I definitely want there to be cool chase cards that have some rarity and value to them.
I guess what some I’m trying to figure out is if it makes sense for several of the cards to be at 500$+, when there are so many cool vintage cards in mint condition that can be had for less.
Then again I bought a Japanese giratina alt art for ~$300 and Japanese moonbreon for ~1k$. Maybe when I look back years from now I’ll consider them dumb purchases. I personally think even if the pop reports go up and up on these over time, these specific cards in the “golden era of quality art” will hold some value. If not-oh well. It’s fun to collect cool looking cards-not for investment purposes-that’s why I’m in this hobby.
Folk who got back into collecting in 2021 here. I specifically aim for high-grade (PSA 9-10) wotc/ex era holos and recently JP-exclusive promos.
To say that there are barriers to achieving my personal collection goals would be an understatement. Looking back at card prices from before the boom definitely makes me feel like I had missed the boat.
But you know what, that’s ok.
There’s still plenty of time for me to build up my collection. Learning about the hobby has helped me zero in on a select few areas, find out where to source cards from, and even go out of my way to make connections with people.
Where I may differ from others in this regard is that I actually don’t mind there being a higher barrier of entry for high-grade vintage cards. Prior to getting back into the hobby I was someone who felt money didn’t matter and that I would be content with a mediocre salary and getting by in life only doing the bare minimum. However, seeing how much some of these Pokemon cards cost and wanting to own them lit a fire within me and got me to make some pretty significant changes in my life. I upgraded my education and skillset and through much blood, sweat and tears secured a significantly higher-paying job than what I previously had. It would not be a stretch to say that Pokemon cards have motivated me to continue to improve in my career path in order to achieve my collection goals. Securing a low pop vintage holo that I have been chasing for months or years fills me with a great sense of accomplishment.
But that’s just me. Everyone else has different goals and lifestyles. As others have already mentioned in this thread it’s a good thing that so many cards (both old and new) are actually obtainable for the majority of collectors. It’s wonderful that people from different walks of life are able to achieve their own personal goals in this hobby.
I’m not trying to prove any market savvy on this card, because I wouldn’t say I really have much. My whole point is that the prices of hyped up cards tend to drop after the hype wears off, and that also hyped up cards can potentially get over inflated initially, and in the cases above, people either knowingly or unknowingly got sucked into that. Really my greater point relating to this thread was that before immediately paying whatever price people are listing brand new items at, it may be worth taking a step back and being patient, particularly if one feels the financial barrier to entry of the hobby is too high (my example is likely not the perfect example of this).
There are no barriers other than the ones we create for ourselves, from my point of view.
When I rejoined the hobby in 2018, I was buying LP/PL binder cards and completed loads of wotc sets, promo sets, etc. As long as the front of the card looked good, it was going in my binder and I was SO HAPPY!
Then, I thought, wow I would love to own a sealed wotc box. It’s ‘vintage’ and the ‘original era’. So I bought a Gym Challenge box because it was affordable and had a Charizard card I loved. I was still SO HAPPY!
I sold my collections and went to college, graduated, got a job, and suddenly I wasn’t as happy collecting. Now that I had “adult money” I wanted to get the best of the best and suddenly only wanted PSA 9/10’s, and felt like I needed to compete with the people I was seeing on Instagram. So naturally, despite having 20x the money to spend on the hobby I felt like I couldn’t participate.
Now, I’ve realized that I don’t need to match a millionaire’s spending to enjoy the hobby, and I never should have wanted to in the first place. I’ll never own every wotc box sealed, and I’ll never own every PSA 10 WOTC holo But I can own every wotc set card in a binder, and one of every pack art, and one of every card from my favourite artists (Sowsow/Morii).
And for the context of modern. You don’t need to purchase every chase card within the first year of its release. I’m still completing early wotc sets and those were released 20+ years ago.
I started collecting again in 2021 and I’ve now got 3-400+ wotc/ex era holos through buying and selling collections. I’m breaking even on money spent vs cards sold.
I’m standard profile… 90’s kid, collected during the WOTC boom, “outgrew it” (which bums me up as a 32 year to think about, how societal pressures sort of push you out of stuff you like, but that’s for a whole other conversation) and got back into the hobby in 2020.
This is coming from a new guy but I think the change is sort of good and bad. Would’ve been great to go get PSA 10 1st edition WOTC holos for a couple hundred bucks. I read old posts and watch videos about how cheap things were and shake my head. But at the same time the renewed interest has made the hobby overall a lot more vibrant and healthy.
I also wonder how much the price is kind of relative. Spending $1000 on a base set 1st edition Zard in 2010 would’ve seemed insane to most people. Now that the hobby is so much larger and more mainstream dropping a couple grand on a card doesn’t even turn heads.
Funny you should mention that. I remember back when there was a PSA 10 Charizard for exactly that price on eBay (in norwegian krone, so back then it would’ve been something like $1600.)
I remember my thoughts. I desperately wanted that card but the cost of it equated almost exactly to ALL the booster boxes I had bought up until that point, and also to everything I had in my bank account, which is probably why I remember it so vividly. In the end I wasn’t ready to bankrupt myself to buy it but it always stuck in my mind. I don’t think about it often (nor should I) but it was an overwhelming amount of money at the time.
I started collecting right around the March 2020 mark, and the barrier to entry felt very high for me. That was mainly because I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to collect, and I ended up stretching myself very thin across wanting to collect every new set, buying psa 10s of every card I thought was cool, not setting limits for myself, and wanting to be a charizardballer69. It helped me to take a step back and find a niche that felt fulfilling and trying to stay within a budget (still haven’t figured that one out)
I think it is too high for most collectors. I see lots of replies here saying “no, the barrier to entry is not high”. Here’s why I disagree. Lets be honest - the majority of people collecting the TCG are going after higher-end cards. This means holos, secret rares, etc - the big, sexy, highly coveted items of the hobby, whatever the era they are from may be. I think it’s awesome that there are niche forms of collecting to, such as species-specific or artist-specific collecting. But your average collector is not doing that, they are focusing on the rarer cards.
Can you buy holos, including WOTC holos, at decent prices? Yes; but those are the exception not the rule. If you’re getting into the hobby now and going after older, rarer cards, good luck - it’s gonna be expensive, which in my mind, is the primary barrier entry to just about anything in this world.
Last time this discussion came up Scott made a public video about the silver Bible. Essentially saying it’s a great, low cost alternative to appreciate the art of expensive cards. This ironically drove the price of the silver Bible up.
The percentage of 1/100 cards in pokemon is like .0005% of cards printed, ill give you an alibi on your second point though - it’s only your favorite pokemon because its everyones favorite pokemon
Some highly cherry-picked ungraded sold examples from eBay’s Terapeak research:
