Go ahead and gamble on modern, that same box can literally drop in value since we still dont know the market,it wont go lower than the initial price but imagine waiting 5 years to get an even or maybe $100 more? There are like 500 different ways to make a better use of your money(since we are talking about “”“”“investment”“”") in a span of 5-6 years.
Hey @kaldoverde, I think one of the caveats @zorloth mentioned was having enough capital to do something like this e.g. upwards of USD 10,000? So in his line of thought, something like entry point would be less of a consideration (:
From a percentage basis I’d agree that even the modern product looks okay, but imagine how many boxes of “Theros: Beyond Death” you’d have to sell with that margin to get any tangible value in terms of actual dollar amount.
Also, modern product has to deal with the random “consumer fatigue” factor, which I personally feel is at an all time high as WOTC tries their Core2021, Secret Lair, Chandra Spellbook, Zendikar Rising, Commander Legends, Double Masters, etc. shenanigans this year. However, Onslaught for example is always a timeless product with the old frame cards, much like Base, Fossil, and Jungle.
Also, I think alot of investors don’t think through how they plan to dispose of the asset. I mentioned this elsewhere, but all the fees including shipping, listing, and down to credibility are small but important things especially when it comes to sealed product.
@thatblastoiseguy, regarding entry point I was generalising for the little guy who invests in 6 booster boxes at a time. These are usually the ‘investors’ who are careless about entry point.
Someone putting $10k into modern sealed as an investment should get a good enough deal to be able to dispose of it with a profit after 6-8 years.
Again, diversifying is also key to success. It is not about putting 10k on THB sealed product and wait for it to appreciate, but rather purchase a consistent amount of each sealed product to ensure you offset the losses, just as you would do with an invesment portfolio in the stock market.
I accidentally hoarded hidden fates tins due to covid as I de-listed them due to post office disruption, low and behold two months later they had more than doubled in price. So to give you a very basic example, if I had bought $10k of Crimson Invasion and $10k of hidden fates, I would still be ahead. But if I put all my money in Crimson Invasion I would definitely be behind.
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First: my observation was that, relative to pre-2012 sealed product, post-2012 sealed product has appreciated in value less. That’s not to say that there’s been absolutely zero appreciation (though that’s true with some sets), but that modern MTG boxes were a poor investment relative to almost any other reasonable MTG investment that could have been made at that time.
Second: I also disagree that it’s a reasonable return, even if you’re buying in at $80. Let’s take RTR – let’s say I bought a box of it for $80 in 2012. Now I could sell it for $115 on eBay. On paper, that’s a 44% ROI. That’s only an annualized ROI of 4.64% ((1.0464^8)*80), though, which is less than you would’ve gotten had you just invested in the stock market. So that’s actually a pretty poor ROI, especially when you consider the risk you assumed by investing in MTG in the first place.
And so it’s actually a poor ROI on paper. But it’s even worse in actuality. From the $115, you have to deduct 9% in eBay fees (or 10% if you don’t have a basic store subscription), ~3% in PayPal fees, and minimum $8 for shipping (excluding the cost of materials). So you’re actually clearing $90-$95, and that’s still before you account for the time investment. Point is, it was a pretty terrible investment. Sure, there are going to be some booster boxes from after 2012 that are worth more than $115, but there are also some that are less. So your actual annualized ROI is probably going to be in the 5-6% range. Compare that to pre-2012 booster boxes, where we’re talking about 20+% annualized ROIs in many cases.
But even in light of all this, I would argue that Pokemon is still an even more extreme example because of the supply bottleneck of WotC and (especially) EX-era sealed product. In 2020, it’s still easy as shit to find Mirrodin, Ravnica, Lorwyn, etc. booster boxes, though the supply is obviously dramatically lower than it is for 2012-forward product. For Pokemon, the supply of, for instance, EX-era sealed product is in an entirely different dimension of scarcity relative to modern Pokemon sealed product. Not only was a much smaller proportion of it left sealed, but the print runs were smaller by a factor of 5? 10? 20? A lot. That’s not the case for MTG. The print runs increased with RTR significantly but the print run of that set, while giant, was, at most, still only maybe 4-5x larger than that of Mirrodin or Ravnica. The relative supply of modern Pokemon product to EX-era Pokemon product, for instance, is staggeringly large. Who knows how many EX Delta Species booster boxes are still left; 100? 300? 500? Whereas how many sealed boxes are there are any Pokemon set from the past 5 years? In most cases, probably 5 digits. In my opinion, the return on modern Pokemon sealed product, if there is any return at all, will never be comparable to older Pokemon sealed product. I’d bet that if you spent $1000 spent on WotC/EX-era sealed product today, you’d be doing a lot better in 5 or 10 years than if you had spent it on sealed product of recent sets. But I guess only time will tell.
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So the general consensus that I’m seeing is if you have a large amount of capital to dispose of, buying a high quantity of boxes from different sets would be the best option for investing long-term. Otherwise, if you have a smaller amount of income, it would be wise, if you are focused primarily on financial gain, to park your money into something vintage in order to have a safer investment.
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If you have a large amount of capital to dispose of, you should be buying wizards of the coast first edition boxes now.
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Touche
I’m also of this opinion. But I think that heavy 1st Edition WotC booster packs might actually yield higher returns. The supply is, proportionally, declining much faster than sealed boxes at this point (I would guess, at least, but maybe I’m wrong).
I also think Unlimited WotC, WotC e-Reader, and EX-era product are similar caliber investments as WotC 1st Edition sealed product. I generally think it’s pretty tough to go wrong on older sealed product, investment-wise. At a minimum, it’s certainly much safer than investing in set cards.
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@kpod, @zorloth, Personally, I’m not an investor or a sealed collector. I just like the cards that are in the packs. I’ve never been able to hold onto sealed for longer than a couple of weeks before I have to know what is inside them. It does blow my mind how someone will decide on a burning shadows booster boxes or some hidden fates collector boxes over putting that money into vintage when they have the means to. Which that is all relative and the factors that play into those decisions are different in a lot of cases.
I think that probably 99% of us could agree that vintage WOTC is the safest/best investment. I am highly interested in what the hobby will become if the returning people to the hobby decide to actually hold onto modern products for investing means. The way it looks, we could be heading down a road that is similar to MTG within the next few years. It’s fun to predict and make comparisons between hobbies in order to predict where our hobby is going.
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Yes @kaldoverde, I definitely agree that you shouldn’t all in on one product. My example has more to do with modern MTG in that your margins are so low, it’s just not worth it unless you’re moving tons of it with a steady supply of customers.
Personally, I think modern boosters are fine if you’re used to moving sealed product in general, but I feel that for the initial “investor” who’s got some cash to spend, 3-5 boxes per set isn’t going to be worth the effort if you get my drift.
Thank you for sharing about your hidden fates experience!
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@thatblastoiseguy, btw nice MTG instagram. 
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I actually like some of the modern sets. I don’t think you are going to see growth numbers like you did with the black and white sets, or WOtC boxes, but I do see opportunity.
I like both hidden fates and burning shadows. The market absorbs hidden fates insanely well. Modern collectors cant get enough of it.
I bought into burning shadows a few months ago at 105 a box. The way I looked at it, it was 3 years old, no longer in standard, and the hyper charizard was holding at 1000 bucks for PSA 10. It seemed like a prime candidate for a price increase. Fast forward to today, the box price is at 150, and they hyper rare zard is going for around 2500 in PSA 10. There is no other set I am aware of where your best case scenario is 16X the value of the sealed box. There may be a significant supply of it but I think at the bare minimum it is undervalued.
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@kaldoverde , touche, you’ve got one helluva Pokemon instagram as well!(:
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I have a modest amount of sealed modern. If it doesn’t go up in value I’ll probably just open it for fun down the line. If it does go up in value, well I’ll probably still just open it for fun.
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I think in terms of “investing”, you need to consider how long of an investment you want to invest for; how quick do you want to see a return, and how much of a return would you consider to be a good investment? That will affect what you think is the “best” way to invest.
WOTC era stuff is going to appreciate in greater value because it is 20+ years old, it’s got a head start on the modern product. Although I personally don’t think the modern stuff is going to get to the heights of the WOTC stuff, there will still be an increase in value over time and could be deemed a good investment depending on where you sit (see above).
Reasonably, I think people sitting on modern sealed product will only hurt the market if everyone decides to sell at the same time. If people hold on to their sealed boxes longer, then they should in theory stand to earn more money. I have some WOTC sealed booster packs and theme decks but I also have some modern boxes too - my thinking there is if a modern set centres around Pokemon from the original set, it will probably be more collectable down the line.
I don’t think modern will ever come even close to the price of vintage, but I think modern has a higher growth potential for certain sets. I think it is absolutely possible that BUS or Hidden Fates ends up at 5-10X MSRP in 5-10 years. If you apply that same multiplier to a skyridge box that puts it at 150K-300K+ depending on what you want to value it at currently. Not saying that isn’t possible either but you price a lot of collectors out of the market at that point.
Personally, I think there is some potential to make a little money on sealed modern booster boxes but nowhere near WOTC and Boosters from 10+ years ago. There are a lot of people stockpiling modern boxes. Its going to take a very long time for all these people to sell off everything.
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What I’d say to anyone looking to buy modern for a mix of collection & investment purposes is:
- Collect (“invest in”) what YOU love. For pure investment purposes, there are other more secure/higher yield routes. Check out Dave Ramsey.
- Don’t over-extend yourself financially. Always spend less than you earn - that goes for every aspect of your spending. Follow basic financial guidelines, i.e. prioritise emergency funds, pension etc. over your hobby.
- If it’s sealed product, consider buying duplicates. You don’t know whether desire for profit or nostalgia will be your highest priority in the future.
- Your baseline assumption should be: there will be a negligible rise in sealed modern Pokemon TCG product.
If you follow the above, then no matter what happens you’ll find yourself in a winning position:
Scenario A: prices don’t rise. In fact they shrink. You’ve got a bunch of product that’s not gonna make you money, but that’s OK because you’re gonna have a hell of a time opening that sh*t and filling your binders, AND you haven’t punished yourself financially to do so. Hell, start a Youtube channel.
Scenario B: prices rise somewhat, and you’d like to sell some stuff off to take the profit. At the same time you think, well prices haven’t risen THAT much, I kinda want to open some stuff up. That’s OK, because you bought duplicates. One for you, one for eBay. #NoRAgReTs.
Scenario C: prices rise substantially. Great, time to cash in.
Try to consider all potential scenarios that you personally may find yourself in. Weigh up your priorities financially. Put yourself in a position where you can’t lose.
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While I generally agree with the thought of buying WOTC/EX as the best practice, I think it’s also a good idea to try to pinpoint the “money” box from each set and buy into them while they’re relatively cheap. Plasma Storm, Flashfire, and UltraPrism for example.
I bought a Burning Shadows Booster box because i feel like people will always want to chase the rainbow rare Charizard. I also have a couple ETB’s of modern sets that never had a “booster box” product (generations and Hidden Fates), partly because they just look really good, and another reason is because i think that people will want to collect them in the future too! If they don’t then i have two great boxes i get to look at
Also i like buying modern blisters because i think they look better for display!
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