Many of these cards are from an early employee. When his supply runs out they will stop feeling over saturated. It reminds me of pkonno selling Snaps 2017-19. Plenty of people thought the supply would last forever and didn’t prioritize getting a Snap because they assumed more would be listed soon but eventually the pipe went dry.
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Was it a 97, or 98 set of extras?
Wasn’t refering to the sale price, just the fact that another set has appeared for sale on top of what is already available this month. Also never said the market wasn’t healthy.
I was responding to your sentence “Tbh I think if this influx of high tier cards continues long enough it may not be sustainable.”
I think the volume and speed of the buyers for this indicates we are far from the demand for these cards being unsustainable
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I think you & @jonbo are overestimating how many ppl out there can drop a few 100k on a card. If we saw another 10 illustrators and 10 trophy pikas appear within the next year (which is definitely possible) I think a retracement is likely. Maybe not what we saw with 1st Ed Base but fairly significant. Like maybe a PSA 8 illustrator selling below $200k?
We did see a major buyer buy a trophy pika for $200k only to later flip at a lose for $117k a few years ago. Rarecandy has barely gotten started selling their horde of grails, 11 Ishihara’s graded by cgc, Proretrox & auction houses listings grails like crazy & numerous high tier cards sitting across multiple platforms. Not to mention the extra copies constantly appearing on Yahoo JP. Plus we’ve already seen retracement in low tier prize cards like TW 99 & unikarp.
Maybe nothing will happen & prices just go up, but I’m just being realistic.
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This is a lot of speculation.
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Well of course, it’s a speculative conversation on a speculative market.
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Well to be fair all the arguments thrown in this thread are kinda speculative, “educated” guesses at best so i think overall it’s a healthy speculative discussion.
Interesting to read either way.
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I think most people are in the camp where if there is a retrace, then fine, that just isn’t currently happening. Increased supply is just one aspect. There were more PSA 10 1st ed charizards sold in 2020 than this year, yet the prices were 2x then vs now.
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Seems like there are two questions/implications here.
- Will trophy cards go up forever?
- Is the trophy card market healthy? (e.g. unlikely to experience a dramatic drop in prices/demand)
Some people seem to be equating trophy cards not going up forever with there being a fundamental market problem. I highly doubt all trophies will go up forever, trophies aren’t immune to supply and demand. However, the market will never dry up for these cards, the old back trophy set selling in literal minutes is proof of that.
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I also think that trophy cards are so out of reach for some collectors that this isn’t a huge indication of everything. I think it might help to separate trophy cards market from set cards market. Same how we do with different language cards
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I’m not sure why I’m commenting on this thread as I’m certainly unqualified 
. I don’t have any trophy cards or the cash to acquire any, but here’s a few general thoughts that may be interesting to someone:
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Pokemon is the largest grossing media franchise of all time. About double Star Wars. More than Marvel, Harry Potter, several Disney subset, etc. That’s really impressive. Could it go to zero and everyone leave? Sure, but seems kind of unlikely anytime soon. Seems there are a lot of people just interested in Pokemon and that enjoy collecting. Now I think most effects the lower and middle parts of the market. But having a solid stable base with lots of interest I think adds a psychological stability to higher end cards. If you are dropping $15-500k on a card, its easier to do it if the hobby feels healthy overall and you see there being new generations getting into collecting. I would think that puts upward stabilizing pressure on the high end trophy cards.
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I think a temporary influx of expensive cards all sold at the same time could lower the prices of those cards for a short time if there isn’t enough liquid cash available to pay the highest prices for these items. But I would assume, give a little more time, these high rollers could sell things or move funds around and have more cash available if another one pops up.
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Sometimes I think we overestimate the variation in some of these cards. If I have a $90 card that goes up to $100 then comes back down to $90, the variation was $10 but the percent change was a 11% increase followed by a 10% decrease. Most of us would consider that noise in the market. Did the card really lose or increase in value? 10% is nothing. Now take a $200,000 card. A 10% decrease takes that card to $180,000. Psychologically this looks like a larger drop because it’s $20,000. But it’s the same percent. Maybe there was less liquid cash for buyers that month. Maybe there were other priorities. Maybe potential sellers weren’t paying attention. Who knows? A $200k card selling for $180k sounds like the value of the card is dropping but I think maybe its just noise. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next one listed sells for $220k. I don’t know enough about these high end cards to find a real example, but I guess my point would be I don’t think you can draw conclusive evidence for a price hike or decrease from only 1 or 2 sales. I think you’d have to see sustained decreases in price to know the market has reduced the valuation of the card.
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I’d say I’m in that camp as well. I’m not trying to make any predictions, just layout why I think it could be a possibility.
True on the Charizard, but that card is the most hyped & recognized card ever. Hobby was getting the most exposure its ever gotten with Base Set at the forefront.
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I think thats a better way to phrase it; possibility instead of reality.
Rarecandy is actually a solid example of the strength of high end pokemon cards. Their website couldn’t be any worse to use, and their registration process is extremely cumbersome, yet their rare cards still do fine, some even occasionally record prices.
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Interesting take, i can get behind it
Buy now while the market feels saturated with higher end cards.
That feeling will be gone in a few years and the demand for these scarce cards will be high.
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This is a good point. I remember when I returned to collecting some TCGs (mainly MTG) in the mid 2010s when I was mostly a broke college boy and how much more was available then compared to now. Even though it’s a totally different market, so many of the lower supply/valuable cards have basically left the market permanently at this point. I could see the same thing happening with these truly rare/unique Pokemon cards, especially in the next 5-10 years as things continue to mature more and more. Pokemon is also in such a strong position right now with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
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facts.
Continue to see a massive influx or rare, nov elite goldin auction. Never seen that many tropical winds, chap fest, top32/16/semi/finalist in my life
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