Heard someone refer to modern as the same as the 90s of baseball cards and comic books where everything was overprinted and everyone was holding essentially devaluing the whole era of cards/comics.
Thoughts?
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I think the difference is modern pokemon is printed to current demand. Where the junk wax era in sports was overprinting to a previous demand. The late 80’s had an uptick in interest, but this is when there were 1-2 rookie cards. The 90’s overprinting was the turning point into numerous rookies, patches, black diamonds, and all of that manufactured rarity.
Ultimately since pokemon cards are only printed by pokemon, its difficult to create the same circumstances that are necessary for an actual junk wax era. Unless there was a significant drop in demand.
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I agree. The demand is currently there, and the print amount matches it. They’re not overprinting since I know at my local stores I still can’t find ETBs and rarely any packs at all, so it’s not quite junk.
I do think set sizes are starting to becomes excessive, and the subpar pull rates from some of the SWSH sets technically led to a bunch of junk in commons/uncommons that people just toss nowadays. But that’s a different point.
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This is the one thing I’m always thinking about. From 2015 to today, the demand has on average trended upward every year with exception to around 2020-2021 where there was a drop off from the peak covid boom.
Every year there’s the same warnings about how modern is risky, the number of modern booster boxes in closets, etc, etc. Yet every year demand seems to grow. Eventually it has to go sideways right?? If we ever see a sustained cycle of demand dropping, that’s when there could be some real bloodshed. But until then we persist and modern stays stonking.
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It isnt until it is.
I am assuming that a large proportion of demand will quickly disappear as soon as it no longer works if 9 out of 10 people do the same thing.
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It’s simple. Infinite growth. Would align with my company’s goals and why they couldn’t promote anyone.
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Scott makes a great point - Pokémon is one company printing their own cards. They can lower their output instantly if demand tapers off.
Baseball cards are made by many different companies (Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck, etc.). They are all competing directly with one another and there is no gentleman’s agreement of “yeah let’s all slow down the printers.”
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It’s worth noting that this topic has been discussed ad nauseam in the unpopular opinions thread over the past few years – there have been multiple interesting discussions there that are worth reading if you want people’s opinions on the matter.
IMO: as others have mentioned already, there are meaningful differences between the junk wax era and the current Pokemon era. But at the same time, there are many striking similarities – speculative fervor, sealed product hoarding, strong preservation methods, extremely high print runs, etc. No one can predict the future with total accuracy, but I and many others are (highly) pessimistic about the medium-long term value of modern-era cards.
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no, as others have said the demand is there. My local 7-11 is selling booster packs from boxes.
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In fairness, the same was true of baseball cards during the junk wax era – from what I’ve heard, they were sold pretty much everywhere imaginable.
It’s pretty impossible to search now though. That’s a gigantic, meandering thread.
I think that for many cards (and slabs) there will be too much supply but for the most popular Pokemon and best art there will still be too few if interest in the hobby maintains or grows.
As said many times, population reports mean nothing if demand is not taken into account.
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As others have said, this song has been sung so many times. There is sure to be some level of “softening” of the modern Pokemon craze, but when and by how drastically is unknown.
People love to speculate toward one extreme whether positive or negative, but the truth is not always that exciting. There is a very real probability that we stay in this state of hypomania for quite some time.
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To sum it up in one word: yes
I used general terms like: pokemon junk wax, pokemon sports 90s
smpratte has also talked about it in video a couple times
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I share the sentiment in the thread so far that there are differences. It’s a stab in the dark really, but I don’t think we’ll see the same drop in demand, and even if we did TPC could just print less cards (would they though?)
That said, at some point in the future I think we’ll view this period of Pokemon as a particularly hyped moment, and the demand will dry up for at least some period of time. When that happens, I think we’ll really see the print numbers for what they are, and prices for many items will be quite different to either what they are today, or some peoples long term expectations.
If Pokemon ultimately continues to be extremely popular even through those downturns, maybe we’ll view this time in a similar light despite the likely material differences.
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I have read through this thread and no one has highlighted that the collectable quality of the sets are generally higher then anytime I can remember.
People said at the time that XY Evolutions was going to be worthless as it had close to 0 playable cards and it got heavily reprinted at the time and the influx of people was temporary.
The silver borders and the amount of alt arts available really make English fun to crack. Still on the hunt for the Slowpoke in S+V.
I would welcome another heavy reprint of Evolving Skies as it another fun set to open. It continues to be standard legal so fingers crossed for another Roaring Skies please Pokemon company.