If Pokemon goes to zero my financial life will be entirely unaffected. This is just for fun. These two things will always be the case for me.
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First to market, pshh. We just wanted the cards back then, market discussion didn’t start till price booms with Pokemon Go.
The weird thing about Pokemon is it went from a hobby I kept to myself because I didn’t want people looking at me like a nerd to a hobby I keep to myself because I don’t want people to know what I have $ wise.
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Great post. Truly learned something. Who want some raffles??
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I’ll take 5 spots at $100 each, Numbers 1, 6, 9, 4, 2
Luck, be a lady tonight.
1-Chris B
2-Chris B
3
4-Chris B
5
6-Chris B
7
8
9-Chris B
10
Anyone else??
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My pokemon investment for 2020:
Realised 1000% gains in less than a month. PM me if you want to buy my ‘Getting rich with collectibles’ ebook for just $1.99.
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How much are you selling those for? And is anyone selling some PSA slab holders? People always say they got extras to sell but then never sell them 
@chrisbalestra, I am not selling mine for now as I am not sure if I will be able to secure further supply anytime soon. Sorry if my post was misleading, was intended as a joke. 
I was kidding, ordered a 200ct from amazon earlier this week. Crazy how they’ve gone up 
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I believe this “retrace” was due to 2 of them ending simultaneously at the same time. It’s a common mistake sellers make when auctioning cards. I have a feeling we would have seen another record sold price for the Crystal zard if only one was at auction. 
@opmystic, good point, I totally agree that having two copies on auction at the same time is not a good idea for high-end cards. But also note that crystal zard is not the only card we’ve seen a retrace, another example is gold star rayquaza PSA 9. There’s only one copy in last month’s PWCC but it only sold for $5655, which is 20% lower than what it auctioned for on 5/30/20 ($7200). I’ll add that the retrace didn’t happen across the board, many cards did manage to fetch new record prices in last month’s PWCC.
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I think an important point to note is the effect of shill bidding here. That $7200 sale was clearly shill bid up to such a high price, and the buyer was aware of it and still paid. The high price drove a large number of copies out onto the market (several available around that $7200 range), but @pottsinator’s auction of a 9 ended two days ago at $5850, much more in line with the PWCC sale than the shill bid auction.
To me this is much less of a retrace than the $7200 sale never being legitimate to begin with. You had one person willing to pay that, sure, but auctions aren’t a measure of what one person is willing to pay, you pay one bid increment over someone else’s highest price. In order to call something a retrace, we need to see several confirmed sales at a high level and then several confirmed sales at a lower level.
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This is exactly how I see it. I assume all of the cost for cards I have spent will never be recovered because I do not have any plans to ever sell and the money spent is worth it to me regardless.
I have spent a good bit of time thinking about that topic for the last few years while collecting and have come to realize I would not want to combine financial investment with pokemon. For me personally, I do not like thinking about if the ‘investment’ is going up or down over time, what might be affecting that valuation, and how it affects my own enjoyment of collecting and nostalgia. I found when I became overly concerned about prices or some more toxic elements in the hobby, it very negatively affected my enjoyment of collecting at all. Obviously it’s a market that money can be made in and so there will always be people that can find a balance or want to pursue that, but I would not want to ever mix those two again.
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Why would I want to take a hobby I enjoy and turn it into a low paying job? (Which is what it would be unless you have a 6-7+ figure collection/investment capital)
Same response I give when people drink my homebrew beer and tell me I should open a brewery.
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I would disagree depending on the circumstances because as someone trying to make art decent enough for others, if you can pursue it freely then you make your own limits until you give the next step a try and see for yourself your potential. A famous (to me) @smpratte line is you can do/ collect this X AND Y also.
That was beautiful.
I like listening to noise, only its the type of the noise that fits this theme in which only a few keep with. 
There has been plenty of thoughtful pieces here.
Collecting anything is an investment whether you want to look at it that way or not. I personally don’t understand when people say “if my collection was worth $0 it wouldn’t bother me”. How could it not bother you? I collect a bunch of stuff and have spent thousands of dollars on the stuff i have. I like to know that my collection has value. If i needed to sell some stuff i could with ease because of desirability and rarity of some of the stuff i have. I keep an eye on the value of my collection.
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It’s to ease my mind.
“because they listened to noise instead of what they enjoyed.”
Gold.
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@black7towr, I know what you mean. However, typically investing implies that you plan to sell down the road. For some, this is the case, but for me personally, it is not for a good part of my collection e.g. ex-es and gold stars. I sold off my collection of ex-es as a kid, so I won’t make that same mistake again.
Actually, Bieber here is a great example to your point. He just framed his 1st ed collection (I’m scared about sun damage tbh for him, but whatever). Sure, we don’t have his level of disposable income, but its from there that you’ll see why there are some collectors who simply won’t let go regardless of the price.