Any recent data on sold japanese base set boxes?
Most recent I’ve seen was $33.6k on Heritage last month - comics.ha.com/itm/memorabilia/pokemon-japanese-base-set-sealed-booster-box-media-factory-1996-/a/7260-36112.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515
and $30k the previous month - comics.ha.com/itm/memorabilia/pokemon-japanese-base-set-sealed-booster-box-media-factory-1996-/a/7244-94165.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515
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They are early prints. People are paying a premium in the same manner as they do for green wing non-shadowless boxes. These boxes had long packs, so no significant chance at no rarity. There was a later print that sold in April iirc for $15,859.99 (154419993299). Looked legitimate. Lowest sale I have witnessed in almost a year I believe. Be aware of the high risk of counterfeit before buying.
Thank you for your input.
I’ve noticed there are either 291yen or 300yen printed on the packs.
Are theese any indicators of no rarity packs like the english green winged boxes might be shadowless?
30K+ seems steep considering the zard is 4-5k and if I remember correctly, the japanese base doesnt contain a holo in each pack right? Isn’t it like a 1/2 ratio?
Yes, you get 60 packs with 50% of them containing a holo.
So 30 mint Japanese base holo’s with a good chance at a 10, as Japanese quality was way better.
Also many cool uncs and commons.
Packs go for around $400-500 and are moste likely weight and do not contain a holo. The 20 anneverisry packs now are beeing sold for $200, let that sink in…
Sealed boxes are superior, let alone scarse, cool, old and S+ tier collectors item.
Regarding no-rarity. There is a smal chance short crimp packs have no-rarity cards inside them. If you find loose packs, big chance that someone opened the box, checked one pack and the are not no-rarity. Best shot is finding sealed starter decks (the 001 variant) but they are very very hard to find and cost a lot of money, for good reasons.
Your other option is finding a sealed short pack booster box (boxes are smaller) but those are unicorns.
Good luck!
Edit: Disclaimer, yes I own a sealed box and I love it. Also have short crimp boosters, most likely not containing no rarity but still cool af!
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Only a small fraction of short packs contain no rarity cards, all long crimp packs have 0% chance so that includes all booster boxes with this design:
Short pack booster boxes have different box design.
Sealed short pack boxes are incredibly scarce and have rarely appeared. Even when they have appeared and people open them the cards contained are normal rarity cards. The biggest price fluctuation will be between a short pack box and a normal box. For the normal boxes the ones without “For Sale in Japan Only” are earlier and some collectors may prefer that but there is no correlation with no rarity cards.
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Last time I calculated the expected value of the cards in a base box was in early June, Charizard was around $6000 back then and the expected value was :
$20,383 if 60/30/10% at PSA 10/9/8
$23,179 if 70/30% at PSA 10/9
$25,704 if 80/20% at PSA 10/9
Hard to tell what condition ratio is more realistic.
This calculation considers 30 heavy packs (it can vary a lot) and I also include the value of starters and Pikachu, which are cards you might forget to consider. They add about $30 per pack in average. People tend to roughly value a box based on the chase card (“zard is [only] 4-5k”), but when you take everything in consideration, they are often worth a lot more than they think.
You generally pay a bit more of a premium (compared to the expected value) on early Japanese boxes versus early WOTC, but they are undeniably much more rare. In my opinion, the base box is the coolest one and the one with the highest growth potential and the premium is well worth it. There is a much higher premium on WOTC Neo boxes, for instance. I would own a base box if it wasn’t for my concern that Japanese boxes are just too easy to counterfeit :-(.
The last few boxes I saw went for (USD) 13.4k - 17.4k - 47.6k - 30k - 33.6k
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