Been looking at some of the recent pumped up chase cards like Lugia v AR, gengar vmax AR, moonbreon, Giratina v AR. People are hyped for these cards and I understand why, they are quite nice, but do you think that given their fundamentals (rarity, age, mintness, pop) the price is justified? Currently I get the vibe that the price is inflated, but curious to hear the thoughts of others.
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No, I donât believe that the prices are justified. Irrationality is synonymous with the Pokemon market nowadays.
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Irrational , or maybe not. You either pull it yourself or you buy it. Considering the pull rate and price of boxes, one could say itâs not irrational to buy the card.
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Any idea what the pull rates are off the top of your head? Iâve seen some content creators talk about how wild it is but nothing concrete
I donât follow the modern market and itâs prices enough to have an educated analysis on the justification of prices. What I do have however, is the simple opinion that if Iâm able to buy an older, rarer promo card for less than a card youâve specified I will buy that 10/10 times over the modern chase set card.
I just buy cards I like, each to their own though. If somebody wants to buy a printed into oblivion, brand new, mint condition card that everyone else wants to have while having a millisecond of clout and glory on TikTok and will pay a solid premium for it then so be it. As long as it makes them happy thatâs the main thing.
Prices be wildin but the art is exquisite.
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It depends on what youâre looking for. Special arts are exciting and generate emotional purchases so prices will continue to be unreasonable for as long as it is trending. If you like them and the prices are within your comfort zone, Iâd say thatâs justified. If youâre juggling between these types of cards and cards from other eras, go for whichever feels less attainable to you. Itâs a good time to collect
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solid advice, I do prefer vintage so that is my priority right now. Itâs pretty funny to look over from my vintage and see the wildfire that is modern
Idk, you can get most psa 9 1st edition base set cards, which come out of boxes that are worth $150,000 and are 25 years old for the same price as a moonbreon that comes out of boxes you can buy today, easily, and for $700 and will almost always gemâŠdoesnât make sense to me but people are clearly doing it lol
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Thereâs a Charizard or two in every base set box on average right? You know how many boxes of evolving skies it would take to have an average chance of getting a moonbreon? Itâs like 1/1200 packs so over 30 boxes. So for your math experiment, multiply $700 by 30 or 60 to make it a fair comparison
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Itâs a good comparison from pokecollectorarmy, but I was wondering about the rarity rates.
$700 x 30 boxes = $21,000 (conservatively)
$700 x 60 boxes = $42,000 (liberally)
Assuming that is accurate the premium on moonbreon starts to look reasonable lol
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Itâs basically the Base Charizard Effect - large supply isnât able to cope with the even larger demand.
There are a boatload of copies of these ultra modern chase cards, but the sheer number of people wanting them is keeping the prices naturally high.
With how good the artwork is, and the difficulty in pulling them from now dwindling sets, I wouldnât be so sure the prices do retrace all that much in the medium term.
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Itâs just not a good comparison overall. Pokecollectoramy pointed out the main reasons (age of 1st Ed base, sheer cost, print quality). Accessibility is worlds apart.
Evolving Skies isnât a $700 box solely because of Moonbreon. Itâs an absolutely stacked set and arguably the best of SWSH. Absolutely tonnes of this product got opened after release and continues to be opened even at the $700 price point. There continues to exist bucket loads of the product stored away by investors. Price may go up but Evolving Skies will not be a scarce set for decades. Over 1300 PSA 10 Moonbreons which will probably rise to 2000 over the next 5 years. Even at $700 it is still worth opening for some collectors. Not to mention the rip-and-shippers, the YouTubers, and all the peripheral products like the Charizard Ultra Premium collection that are easily available and contain ES packs.
As to the OPâs question. Sealed SWSH products having risen in price has had a clear impact on demand, though I believe this is because itâs created an artificial sense of scarcity in the short term, rather than any tangible change in availability of alt art chase cards. This leads to to price speculation. As OP points out, hype is a component of demand, and this can change very quickly. All current modern chase cards also remain vulnerable to reprinting. That said, I donât make these points to detract from the value of the cards themselves to collectors. SWSH is potentially the best era to date for card art, and the collectability is phenomenal which of course adds inherent value.
Unfortunately this doesnât change the fact that the fundamentals just arenât particularly strong in comparison to older cards, particularly vintage, and the value isnât there for me personally. I would not and have not paid current prices for modern chase cards. Subjectively, no the price isnât justified. Objectively, and without further scrutiny of the reasons for demand, yes it is justified because many people are willing to pay these prices.
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All this Evolving Skies talk has me missing the buffet since they would at least have some interesting information about it to add to this conversation⊠and every other conversation.
As for the topic, as a casual consumer all these high value modern chases are unrealistically priced and very few seem to be worth getting at their current levels. Id love to have a moonbreon but even at release it wasnt a card I was willing to pay market price for because there isnt much to it. Its a set card that has a lot of hype because it looks nice and is hard to pull, that doesnt usually justify these kinds of values for raw versions. Im fine with waiting a decade or never getting them since id rather spend the money on things more meaningful to me.
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My follow-up question to âitâs irrationalâ would be - what is a rational price for a card someone had to open dozens of booster boxes to pull, on average?
Take Lost Origin. There are 4 alt art Vs, pull rate has been estimated at around 1 in 200 packs (these estimates arenât perfect but theyâre likely not terribly far off). So around $2800 was spent to add one Giratina V to the market (at old sub-MSRP prices of $125/box - this is no longer possible), along with an Aerodactyl V, the two much less popular alts, a few desired TG cards like the Pikachus, and a stack of assorted low-value full arts.
Whatâs a fair second-hand value for this pile of hits that rippers spent $2800 to add to the market?
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Perhaps the decade is priced in lol
It all comes down to what we think is an oversupply of a card.
How much would you pay for a card that has a supply of:
100
500
1,000
10,000
50,000
100,000
200,000
400,000
1,000,000
We say itâs not worth it because of previous price memory/experience or because the formula of pull rate x box price (even taking MSRP) doesnât really work for the majority of cards ever, but it really comes down to the perception of supply/scarcity.
People are shocked at 10,000 pop report when there are millions of people in the hobby (though the number will fluctuate with time).
What SWSH ânormalâ (non-VMAX) alts donât have at the moment is competition that will surely come with time. If another Dragonite, Umbreon, Rayquaza come up, as they are bound to, will it overshadow the SWSH art? Will it complement it? Will it be worse?
The greater the market also lends itself to a greater potential for nostalgia and art done by proper illustrators not workmanlike CGI shops also gives more room for growth beyond nostalgia.
All that is to say, the market is also irrational and manipulated and itâs really hard to tell what true genuine demand is - not driven by those seeking to flip, which seems to be a huge component.
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Its really a coin toss. Gold stars didnt drop when tag team alts came up but Burning shadows charizard got left behind when hidden fates and every other set with full art charizard came out. Maybe the future will have a special shiny set with reprinted alt art cards but in their shiny variants.
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Theyâd need swsh levels of pull rates for it to make a difference on the regular alts I think. And Pokemon has been making pull rates a lot easier.
Idk what they were thinking during swsh with having 1:250 odds on good cards
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I have purchased every single alt art and have no plan to sell. So to answer your question about true demand I can speak for myself and say that Iâm still buying at these prices. Why you may ask? I like the art and I guess I believe the market has correctly priced these cards given demand and supply. Now rationally I know people think weâre crazy for spending this much on one piece of shiny cardboard but I guess I donât see the price crashing so I feel itâs a pretty safe buy.
It begs the question what the price would have to reach before I no longer would buy and I havenât considered that. I guess if I saw higher value in other items I would write off these alt arts at high prices but I currently donât have anything that interests me more. Itâs happened before though where I was filling in master sets of like vivid and darkness and decided I get more enjoyment out of buying older etbs and alternate arts.
Ultimately I agree with what several people have said that buy what you enjoy. If you enjoy vintage and think itâs underpriced, go for it. If you love these new full art low pullrate modern cards like me, go for it. Iâm not judging anyone, just trying to explain my thinking in case it helps.
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I appreciate the detailed the write up, helps contextualize the madness
Who or what was the buffet?
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