Is it the case that Japanese low print unlimited cards sell for more? Or are a lot of people still unaware of the rarity or don’t care too much?
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I swear the prices flip-flop every week for unlimited vs 1st ed. I think most are unaware, both sellers and buyers, of unlimited being rarer.
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Unlimited sounds bad. On an already lower demand set of cards
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Generally yes. However, there are some factors I’ve noticed from selling rarer 1st/ued variants that you should take into account:
- Auctions can yield 0 premiums for rarer variants.
- A popular pokemon (like rayquaza) will yield a higher premium for the rarer variant.
- At the same time, a lesser popular pokemon (like pidgey) will yield in almost no premium unless you find the right species collector.
- Each set has different awareness from collectors. Collecting unlimited mid era cards is still niche imo.
Overall, if you price a card with a premium expect it to sit for a while until you find the right buyer.
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The largest buyer’s market with the strongest spending power are English speakers (Americans, specifically).
Japanese set cards are already niche compared to their English counterparts and seen as cheaper alternatives.
English collectors who grew up with wotc (the demographic with the highest wealth and purchasing power now) are conditioned to attach a premium to 1st edition cards and not unlimited.
You are taking already niche cards and expecting people to do the opposite of what has been ingrained in their heads for years and pay more? Not gonna happen.
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Pretty much this. It depends on the knowledge of the sellers and buyers. Plenty of my unlimited pickups have been at the same price as 1st Eds., while some I ended up paying a premium due the seller understanding the difference in rarity.
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They absolutely do yes. You can still find steals from people who are unaware of the rarity, but they tend to get snapped up very quickly as more and more people become aware
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Here are two examples of low print unlimited selling for more.
Ray:
Terrakion:
Like others have said, it doesn’t always happen this way because the seller might not know what they have.
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Depends on where they are listed. On international marketplaces certainly, on Mercari Japan however I saw plenty of XY era unlimited cards being listed for 1ED prices and not selling for months.
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I think it only matters for species collectors.
The price varies because there are species collectors who want each variant. While the most popular species may get a premium for being scarce and harder to find the lesser popular ones will sell for about the same or even less sometimes.
There’s also the case of someone just trying to complete the unlimited set which can cause a unlimited version to spike higher. Like when two hardcore master set chasers find a card that is hard to find and will never find again prices will spike.
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This is false information.
I am a mew species collector and literally every single psa 10 unlimited trades for 200-500% more than it’s 1st edition counterpart except for the goldstar which trades for the same. The populations are significantly lower on unlimited, some are 1/20
Japanese set cards are already niche compared to their English counterparts
This is also not true (anymore) yes english sets generally trade for more but the gap has been tightening significantly and for BASE SET, aka the most relevant set
No rarity has significantly overlapped 1st edition EN, some examples:
1.7M$ for the charizard
230k$ for the blastoise
You could argue this is because of the tiny supply of no rarity but then you can make the same argument for english sets which have a much higher supply than japanese sets.
(For those who ask why: most Japanese sets had more holos and way better quality prints, therefore higher graded 10s)
In the rare instances where the supply is about the same for a card, then the valuation is also very similar. I know this because i collect graded mews in both languages. It is therefore not a matter of popularity but much rather a matter of supply.
On a long enough timeframe I speculate that japanese will continue to overtake EN as it is the original language of the hobby & true first editions. The top 5 most expensive cards are already all in japanese and it is mostly westeners bidding them up
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I was speaking more about the English buyer sentiment regarding Japanese set cards and how it requires a fair bit of learning about these cards to know Unlimited is rarer than 1st Edition for a lot of releases. People who grew up with Pokemon in the late 90s have been conditioned to always prioritize 1st Edition over Unlimited, so that alone takes some getting used to.
My post was made almost two months ago and a lot has changed in the landscape regarding how Japanese set cards are viewed in comparison to their English equivalents. It remains to be seen where things settle later on as the extreme surge in JP set cards feels extremely volatile to me.
On a personal note, I do agree rare Japanese promos and trophies are at the top of the hobby for a reason. Some of these releases can’t be beat, and the way TPC has moved away from Japanese-exclusive cards in recent years means these older promos and prize cards will just become more special.
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