I could be wrong but I thought the last sale 1 month ago was $10k. Let’s say the sale is $10k. Leonhart says it’s $20k card, I could see one of his audience spending $15k+ because it’s a deal for a $20k card. Biggest Pokemon channel = most knowledgeable for most folks. Never underestimate Man’s capacity for stupidity.
It’s been brought to my attention by several folks that a channel with a decent following is selling $1st Ed team Rocket packs for $320 a pack. That is over $11k box. At the time the box was $7-8k. It’s still a $7500-9k box.
this person is persuading his audience that the cards are worth even more than market price and it’s taking advantage of them with multiple boxes that he buys. Then sells for nearly double on his channel. So if you can see this happening then I don’t see why we couldn’t see leonhart having a negative impact on people even if it’s unintentional.
But that’s becoming very rampant on the web these days…online live openings with marked up prices. And for the record, i like to say the names of who i’m talking about when i post, i think it provides transparency and some knowledge as to who it may be referring to, like when i was watching Jake and Raffi’s channel about his post on hype with GaryVee, he didn’t really mention others by name and i was trying to wonder why? I would like to know who are the bad cookies in the hobby wouldn’t you? Anyway, getting back to the point, Pokerev and now Lootbox, sometimes Z on ebay all sell packs guaranteed unweighed but i don’t know if that is worth the premium in the huge mark ups of sealed vintage products. They don’t hype the cards intentionally, but they do price above market which becomes the market if that makes sense. But then again, it’s business so they have to make money i guess.
They do price above the market price occasionally but not by much. Those folks are looking for gain money from the advertisement and potentially the super chats. They’re not trying to rip people off on the price of the boxes.
Thecardconomist is the one I’m talking about. I personally disklike Twice baked Jake, PokeNav, electrictype88 etc. The cardconomist is the one doing this. He’s also charging people $32 for bulk submission. Jake is constantly giving out incorrect information for someone who has “Pokemon investment news”. He was quoting PSA 10 Rayquaza gold star as. $27k card because it sold for that. if you looked up thay eBay listings you would know that’s not a true sale. all these folks trying to talk about prices yet they don’t even know how to use eBay sold listings, differentiate between listing and sold prices, Pokemon price and its issues, or even know how to use flipper tools to find the actual sale price. If you’re going to talk about investing he might as well know the actual market price of something.
Twice baked is pretty bad. He had a video a few weeks back where he bought a bunch of cib wata pokemon games and he was throwing out stupid prices like “yeah this 6.0 pokemon blue is EASILY worth $500 now and it will def go up” and I posted a link to a 6.5 cib blue that I personally sold at auction for $120 literally that same week and told him to stop hyping lol
It’s more than occasional. There’s a reason Pokerev never states the price of the packs on his videos and the prices are gone after it’s sold out. The fact that it sells is i guess the trust he’s built with his following and they trust the seller, even though i don’t believe in the pokecave luck or how every card seems to be 10. Thecardconomist always streams and never uploads his videos but he’s very hated by many lol. And I also agree with your list of dislikes. I actually have them subscribed to all but I take their word with a grain of salt. What will their videos be about when prices start to decline? Maybe they should watch Z’s recent video? ^^
Getting back to topic, Leonhart should have watched SMPratte’s video where he talks about how inconsistent Beckett is when it comes to the lower grades…he couldve gotten a more accurate grade with PSA on the Lugia and Charizard.
premiums on items is normal when you are buying from reputable people/sources - the premium goes to customer service and peace of mind. i think leonhart earns a premium for his established presence in the hobby.
an offer is just an offer. unless there’s a transaction, it doesn’t mean anything…
I feel sorry for the guy to be honest, he doesn’t know what else to do to catch people’s attention. When everything in your channel is hype, it gets hard to keep it up.
Look at his video titles from a couple of years ago and you’ll see little mention of financial value. lately, most of his videos mention financial value either in an implicit or explicit manner.
His childlike persona appeals to a younger audience, and financial value is something that interests an older one, so not sure if he is trying to balance both to keep his views up, but it may backfire as adults are not as likely to enjoy his excess enthusiasm at anything and everything, and children are not likely to care about card value.
At some point, if all your videos are about cards in the thousands and your focus is about financial lottery, you risk people losing interest.
I personally don’t like his videos or his ‘everything is hype’ style, but the guy is original and creative, and provides entertainment to thousands of Pokemon fans who do appreciate it, so it would be sad to see his persona become all about dollar signs on each video title.
If you look at the last sale with the same sub grades as his card it sold for 1217. Though the centering on his card looks better than the previous one sold. Here is a link.
Lee has gone into overdrive since the YouTube algorithm issues started and it messed with his views (and also since covid). He’s opened like $100k worth of items since June. I can only imagine what happens when he reaches 1m followers lol
I do think he’ll go back to having more fun and the videos being less about the value of the cards once he reaches the million or we all get out of quarantine.
Grading with BGS and comparing the grades to PSA is super disingenuous especially with a large audience. A lot of people are inexperienced when it comes to grading, that Charizard is a blatant example. The rhetoric BGS = PSA or even sometimes you hear BGS grades stricter than PSA. Someone will pay near or right at PSA 7 price for that card which is sad.
BGS can be used to mask grades not saying Leonhart would ever do so knowingly but it definitely makes me sad when the grading discrepancies are not brought up.
Well this got busy since last night.
The pokemon card grading world has all been about 9s and 10s up until now, and the future may involve lower grades now. I just think its somewhat bizarre when the grade can be so far off, if it happens this time, how many other times does it happen. Are the graders trained for separating the 9s from the 10s and the rest is just free for all?
Surely other sports cards and so on involve lower grades and have the graders working at lower levels for them.
On the leonhart front, I’ve spoken on it before. I think he has a great teacher like persona for young children, to show fake excitement and so on, but watching it I feel like im in that classroom with them. I see the innocence in him but when dealing with cards now that are 20k (lol) how can that be aimed at a younger audience. I guess its a moving market and ‘influencers’ never have a safe job, its good while you are current. I feel when they make a ‘help me out’ video they are bricking it for loosing their current lifestyle. I still think they must have enough money and savings in his collection alone to not bring out videos like that.
After all ‘we’ all pulled those cards right, Lets go guys!
Just giving my 2 cents on this topic. I can’t say anything about Leonhart’s personality, but I can say that I don’t particularly like the setup of his videos. Everything in these pack opening videos is designed to resemble arcades or gambling halls. From the blinking LED’s in the background to the slot machine jingle he edits in whenever he pulls something good to the constant hype reactions. Booster packs are gambling by nature, so I was always torn on them, but even with the random luck factor that comes from opening packs, you don’t have to manufacture even more similarities to slot machine gambling than there already are. At the end of the day, there are many children watching Leonhart, Pokerev and others. And they might feel tempted to spend their entire pocket money on a single vintage booster or on heaps of modern boosters to replicate the gamble, or even to show solidarity with the “family” (WE did it guys, WE pulled the chase card etc).
Some might say that we should be happy about popular box/pack opening channels because they seemingly do so much for the hobby. I don’t know if this is true. If the Pokemon collector’s community gets a reputation of enticing children into gambling, it will hurt us more than it helps us. Same problem with market manipulation (yes it exists, watch Zandgemporium’s latest youtube video about it), which is present in any serious collector’s hobby, but the big problem is that children (people under 18) are a considerable part of this hobby in particular. So I think we should act more ethical than people in other hobbies and call problems out when we see them.
The leonhart video was fun, but I laughed when he called his card 20k. That Charizard grade blew my mind. That thing was baaaaaad and it is the best example I have ever seen for why PSA is the choice over beckett for most grading instances. An 8 grade for that zard on the surface should mean a freakin 12 grade for the chansey lol
I think Leon has a sour taste with PSA after losing his 1st edition charizard in the mail. He can drive to beckett and can avoid the mail, right?
This gambling you speak of is true. In one of the previous examples I gave of bad Pokemon YouTubers. One guy spent $22k of his money on inflated pack prices. With all these increasing prices, there is FOMO without a doubt. I feel it and I’m sure most do. Some fear missing out on making big profits and other fear they will miss the chance to get that card for their collection. Dropping 5,10 15 or $20k+ on a new hobby isn’t healthy imo. It’s lik a game of hot potato. I don’t know if I want to be left holding the card at the end of all these record breaking prices if my intention is to make money.
I agree.
Just look at the price trend of gym challenge and heroes to realize how much fomo there is out there. Imo, a lot of people will have bad news.
@ripguyfawkes, well said. I, too, have questions about his message to his younger viewers. Leonhart’s switch to opening mostly high end vintage has really been bothering me lately. I have been struggling to find the right words to capture exactly how I feel about his content. In opening only expensive packs he is definitely distancing himself from his original/core content. I also think it goes against the original point of his channel-to enjoy modern product, collect for fun, and show how anyone can engage in the Pokemon hobby.
I also have big concerns about other ethical implications of his content. How he accepts current prices and reports them without any further insight/critical thinking about the market. He doesn’t caution his viewers to look at these prices critically or try to understand market dynamics. He is not transparent in his presentation of data and does not take any responsibility for how he affects the market to his benefit. If he wants to discuss card value he needs to be more diligent with his research and present accurate, clear information. Doing this will also raise his channel’s status from being a children’s channel to one that is for all ages.
I am not sure this exactly describes how I feel about Leonhart. I am still trying to figure out what else feels ‘off’ about him, but this is part of it.