Jayce's Gold Star Collection [Complete PSA 10 English Set!]

Collecting
1

Just wanted to share this here as it’s been a crazy few years (started around 2014-2015) in the making to complete my main collecting goal of acquiring an entire English PSA 10 Gold Star set!

It has been insane watching the prices of Gold Star cards skyrocket the last couple of years…I feel like 2015 was really the last year where many PSA 10 Gold Stars were still in the “relatively affordable” price range…if i’d have started this journey in 2016 or heck, this year, there’d be no way for me to have even come close to a complete PSA 10 set due to astronomical prices and scarcity levels of many of these cards.

As smpratte discussed in his video from a while back, the Gold Star set is extremely iconic in the tcg from a collectability standpoint…lowest print run in the tcg, unique shiny art that exceeded the border for the first time, holo bleed on some cards, a consistent artist across all the sets/cards, good selection of Pokemon and of course, really low PSA 10 Gem Mint pops for pretty much all the Gold Stars outside of the dog trio. When I read about people falling in love with Gold Star cards, it usually starts with someone’s curiosity being piqued just hearing about them, to seeing/owning one in person in played condition or similar and from there it just graduates to collecting them in the highest PSA grade one can afford…i’ve literally seen/heard of that same pattern time and time again when people discuss why or how they started collecting Gold Stars and why these cards were so appealing to them!

That said, I did have lady luck on my side as I managed to grade my own PSA 10s of the following Gold Stars, which made reaching my goal exponentially easier since the relative cost of them all in today’s prices exceed $15k easily (like, that’s the total of prices i’ve either been offered, sold at or have seen these cards sell at):

  • Vaporeon

  • Metagross

  • Espeon

  • Umbreon

  • Charizard

  • Rayquaza

The following were acquired from a trade of PSA 9s + $400 to another EFour member:

  • Mewtwo
  • Alakazam
  • Jolteon

The following were cards where I either paid a premium or significantly above market value to acquire, mostly because I had other bidders/buyers I was competing against who are/were also 2-4 cards away from a complete set and were willing to shell out a LOT of money due to low pops and these not really coming up for sale that often (i’m putting prices on the first 3 as “$3k+” as i’ve agreed to keep the sale prices private with the sellers, but the prices were at a minimum $3,000 USD):

  • Latias ~$3k+
  • Latios ~$3k+
  • Torchic ~$3k+
  • Mew ~$1.5k
  • Gyarados ~$900

I have to say, I would have zero issues reselling the above 5 cards at or much higher than what I paid for them just due to the knowledge of other people who need them as well as the feedback/inquiries i’ve received on Instagram…the worst I can do is basically break even. :wink:

The rest of the Gold Star cards (about 15) were opportunistic purchases or purchases I would deem at or below market value at the time I bought them.

And of course, over the last few years i’ve made a decent chunk of cash selling off Gold Star doubles of a few PSA 10s as well as selling PSA 9s this year for about 3x the price of what I originally paid for them in 2+ years ago.

All in all, i’d estimate around $18k was my total investment to acquire the complete set over the last few years, obviously shaving off a few thousand from some profit i’ve made from other card sales over that same time span. I’d say this was a very fun and worthwhile goal, but really, Gold Star cards just have massive appeal for me and there isn’t another set in the English TCG, imo, that comes close (1st Edition Base PSA 10 complete set obviously is on a tier of its own, should go without saying, but Gold Stars are second for me in terms of prestige, price, scarcity and collectability).

As of today, I know of only one other person who also has a complete PSA 10 Gold Star set (@kingpokemonmaster on IG), so i’m quite proud to have finally completed this set…I do NOT plan on selling for a very long time, (unless you’re gonna make me a 6-figure offer lol) but you guys may see me list the set on eBay or something just to generate hype for the hobby and to see what kind of interest/offers it drums up. :blush:

62 Likes
2

What a great achievement. It must feel so satisfying finally completing your goal. I feel the same with my psa 9 Base set :blush:

3 Likes
3

Thank you! And yes…it is a great relief to the wallet and to the mind to finally complete this set…it’s been a long time coming and I feel so fortunate with the timing that I chose to start collecting Gold Stars. :blush:

PSA 9 base complete set is also quite an achievement and is pretty much guaranteed $$$ in the bank from here on out, lol, so congrats on that for sure as well!!

2 Likes
4

@jayce87

I know that feeling of relief! I paid A lot for the last few cards I needed because of the price rise over the last couple of months and I’m sure you’ve done the same. It’s like you can inally enjoy all the prices rising now you don’t have to buy anymore lol.

I originally wanted to save the most expensive (charizard) for last but had to abort that once it was jumping up heaps… lucky you didn’t leave the zard and rayquaza til last or it would have been a very expensive venture haha

And you’re right. I think back wishing I started a psa 10 set many years ago but you just gotta be thankful you’re not starting now.

3 Likes
5

You did a good job on finding the cards for sale and grading a few of them! The set ungraded always stuns me on how nice they look together but psa 10 makes it that more special! If i ever had the money the only thing i would do is change the english espeon and umbreon to the play promos :wink:

2 Likes
6

Thanks!

Yeah, I do wish the POP 5 Eevolutions were holo, but honestly, being non-holo does add yet another unique quirk to this set…you’ve already got Shiny Pokemon, some cards with holo bleed throughout, some with holo bleed only on the borders, Delta Species Pokemon and then two Gold Stars that are non-holo while the rest are…that’s pretty cool now that I think about it, lol.

2 Likes
7

Wow! Amazing and congratulations on such a crazy achievement! I loved reading through how you acquired certain cards and the pricing. It was really cool to see literal examples of the change in market as well as card premiums from a primary source. And just in general it was just fun to walk through your acquisition process! Thanks for sharing.

2 Likes
8

10 Likes
9

Nice work! They look so good all together :blush: So hard to find alot of these now days :slightly_frowning_face:

1 Like
10

That’s awesome :blush: Well done!

1 Like
11

Congratulations on getting this complete set. It’s a very exclusive club.
there is an even more exclusive club you can join…

those who’ve had it and sold it all, and regret it hahaha.
The prices are insane now. It’s a great investment. I have
a feeling it’ll stall out at some poiint. People will say it could never go higher.
I’ve been here through two peaks for gold stars and that is what people said each time.

BTW if you put rayquaza under your pillow at night I hear you get some wicked dreams.
@rayquazatcg and @dragontype can vouche that for me.

9 Likes
12

I remember reading about and seeing the auctions for when you broke your set up a while back…there were some Gold Stars then that I simply couldn’t afford at the time that I really wanted from your auctions, haha. Broke my heart to see you break them up, but if the payout was still great, hopefully the regret isn’t too deep. :wink:

I too think these will stall out at some point, but they’ve got years to rise in price until then…there are quite a few underappreciated low pop PSA 10 Gold Stars like Alakazam, Celebi, etc., that should see significant gains once people realize how infrequently they hit the open market.

1 Like
13

Very nice collection and I agree with you guys. Perhaps when most of the key cards reach $10k or so you might hit a bit of a stall point, so there’s still a lot of room for growth. Zard and Ray are probably headed that way sooner than we think.

1 Like
14

If someone offered to trade you their full psa 10 holo base shadowless set for your gold star set, would you do it?

15

I personally haven’t seen a complete psa 10 goldstar set before. I must say that it’s a pretty impressive achivement, congratulations :clap::clap::clap::+1:

1 Like
16

Nope. :blush:

Thanks! :blush:

17

Beautiful set. Do you have any knowledge of what the current price difference between Rayquaza and Charizard is?

1 Like
18

GS PSA 10 Rayquaza has multiple folks I personally know who will shell out at least $6k for it no problem right now…GS PSA 10 Charizard is anywhere from $4-5k at the moment, would be on par probably if the pop count weren’t significantly higher than Ray (28 vs 45 pop is fairly significant when it comes to English Gold Stars).

That said, all things considered and say the pop count were equal…even with Charizard’s general higher overall popularity…it’s possible that Rayquaza would still cost more as it is generally believed to be hands-down the best Gold Star aesthetically/art-wise by a lot of folks and that appeal is what has driven its cost to be historically higher than Charizard for pretty much as long as both cards have existed.

19

@jayce87

oh you are that guy on reddit. i saw your post and was already wondering, if you were part of this community.

1 Like
20

Amazing. Congrats. :blush:

1 Like