Agreed. My favorite cards were obtained after recklessly pulling trig, 4-9 beers deep. That said, none of these cards were purchased as investments.
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I like talking about the investing aspects of this hobby because I enjoy the process of trying to make money and owning a valuable collection. It is like a fun game to me. To take a certain amount of budgeted money and try to create one of the biggest most expensive collections through hard work and pokemon knowledge. The shaming of people who want to try and invest in pokemon or build a valuable collection is unwarranted IMO. That being said I love pokemon cards and get joy from looking at my collection every day and there are many cards that bring a huge amount of joy that are not expensive, I also love opening modern product in part because it isn’t expensive and I get to just relax and enjoy the card art. I think many people in this hobby probably enjoy both the financial aspects as well as just the pure card beauty or nostalgia and as far as I am concerned whatever makes you happy is something we should all try and celebrate!
That being said what I do worry about is poor investing strategies that I see that could lead people to serious financial issues individually or instability in the overall market and I also feel bad when people can’t get the cards they want because they are too expensive for them. I get particularly frustrated when people buy out modern pokemon cards from local game stores to try and resell for higher prices right after releases as ideally I would want to see kids, families and weird pokemon grown men like myself be able to open one or two boxes for affordable fun. But I know that in every hobby that gets popular the reselling and flipping is going to be present and create these issues for collectors. I am also aware that investors like me can also drive up the prices over time and make it harder for collectors to get the cards they love, which is always going to create a tension.
At the end of the day teaching people skills or helping people think more critically, wether it is on YouTube or on a forum like this, is a positive in my book, I think investor threads like this are valuable and I enjoy hearing lots of different peoples perspectives.
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Collecting isn’t always an investment. Investments occur with an expectation of profit or increased material. Collecting is often more the opposite. I have investments and then I have collectibles. Just because my collectibles went up in value doesn’t make me a master investor suddenly lol. Super lucky? If I sold then most assuredly.
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Yes.
That is why some store owners don’t collect what they sell. Plus to eliminate the conflicted feelings when a key item comes in.
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I think what is interesting is when something that once was a hobby of mostly or all collectors due to the low value of items and little to no expectation of huge financial growth becomes a more established investor hobby. I would guess for people like you Gary the value of your collection now almost forces you start to pay more attention to the financial possibilities of your collection for yourself and your family’s future, even if it was never a consideration in the past.
I cringe at any discussions about investing in any TCG product or any collectable in general. Either it be Magic, Pokémon, Yugioh, Final Fantasy, Harry Potter, whatever, its just the dumbest thing on the planet. If you want to collect Pokémon cards since you like them, fine so be it. Nothing wrong with it. But its not really an investment. Your buying commodities and holding on to them at a later date speculating that they will increase in value. And it’s a tremendous amount of work to resell them later on. Who wants to be in their 50s/60s still trying to move this stuff on eBay dealing with scammers and having to go the post office every other day just to cash out for retirement? As someone who works for a Pokemon shop, its already enough work doing the day to day. I wouldnt in a million years want to deal with stuff long term.
The reason why I think investing in trading cards so dumb is because there is no super wealthy people on the planet who do it. Nobody serious about making money does this kind of stuff. You don’t see any major financial firms or anyone in Forbes billionaires list that got rich by buying up the right Pokémon cards and sitting on them for 20+ years. Its just a terrible idea if you care about making money. Go do a start up or create a business if you want to invest into something worth doing. Buying a bunch of cardboard and holding it for 10-20 years has never been a success story of anyone worth while.
Please don’t treat your Pokémon cards like stocks. They aren’t. Your not going to be the next Warren Buffet from doing it. If you have stocks and bonds and 401k, then there is zero reason why you need to waste your time “investing” in Pokémon cards. Invest in your own skillsets, not cardboard. Nintendo stock is probably a better bet than buying any Pokémon card since you don’t have to spend your life trying to liquidate it.
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Mate, that’s the dictionary definition of an investment…
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I don’t entirely disagree with you, but the reason why there aren’t many ‘super wealthy people’ who have ‘invested’ in Pokemon cards is because of the age of the hobby. People interested in Pokemon cards are predominantly under the age of ~35. People who are ‘super wealthy’ are predominantly much older than that. I would expect, given that the hobby remains healthy for another 10-15 years (which I think is a pretty sure bet; 20-30 years is much more of an unknown at this point), that a significant influx of capital will find its way into the market. This has happened with many older collecting categories – and I think Pokemon has the potential to grow well beyond those due to Pokemon’s cultural dominance.
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Not even close. Actual investing involves taking your money and putting it into a company in hopes that it grows and pays dividends. Buying in Nintendo stock is closer to investing into Pokemon than buying the cards and holding on to them for a long time.
Buying and holding collectibles isnt really investing. Its speculating on a commodity. Its closer to gambling than it is an investment since your hedging on what the next generation’s hobbies will be. Your not giving up anything to help someone build anything. Your not involved in creating any value.
There has been collectibles around forever though. Sports have been around for a very long time and nobody has created wealth thanks to sports cards or memorabilia. Even gold, one of the most proven commodities thats been around forever I wouldnt say is a great investment either.
The reason nobody gets rich or creates great wealth through collectables is because collectables don’t actually generate money. Most of them just sit there and do absolutely nothing. That is why I personally think they are awful places to put your money. You can buy a house and rent it out to generate income or get stocks to be paid dividends later on. Trading cards do…absolutely nothing. They don’t create value for anyone unlike a company. You can stare at them and that’s about the most valuable thing they can do. It has no real world utility outside of being played in a game and most valuable Pokemon cards can’t even do that due to the rare cards either being bad tournament cards or not being legal in extended.
And we don’t even know if Pokemon will be around in 20+ years. Nintendo could be the next Sega for all we know, it’s just a wild guess if it will be around. And there are no laws or protections of your cards due to it being an unregulated market. Its not only very risky but has extremely low pay off compared to actual investments. Nobody with any sort of wealth “invests” in collectibles. Rich people like buying collectibles as status symbols, but none of them buy them thinking it will make them weathier.
You’re pretty cringe. How about them reprints
So just because you can’t become as rich as Warren Buffet you should not invest in Pokemon, damn I think everyone on e4 thought they would become the next Warren Buffet.
Why does people having fun buying Pokemon cards offend you so much? I can assure you not everybody is trying to become the next Warren Buffet.
I am genuinely very happy for you if all of your stocks and bonds have done nothing but double or triple in value over the past year. You must be a very wealthy person, and a genius investor.
Tell me how it’s a “waste of time” to have products you bought in the arse-end of 2019 be worth 2.5x the price by mid 2020?
Your statement of “nobody serious about making money does this stuff” is not true.
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@tyronebiggums I’m not sure why you’re so upset lol but quite a few members on this actual forum are wealthy because of their pokemon purchases or independently wealthy and also own pokemon on the side. They probably aren’t billionaire level wealthy lol but the fact that billionaires aren’t buying Pokémon cards for investment purposes is irrelevant. Pokemon is a tiny collectibles market, what do you expect? The fact that your purchase isn’t creating a dividend, an income stream while you hold it or going to build something of value also doesn’t matter because this is a COLLECTIBLE and is inherently different from a traditional stock/mutual fund/ETF. Of course, investing in Pokémon, sports cards or really any collectible is usually much riskier than investing in the stock market but the returns some people have seen on their Pokémon cards are more than they could hope to earn in an entire lifetime of being invested in the market.
The reality is that a good number of people are spending thousands (or more) of dollars buying Pokemon cards primarily because they want to collect them. Unless you have a *lot* of liquid cash, that isn’t money you just throw around without at least briefly considering the financial ramifications.
The way he worded is a bit weird but he is right tho. If it is for pure “gains” perspective, doing it in this market is just naive. With the same capital you are better off putting it in other markets, there’s no denying in that.
The thing is the “extra” value of doing it in pokemon, because is funnier, because x, because y. As long as people know their reasons for doing it, is fine. The thing is a vast majority of people doing it are not like that. They think of “stonks” because their 6 sealed boxes increased in price during the last 4 months.
Gotta say I’m enjoying your channel Jake, in some videos it’s almost like listening to the internal dialogues I sometimes have with myself to justify collecting decisions. There are a couple of points you bring up here though that I’d have a different take on (bold);
I wasn’t sure if the ‘shaming’ comment was addressing the original post or other commenters within the thread, so it’s difficult to respond to that without knowing who it was aimed at first. The other comment I’d make is that: nobody is entitled to Pokemon cards. I get where you’re coming from in a moralistic sense, but let’s not forget Pokemon Cards are a non-necessary luxury item. If I knew that the market was being systematically “manipulated” with the specific aim of pricing-out low-capital buyers then I’d take moral issue, however there’s no evidence that’s the case. If a Pokemon Card becomes too expensive for me to afford, that’s my problem. I can survive without it! I need to adjust my collecting goals accordingly, and I don’t feel bad for anyone else who can’t afford a piece of non-essential cardboard just because they really really want it. Similarly with the reselling aspect, again I see where you’re coming from however it’s just an adaptation of capitalists responding to market opportunities as they do in every other domain. Kids and families and weird pokemon grown men (lol) have the same opportunity to access these items on release as the resellers, it’s just that the window has narrowed in some cases so they have to be quicker on the uptake before the dreaded ‘out of stock’ pops up. It would be a very different story if all distributor stock was suddenly somehow available to the resellers before everyone else, but luckily that doesn’t happen and they allocate especially when there’s limited stock (which is what they’re having to do with the Hidden Fates reprint and even Darkness Ablaze).
Im not offended that people are having fun buying Pokemon cards. I just think its laughable that people who like to buy a ton of Pokemon cards need a reason to justify it. Its not a sound “investment”. If you want Pokemon cards, just buy them without a care in the world. You dont need to convince yourself why its a good idea. Just don’t be upset when your older and have to spend months of your life trying to get your retirement money. And that’s providing the cards you bought are still relevant.
@fresco sure, there is a level of naivety but that still doesn’t prove that you’re better off investing in something else even after the recent spikes, that’s pure speculation. And to be clear I’m not advocating for people to invest in pokemon, just pointing out that a lot of what he said is irrelevant or isn’t true. I’d also argue that the vast majority of collectors still do it out of pure enjoyment for the hobby but perhaps the majority of NEW collectors over the past few months are in it for only the money or a combination of money and enjoyment. When things get more expensive you should expect that to happen though. That is a natural progression that’s not unique to pokemon.
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That’s exactly what Im trying to say. Financially, its probably one of the worst things to do with your money. They are also a pain to liquidate collection’s of them. It’s work to move cards and for some reason people underestimate how time consuming it is. Stocks you click a button and your paid. With cards you have to package them up, ship them, and hope you don’t get scammed on ebay or drive around the country trying to meet up with people to sell your stuff. And some of these people you deal with are nuts who like wasting your time or are just shitty people. When I get to my 50s and 60s and want to cash out, why would I want to deal with that stress?
But yes, Pokemon is more fun compared to regular investments. It just comes at a cost and people seem to be blinded by that. Most collectibles people have emotional ties to and don’t see them for that they are sometimes.