It has caught attention in the last few days that 1st edition Holos from Jungle/Fossil in PSA 10 are selling for somewhere between $100 and $300 depending on the card, is this a new trend?
From what I remember when I checked 3-6 months ago they were all at most $100, or I must remember it incorrectly or have only seen non-holos back then. In any case, I was pretty sure that 1st edition Neo Genesis/Revelation and Gym Heroes/Challenge were more expensive than 1st edition Jungle/Fossil… But now I’m not so sure anymore.
Its not really a new trend, its the same trend that has followed almost every single set now. Its a very cyclical nature of the older sets. Tracing back through the $1500 range sets right now, a couple sales of sealed boxes can almost seem to set off a buying spree as people who don’t have any are now on the hunt to get them before they are gone. These crazy buying sprees within a small amount of time can change the whole dynamic in my opinion. Legendary Collection-Rocket Returns have all had their cycles and are now perched way above what most would pay as there are just not that many in existence sealed. Jungle and Fossil a year ago were much under $1,000 and I believe 2016 was just a year for those two sets to rise. 2017 I believe its Team Rocket’s turn.
Fossil and Jungle are mid through their cycles in my opinion as the hunt for those Kangaskans and Lapras in 10’s are now becoming much more slim.
This is where I believe the PSA jump has begun, people are now moving quickly to secure an opportunity as there are just not that many chances left.
However, the PSA market can either lack behind or jump ahead. With the fossil for instance, PSA 10 of a Lapras will nearly pay for your box being at the $900 range, where as a Ex Rocket Return’s right now, no card in a 10 will full cover the cost of the box as some people are actually paying upwards of $3,000 for it. Next set to have the jump begin is definitely the first set of Team Rocket. Sellers will still part with a box 1st edition for around $600/$700 on ebay, which in turn is going to very soon in my opinion, boost the prices of Dark Charizard and the other staples in the set much higher.
The prices have been up for awhile now. 3-6 months ago PSA 10 1st Ed Lapras earned over 1k. The more popular species are earning mid hundreds. The PSA Pop report plays a role as well.
The original wotc era is dry, and I don’t see that changing moving forward. There is a decent amount of sealed product out there, but that product doesn’t guarantee 10’s. That reality of sealed product compounds the scarcity and value for PSA 10 items.
Thanks Scott! I hadn’t seen a picture like that yet so figured it grab a bunch of Roaring Skies and build it out.
I truly think Team Rocket is very undervalued compared to the current WOTC items. When the market pushes out buyers that cannot purchase past $1,000 they will be forced to this set as its the last standing under $800 that is consistently selling. For anyone trying to capitalize in the next few years, this is a great option.
Don’t overlook the “No Symbol” Jungle Holo set. This is by far the most undervalued set in PSA 10. The difference between the No Symbol and Team Rocket sets is the difficulty in getting 10s. Nobody has more ungraded of the jungle errors than I do but very few had a 9 or 10 chance.
After the Fossil set was produced all sheet cutting blades were changed so Team Rocket had nice cuts.
I would agree, however, I was just speaking in general of how sealed boxes were moving for the 3 sets in 1st edition. I am saying that Team Rocket still has to have its breakout move being there are staple cards in that set, very undervalued in 1st edition PSA 10 quality. Being that no symbol isn’t in 1st edition, the large increase in price for 1st edition Jungle has a large attribute to the dwindling chances of scoring a PSA 10 for multiple low pop cards.
While Jungle it seems the price increase has a large variable of obtaining high graded cards, I believe Team rocket will have an adverse effect. As like you said some boxes have much better quality control, people will not be racing to obtaining cards that have very low pop’s, as they really don’t, people will be racing to obtain said boxes as its the last box to break past the $800 and soon $1000 threshold in 1st edition. When that happens, the cyclical cycle of market flood will begin and more and more higher prices will ensue.
Well damn, guess WOTC didnt print english blisters for Team Rocket,Gym heroes/challenge and Base 2. There are long pack variants, which they probably thought would suffice.
The interesting thing is there was a product once that had those 4 sets within this 4 pack blister item. They use to pop up on Ebay every once in awhile but were known to have a base 2, team rocket, gym heroes, and sometimes a jungle or other item. This was one of the first 4 pack blisters that pokemon made and I am not sure if it was a repack item or a WOTC item. Never the less, this is the closest they would have come to being in an actual blister IMO.
That’s very hard to say. Until it hits the point where there are no more cards to grade, or very very low quantities, people will generally opt for buying a box themselves and grading themselves or buying an outright 10 instead of the 9. The way I look at it, is the same I look at master sets. People generally think the prices on these will increase hand in hand with sealed items when its actually much more less of a consistent gain.
If there are 1,000 booster boxes in the world, and the price is set at a specific point, every time someone opens a box, the price goes up a very very very small percent. This flow continues and cards with no pop 10’s will also go hand in hand as well, until they hit the point of saturation. However, cards in 9’s or master sets, no matter how many boxes get opened, those numbers remain the same and will only increase. Opening a box technically destroys the item being a sealed box, but unless a master set or a PSA 9 card somehow becomes destroyed or wiped out, there will always be a set number going up , never down. The reason the prices of 9’s are so low as well as the fact that they will not go up, is a consistent notion to supply in terms of going up and demand never changing. When the the supply of boxes runs never the point of zero, and more and more people are pushing to take on the sets in graded forms or sealed product, the price will rise. However, with the supply still being so high and boxes are still being opened/sent off to PSA, I cannot see the value of any cards besides the low Pop’s gaining any traction in a few years to come.
So then I guess it would be relatively safe to say that the price point of PSA 9 Rocket cards will likely always be beneath PSA 9 Jungle and Fossil? There are numerous PSA 9 1st Edition Jungle and Fossil cards (namely the Eevee-lutions, the legendary birds, Dragonite and Snorlax) that generally range between $50-100 whereas the top PSA 9 Rocket cards (Dark Charizard, Dark Blastoise, etc.) generally top out around $60-70 with a few exceptions.
Would it be fair to guess that the difference in market value has to do with the fact that the Rocket set was the first set to not have “rookie” Pokemon cards?
In the broadest of circumstances I would say yes, however in the end a buyer could really want a team rocket card and will pay a premium compared to that of a jungle card. It was posted higher above the cutting blades used were changed out between jungle and team rocket which leads to a much better quality control and higher psa grades. While the average collector does not know this, it has led to higher pop items.
Generally out of a fossil and jungle 1st edition box, the average grades are 8’s and there will be a share of 9’s. Its very very hard to consistently pull out 10’s as the quality control was just not there with those two sets.
To your second question however, with team rocket on the other hand, this was a staple set, with a completely new idea being the dark cards, and to some there are more value in this then the standard look of jungle/fossil. It has a completely different meta and its very hard to compare certain cards from one another. For instance Dark Jolteon in Team rocket is no where near the value of Jolteon holo from jungle being they are the same Pokemon. In my eyes the Dark cards are almost a rookie variation of their own and the technical Rookie cards will always stay at base set. I almost look at the set names as the rookie cards and not the cards individually as their own. Yes some cards don’t debut until fossil or jungle, but there is a completely different pack art, set logo, and some design differences. The main factors that drive a set to be more or less desired lie around how has the set progressed in the last 15 years and is there a place for a collector to place value for themselves. But when it comes down to it, the market is continually saturated due to both high supply, low demand of sealed product, and high supply of populated PSA cards that has thrown the PSA market off the want to have that low pop card like Jungle/Fossil.
Hopefully that made a little sense, caught myself rambling multiple times.
On the point of PSA 9 Jungle cards such as Dragonite, Snorlax and eevee-lutions fetching a higher price…Besides the fact that these are always harder to grade cards, others are buying 9s in the hopes of re-grading to 10s and safer than buying a raw card.
but i really like it quite unique