Is today market the new norm or are we still in a hobby boom?

Hey guys, just watched Dan’s 45 min long video on how he grew his sales over the last ten years. If you haven’t watched it. I highly recommend it was a great watch. He like many of the people in the hobby managed to do very well for themselves because of the massive boom. We are now entered into 2023 and pretty much since Mar 2020 the boom has become to where all cards pretty much skyrocket and now everyone believes that their childhood binder collection is now worth thousands… even their beaten up common and uncommon cards… Now with how popular the hobby is and the amount of money in the hobby we are starting to enter an economic rescission do you see us getting numbers back to pre Covid or are these high prices the new norm? I’ve started looking at Japanese cards to get my fix because it’s less expensive than a lot of English sets.

There is no “new norm” with Pokemon (or any sort of market for that matter). Markets are never binary. Things are always changing. For example, many cards exploded in late 2020 and early 2021, and now, those same cards have dropped significantly in price since that boom (some more than 50 percent).

To answer your question more specifically, will we get back to pre-COVID pricing? Maybe for some cards, but on a grand scale, probably not. But you can never know for sure what the market is going to do or what factors are going to influence it.

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what video kind sir are you referring to

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I’ve noticed a considerable uptick in the amount of cards being listed recently. Not just general card listings, I mean specific listings of rarer cards that I usually see come onto the market about once a month. At the moment instead of the once a month pattern I saw for 2022 I could find about 5-10 listed online waiting to be sold right now.

The same for people selling whole collections too. There have been a lot more binders pop up recently that people are selling, some are straightforward in the descriptions and just say they have more important financial goals and things are tight.

At the moment there does not seem to be any budge in the value or sell price though. I would imagine as time goes on some of the more mid-expensive items will drop a little bit. Purely based on the cards I’ve been watching which aren’t flooding the market by any means, but are now listed more often and stay listed for much longer. (That usually means people will eventually compromise on price a little, and that may dent prices a bit).

I think this will take a long time to be noticeable in any way that is beneficial to buying, and when it does the difference will be tiny.

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The hobby and market has changed so much since precovid it’s not really able to be compared the same way. But no I don’t think it’ll ever go back to those days. All I know that’s true today is it continues to be a buyers market. For some things more than others. The recession will hit some but for those it doesn’t with more disposable income, it’s their gain. I don’t see prices going too much for lower for vintage trophy, scarce cards and Japanese promos. I see these finding their bottom if not already. This is the most opportunity I see and where it’s most a buyers market. I find myself actively picking up these types of cards I consider great deals and missing out on just as many every month because I can’t afford every opportunity. I have a running list of products as I think we all do that I know I have a finite amount of time to pick up that are flying under the radar. I’ve seen more rarer things listed as well like @livindavido. But I don’t see this lasting forever which is why it’s a good opportunity. I always ask them “why are you selling this?” knowing they’ll never get it back and it’s usually because they’re trying to fund a larger purchase or have a wedding/life change coming up. But that’s always been the case and nothing too significant, just wanted to add.

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Tens of thousands of people are getting laid off daily… TCG is gonna be the first expense they cut.

It’s no secret there is money to be made during a downturn …

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So that is thousands of people, of which 0.01% collect Pokemon so we lose one collecter every 10 days :(.
On a serious note, I don’t think there ever has been a stable norm.
Enjoy the ride and spend wisely.

When companies are cutting 10k jobs so regularly that it doesn’t even phase people, it’s historically the start of a bad time

It really depends on the cards and where you look. A lot of things that blew up in 2020/2021 have collapsed due to having a much larger supply than most probably realized, and also because the demand and hype has levelled off a lot since then as well (not to mention, just rampant speculation at times).

In addition, the backlogs at grading companies were massive, and so naturally as more cards hit the market and the demand has dropped, this also played a lot into the change in prices for a lot of cards. As more and more sellers compete, it’s become a race to the bottom in some cases.

I feel the current market we have is the ‘new norm’ for now, but it can shift pretty quickly at times too. I’ve seen a solid amount of price stability among many cards at auctions I watch the past 6+ months now, and most grading companies are back to normal as well. In addition, I’ve also seen new growth and even higher prices than 2020/2021 in some specific cards and sets. For example, certain Neo era cards and E-Reader holos have seen consistent growth and demand that has not really slowed up all that much compared to earlier WOTC sets (at least from what I’ve observed).

So overall, I think regardless of other things happening, the market is always changing into something new as time goes on. There are a lot of variables that drive things in either direction at times. To me, the overall market has developed a new price “floor” for now (compared to say pre-2020 times), but it doesn’t mean that we won’t eventually see new price highs or even new lows from here. If you’re worried about it at all, just set some personal guidelines for yourself and buy at prices you’re comfortable with. If you have a longer term mentality and genuinely enjoying collecting, just take advantage of negative sentiment and price declines as they come.

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