This isn’t good… I’ve always worried that some extremely rich person would get into pokemon. Since they can buy literally anything they want cause money isn’t an issue, they could just go on ebay and buy everything not caring about the price. Within hours they could just buy every single base set booster box listed on ebay regardless of price since it doesn’t matter to them and wipe the market out. They could literally have one of the gnarliest collections within hours. Or for instance, if a prefable 10 did show up on Ebay one day, he could set his max bid at $100k that way he knows hed win cause he doesn’t care…
Those people already exist in the hobby and it ultimately doesn’t matter. A base booster box is already 35 times more expensive than its “msrp”. And yet Pokémon is by far the most affordable established hobby. The “expensive” items are an exception, there are so many affordable cards to collect.
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And as long as new sets are being printed, the entry level for our hobby is still low.
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Bieber for example, earns on average 80 million per year. Is there really already collectors in this hobby earning that or anything close as a salary? Not investors buying stuff to flip down the road, just solely someone buying stuff with intentions to never sell and have a really cool looking room or two or three in a house.
@mikejofthecoast, There are people with a similar net worth. Regardless, Wealthy buyers aren’t buying unlimited base booster boxes, they are buying the top items: Trophy cards, PSA 10 1st Edition charizard, etc.
Ultimately someone with that wealth isn’t going to buy out product for a negligible return. They typically just buy the best items and don’t care about the rest, because its a waste of time.
Biebs comes in dipping his toes with PSA 9 cards and my man Mike thinks he’s going to cause the Great Depression of Pokemon.
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I was just saying base booster box’s as an example, cause theres alot of them listed on ebay. But bieber here for instance clearly wasn’t buying the best, they were psa 9’s of not even near top tier cards. That is if he bought them, someone mentioned they coulda been a gift.
Dude imagine if Lebron James’s son was like “dad I want to start collecting old pokemon cards, old 1st edition booster boxes are awesome, I want a bunch of them for Christmas and my birthday.” Lebron being beyond extremely wealthy goes alright I’ll spend 1 mil on these boxes my kid wants. So he goes on Ebay and just starts clicking buy it now like crazy.
Just saying, it could happen haha.
@mikejofthecoast, He also is clearly not buying out cards/boxes?
I was responding to the hypothetical with realistic trends that do occur. Most higher end buyers want the best of the best. Which is why the top items in all hobbies have the highest price/growth pattern.
On eBay there’s around 10 base booster boxes. There are a ton of people in this hobby who could spend 40k and buy them all. I don’t think it would make any difference. You would have to buy every base box listed on eBay in the future indefinitely and pretend private sales don’t exist.
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Haha that we know of! We’ll have to wait and see what ends up on his instagram or whatever that was on. Taken with pictures from what appears to be the first camera phone ever. But I’m with ya dude, it was just a thought of how someone extremely rich could wipe out alot of the supply of something if they wanted to.
Does it matter if Bieber goes buy boxes and stuff? If he buys the product out of wanting to own a memory of his childhood, isn’t he just like all of us? Yes, the guy can buy basically anything instantly. But if he would than people like Scott and Gary would’ve noticed already, selling him or his agent the high end cards. The odds that Biebs knows about the Illustrators and the Trophy cards are there, but low. And based on the photos he shared, I am pretty damn sure the guy is just buying the cards he remembers from his childhood. And what gives, if he buys a sealed theme deck brick and just pops it open for that rush moment; he does what we do.
Honestly, I really like it that a guy with his profile comes out with this.
And on the view of prices/price spiking; a few months ago Steve Wozniak sold his ABU/Four Horsemen Magic collection to Vintage Magic. He had them stored since forever. Prices didn’t suddenly spike or drop. I think his product even got worth less, to some degree, because he signed it all. Maybe in the far future, there will be a PWCC listings of the ‘Bieber Collection’ selling a full PSA9 WotC era set. We’ll never know, yet it will be awesome.
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Who has the same net worth as Bieber collecting? Online estimates are way off usually, I’m sure he has a much higher net worth than 250 million.
I can def see Tom Holland. I think Ariana Grande could be next. She already has an Eevee tattoo and has stated multiple times she loves the games. It would also fit in with her personal brand. She is the 2nd most popular person on Instagram with 164M.
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Breaking News
Millennial with money collects pokemon.
More at 6pm along with My Little Pony. Are those middle aged men still watching it and why?
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We’re really in trouble if she does, this is what her song says:
“I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it
I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it
You like my hair? Gee, thanks, just bought it
I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it (yeah)”
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$250 million? Don’t be ridiculous, smpratte easily has double that. This one card is worth $250 million, not even counting the cash flow from www.youtube.com/channel/UCDkTsZaG3itt2Pa_N_S20CA (subscribe) and www.patreon.com/smpratte. (10,000 subscribers and 200 patrons each donating $100 a month. You do the math.)
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You like, my base box, gee thanks, just bought it
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Same reason you’re stuck on hentai
Love you baby 
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You should have seen the celebrities scrambling for Pokémon product in 1999/2000. I lived in Los Angeles at the time. I would not be exaggerating if I said I probably had 50 people who had a combined 100 academy awards sitting on my couch. And I’m talking A-listers.
Two observations:
- Pokémon was nearly impossible to find but they could find me…and did. Whether for themselves or family members, they had to catch some.
- These people aren’t suckers. They don’t throw away their money. They bargained like everybody else, almost more. Many thought their celebrity should entitle them to a deeper discount. A good present day example would be, Smpratte is loaded AND is a true celebrity in the field. But have you ever dealt with him? Sheesh! …lol.
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