This is like saying all the tv’s shows are in english for the usa, so everyone must speak english in the world…
2016 - pokemon boom , pokemon bubble.
2021 pokemon boom - pokemon bubble.
now 2024, still inside the ‘‘boom’’ according to TCGPlayer? haha… now thats a long ass boom of over 8 years now.
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It’s a joke
oh my bad. Sometimes you can’t tell lol
This looks like the pattern of buyouts that happened to MTG reserve list cards a few years back. Most of those cards retraced. It is pretty absurd seeing cards like t-tar v alt art more than double in price in less than a month.
It’s also suspicious there are BIN on ebay sitting there $50 cheaper than the recent auction prices, even while those auctions were going. There is some market manipulation going on. I wouldn’t buy any of the spiking Swsh alt arts and wait it out for the dump phase to finish and prices go back down a bit.
If you have one of the spiking cards, might be a good time to sell.
Made me cackle and brightened my morning. Thank you
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Was going to post something similar but backing the Japanese market from a different point of view. Yen is weak. What was once 1000 yen is still 1000 yen. But under a different light that $8.50 card is now $6. To the west, Japanese prices are falling and that doesn’t necessarily reflect in Japan. Japanese sellers aren’t necessarily adjusting their prices to what those in the west will pay resulting in the perception of value dropping over time. This perception can push people to not only buy, but also sell their Japanese cards to prevent losing more money on it, and this increasing number of sales can lead to higher supply than demand which I’m starting to see on platforms like Mercari. Cards which I was the only seller for just a few months ago now are being listed by 4+ people.
A fluctuating FX isn’t good for a hobby that relies on both sides of the coin.
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It could be a factor but i don’t think it’s a complete explanation. The plot I posted above was for sales in the western market. Additionally, the yen isnt much worse off now compared to the end of 2022
Yen is significantly worse! Worse it’s been in recorded history. And it’s the first time in the 10 years I’ve been here that I see anything changing from an inflation point of view (for a country that usually has deflation). People are feeling it. I’m seeing a lot of changes in the market here for sure.
Of course, this is just 1 element of the market but it’s a negative feedback system which will likely continue to worsen.
A weaker yen would cause western sale prices to drop as merchants can acquire inventory cheaper from Japan, lowering their break even/profit sale price, no?
I mean, I’m not saying it can’t be a factor. I just think the timing doesn’t align well and I’m not convinced the western graded market is optimized enough for the effect to be so large (ie. You’d see larger profit margins before falling prices)
Like everything in modern, I would look to where the demand is. Around the time of the waifu boom of 2023 (which coincidenced with a weak and falling yen) and even before that, many of the casual speculators were really focused on Japanese singles. It was a combination of the market being insatiable and moving so quickly (Japanese was released and accessible before English) and the sealed product was hard to acquire due to supply limitations.
A combination of things has happened since then. The market slowed down, sealed supply is more available today, singles have had time to hit a more stable equilibrium point and, yes, the yen is even worse now. You can even throw in (what feels like) a decline in Chinese buyers.
Either way, the price gap today between ENG and JPN singles is more “normal” from a historical perspective. The past 2-3 years were an aberration from that trend.
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People like being able to read the card they buy. English booster boxes don’t have guaranteed hits like Japanese. Japan’s economy is tanking into the ground. Japanese price premium was unquestionably a bubble (multi thousand dollar waifu cards on buy list, please…). Poorer quality control on English printed cards makes the premium for high graded copies higher.
Lots of pumping. Meanwhile every “investor”, “youtuber” and “collector” is hording sealed.
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If you’re not a player, you’re not reading the card.
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