Curious to get everyone’s thoughts on Japanese Art Rare cards and their investability. The majority of these are around a dollar a card (and probably less in places). They are full special art cards and I guess any one is around 1 in 4 boxes to pull? (12 per set 3 per box).
There are some stunning art rares. I think the future is very bright for these cards. Will the print runs ruin the hopes of these cards growing in value in the future. My stance is even if they never move you can’t lose because they’re so nice and they can’t get much cheaper.
I just think they’re too easy to pull given their 3-per-box pull rates. I think given enough time we will see some price increases, but I wouldn’t count on any stonks.
Hi, Bezelbub’s lawyer here. I would argue that something that doesn’t increase in value in a time where there are cards that would more likely increase in value is a losing proposition from an investment perspective.
Some will undoubtedly increase in value because of random hype around a species or a specific art. But generally, no, I think there are much better ways to “invest” in Pokemon that don’t require buying (storing, and then selling) hundreds or thousands of modern Japanese art rares.
The downside risk is minimal, so go ahead and do it if you like. But also don’t expect to become rich overnight because of it.
The two cons of being printed to oblivion and being easy to pull can be said about the english ones too. I wouldn’t feel bad about picking up a couple of extra copies here and there, especially of the ones that are crazy expensive in english but still affordable in japanese.
As usual, it boils down to the wider trends in the market and good investment vs great investment. Right now, special arts are huge, and art rares are special arts. We are already seeing increases on some of the more popular ARs like Eevee, 151 Starters, Legendaries, etc. I think these kinds of ARs could have some solid long-term upside as more accessible special arts, but I’d be cautious about a random mass-buying approach. 3 per box is almost the same rate as regular ex which are bulk. The lower priced ARs are likely going to stay that way.
You also have to consider ROI. Would ARs outperform sealed boxes? Would ARs outperform ex/V special arts? I would think not. The benefit of ARs is that they’re cheap, but this is actually a bad sign from an investment POV. They’re cheap because there aren’t many people interested in them. I’ve always found that buying things that are “expensive” leads to more returns, rather than trying to seek out the cheapest of a class of items (in this case, special arts) to purchase.
One caveat with the English I believe is that when TPCI combines 2 and sometimes 3 JP sets into our lovely Frankenstein English set, almost all (except the odd ETB promo) the ARs get aggregated from those sets (24 or even ~32) and dilute the pool for any one particular card. Best examples are Paldea Evolved and Paradox Rift, 3 JP sets each. And since the pull rates are comparable to JP (only 3 per booster box) you end up with some english ARs being harder to pull assuming the print runs being about equal.
I think you could make a play on this difference either way. Do what Vic said and capitalize on things like JP Magikarp and Groudon ARs that are cheap and could be cheaper alternatives to the English market, or try to anticipate which English ARs from bigger sets might do well (ie. popular) and try to scoop at reasonable prices. I believe the Groudon is currently up 4x from its release and was up even before this current boom. But again, might be risky going forward considering the volatility today.