On the surface it feels like normal bargaining but actually someone just asked you for what amounts to a free house.
How many different buyers does that represent?
If someone is offering $3.5 million on anything, I’m at least engaging them on that!
4 Likes
that looks like 3.5 billion to me
1 Like
International buyer who uses a comma to seperate the dollars from cents
4 different buyers.
4 Likes
In general i agree with the sentiment but for the people that paid 5 figures for a 1st edition common starter I don’t think you will ever see that money back.
In the context of stocks, the logic of “time in the market” is primarily useful for index funds/where you have a diversed portfolio and are investing in the market in general. I think the comparison works well in Pokemon, that if you’re just constantly buying all sorts of things you’ll probably be ok.
I think it’s not true for everyone. There are a lot of buyers that buy highly correlated items. Or items that have hit all time highs that may never be seen again for years if ever. The box with Alolan Friends comes to mind. It was at 15k at one point? I think the concept of time in the market doesn’t help much, just as people who lost everything in historical stock market crashes aren’t consoled if they are told to just hodl harder.
6 Likes
even the people who bought less obvious wrongly inflated stuff, charizard comes to mind. Not that its impossible for zard to get back to half a million dollars (or whatever it was 400k?) but its not gonna be soon.
Certainly not soon enough for many of the people who bought them who came in with no pokemon interest
Prices have come down overall there is no doubt about that. Every year for the last 3 years new sales records have been broken for me personally. You don’t necessarily need the ridiculous hype to make money or make sales. You just need to diversify and adapt to new market conditions. Find items that are undervalued and under appreciated. The market is still liquid and will have its peaks and valleys.
10 Likes
I doubt most the people who bought a charizard at 400k care that much about the future value. Not everyone is financially motivated. I’ve paid record prices for collectibles in other markets and don’t give a shit about the future value. Even someone like myself who does this for a living, I also don’t do it for a living. 
24 Likes
Yeah it’s clear that prices have come down for most cards, but I am in the same boat as you with record sales each year. With the help of a couple larger sales I am up over 60% in sales compared to last year. Even without them I would have sold more than last year. Will do my best to continue the trend in 2024 no matter the condition of the market.
3 Likes
I know Scott is the eternal optimist when it comes to the the Pokémon market but the counterpoints here are exceptional. My original post is not about people throwing around 6 figures on individual cards. Those people will be fine but they are literally like 1 in 10,000 people who participate in this market. I’m taking about the other 9,999 people.
The old back promo market is also not what I’m talking about. Those cards have 25+ years of attrition and not the same demand dynamics.
What I am talking about is the mainstream 90% of the market. I’m talking about the casual collect-a-con goer. The redditor with a collection that looks like a walmart shelf. The facebook seller that also does whatnot streams. The people who watch videos about what set they should invest in. I guess you can call them the social media collectors. Their interaction with the hobby revolves around influencers and hype.
It’s a segment of the hobby that didn’t really exist pre-covid. At one point, e4 represented the average serious Pokémon collector, but today not at all. In fact many of the active members here have gone on to milk the new, massive audience of social media collectors.
My goal here isn’t to be judgemental, this is just a frank explanation of what I have observed.
The key thing is that the social media collectors aren’t the ones buying 400k charizords or old back vending cubones. It’s hard to explain but if you’ve been to a collectacon you know. The average vendor makes my eyes glaze over from their boring and saturated their inventory is. It’s these cards with populations that make CD charizord blush. These cards that are so competitive to sell that the profit margin is so thin. There are a ton of people with limited resources that are staked to the max with theses types of cards. That is what I’m talking about here
I can go on but my main point is to clarify exactly what I’m talking about. It’s an entirely qualitative opinion but it’s definitely the vibe I am feeling
40 Likes
time in the market* > timing the market
*do not buy something that has gone parabolic overnight
3 Likes
The best time to buy something was yesterday. Second best time is now. Can also apply to planting trees
6 Likes
That does not apply to English set cards that’s for sure
6 Likes
I mean that’s a pretty massive asterisk especially when human psychology is primed to operate in that manner
1 Like
But trees yes
It’s true. The surprising thing to remember is that the oldest most knowledgeable and senior collectors made the same “overpaying” mistakes as the young noobs many times during covid.
Nobody knew what was going on. COVID could have killed us all
2 Likes
There’s definitely been some cross collectors from other hobbies and vice-versa. Many got caught up in the hype and tried to ‘diversify’ away from sports cards into Pokemon or other hobbies.
For example, one sports collector I saw is SashaT who traded some sports cards + cash for 1st Ed Charizard PSA 10 at the absolute peak of the market. The guy thought 1st Ed Charizard was going to $1 Million soon. What’s interesting though is the Charizard has come down a lot (50-60%), but the Sports cards he traded for it have both lost 90%+ in value and collapsed more than Charizard:
Will it go to $1 million? For sure anyone’s best guess. I would say it’s possible with enough time and continued interest, but definitely could take a while yet. Either way Pokemon has been in a far stronger position than a lot of sports cards from what I’ve seen even with the stagnation or slowness in the market.
3 Likes
modern is bad
I will take my $5 now
2 Likes