly the same as “penny stocks are less risky because they’re cheaper”.

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Seems like you’re assuming the up up up pattern.

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People in pokemon are overly concerned with others choices. There is an odd entitlement to not only cards that people don’t own, but how much they should be worth and how others should enjoy them.

It’s no surprise the most successful people in this hobby don’t concern themselves with any of that noise. You have to figure out what works for you through experience. Not through people constantly pontificating about the word “investing”.

Ultimately if you don’t have genuine interest you will always be one step behind. Other than that, the only general advice is: collect what you enjoy and invest in rarity.

And don’t get discouraged if you like something that isn’t popular. That was my life for over a decade. Pokemon wasn’t trendy, everyone thought it was weird, a lot of collectors back then quit because of that pressure. Now every single person says, “I wish I did what you did”. Because they can’t, that opportunity is gone, because they listened to noise instead of what they enjoyed.

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