I would definitely say there is some value in your name/company being said in front of a nearly 23 million subscription audience yes? Imagine if Mountain Dew bought a pack, just saying the name Mountain Dew has to be worth the upcharge yeah? I get your every day person will not benefit from that, But I can imagine your normal every day person is not the target demographic here.
Yeah I was specifically talking about collectibles guru in my entire post. I guess the first paragraph could apply to Paulās lifestyle too. On that, I agree itās not necessarily the best impression on his younger viewers, but at the same time my initial point was that i donāt pass judgment on a personās lifestyle as long as they arenāt being intentionally hurtful. Thatās where CGuru crosses the line as he showed us here on E4.
Iām pretty sure he says it in the video in the first post in this thread.
Edit: Yeah @zorloth, watch from minute 20:00 of the video, he says heās going to be raising money for charity. I donāt think heās donating the sale proceeds, but probably just taking donations on the livestream it sounds like?
@zorloth, In the main first video in the thread at around 20 minutes. That was my presumption from the packs, as he was vague on how he was actually going to raise the money directly.
Hmm. Yeah, the phrasing was weird. He says the livestream is for the purpose of āraising money for charity.ā And then within 30 seconds says that heās going to āmake moneyā on breaking the box. So I think youāre correct that the proceeds from the pack sales are NOT going to charity ā or at least I think this should be the assumption until itās confirmed otherwise.
In which case I donāt think Logan Paul should be commended for doing this. Putting aside the ad revenue heāll generate from the livestream, heāll be pocketing roughly $170k in profit from the pack sales. It basically just sounds like there will be a link for viewers to donate to charity. How generous of him lol. But in fairness to him, I donāt think thereās anything inherently wrong with what heās doing. If people want to buy the packs at his asking price and they are fully aware that the money isnāt going to charity, then cool. In fact, I think itās good that he didnāt mention charity at all in the new video or on the website for buying the packs. Because if he did it would be highly misleading. So I respect that heās at least somewhat transparent lol.
If the proceeds arenāt going to charity, then it feels a bit like heās pumping the pokemon hobby, exaggerating card values, hyping everything to make a profit for himself. Any person has the right to conduct themself this way but itās not my personal taste. On the other hand, Pokerev and others have already demonstrated this business model is profitable so why not copy it.
the exposure is still probably a net positive for the hobby, particularly if he stays engaged in it after almost doubling his money on one transaction.
to keep things positive, thereās probably no reason to be too judgmental about his interest yet. He has tattooed pokemon all over his body after all. Thatās one giant charizard on his back!
I thought he meant that he was donating the revenue but still made a profit off the box.
He bought the box for 200k and sold all the packs for 400k. Thatās 400k to charity and there was a ā200k profitā. Itās definitely ambiguous though so we wonāt know quite yet.
I think thatās a charitable interpretation of what he meant by āprofit.ā Itās possible that youāre correct, but what makes me think that Iām right is that he literally didnāt mention anything related to charity a single time in the entire new video and the website says nothing about it either. Youād think that if the proceeds from the pack sales were going to charity, that he wouldāve stated (either verbally or on the website) that the money was going to charity and what charity was chosen. So Iām pretty confident that Iām correct, but Iād be curious to get definitive confirmation from someone who has firsthand knowledge of the situation.
Yeah I definitely heard it - maybe on the podcast? I think what heās doing is making his money back he spent on the box and donating the āProfitā to charity - one which is still to be determined and keeping one of the packs for himself.
I may be hopelessly naive, but I really think he cares about Pokemon and collecting from what Iāve seen (admittedly having only watched 2 videos of his ever). I donāt see a motivation for him to buy all those base boxes and slabs otherwise. In his position, he could be buying anything instead. It is of course possible that my optimism is here is biased, as I really hope these things to be true for the good of the hobby.
i found it interesting that he only really talked about base (and showed a couple of fossil cards, too) ā iād predict that base is going to show huge gains in the near term when compared to other WOTC sets (although base has already skyrocketed recently tbh). there was also no mention of japanese cards or anything related to the japanese roots of the franchise
The Japanese cards are going up but the gap between English unlimited and Japanese has considerably widened. At least in the PSA 9 market. An unlimited English Charizard can sell for slightly more than Japanese PSA 9 base/gym/dark Charizard, which wasnāt possible at standard rates before covid.
I think the TMTA cameo at 3:12 will lead to that set tripling in price . But really, how much more expensive can Base Unlimited get? You have to remember that the Logan Paul base set hype will not only increase demand for the cards but also increase supply. Iām sure there are going to be many people reminded of their old Pokemon collections, which they likely werenāt even aware potentially had significant value. So I think that this might draw out some more supply of Base Unlimited. Likely almost no 1st Edition Base, though. Because if it takes a Logan Paul video to remind you that you have Pokemon cards then you probably donāt have much 1st Edition Base lol.
It honestly doesnāt surprise me that the gap in Japanese and English prices for Base Set has widened even further. The market for Unlimited Base Set (especially with so many people recently rediscovering Pokemon cards) is so nostalgia driven. Probably more so than the market for any other Pokemon set. So it makes sense that people gravitate to English cards for Base Set in particular. Iām not saying the widening of the price gap is justified, just that it makes sense.
Relatively recently, I started collecting all Japanese cards with art that wasnāt released in English as well as all Japanese holos that werenāt holo in English. I had (and still have, to an extent) an aversion to Japanese cards because of the nostalgia attached to English cards. But Iām not going to lie, the Japanese cards are of very high quality and look nicer in person than I expected. I think that people who are being priced out of English (and Base Set in particular) should definitely consider Japanese as an alternative. Most people would enjoy it nearly as much as English. But I also say that as someone who is a collector by nature. If someone is purely nostalgia-driven, then they may not get any joy out of collecting Japanese Base. But for people who are also just into the collecting aspect of the hobby, Japanese Base seems like a highly underrated alternative right now.
I will probably get some salty replies but Logan and Gary V are literally doing what is called a pump and dump. In any legitimate market it would be known as fraud but in pokemon it is just morally a grey area but too many notable collectors are having their pockets lined in here so they are too busy kissing arse rather than calling it out.
The state of the hobby has become one of pure greed. The current state of the hobby has blind minions of Gary V who cant even name pokemon following his every word. Completely changing the fundamentals of what made this hobby healthy. It will also cost alot of uneducated collectors money who blindly follow the hype when we see a retrace of cards outside of the actual difficult ones to find.
I donāt know what is sadder, Logan and Gary V knowingly manipulating their audience for profit or the fact the top end of the pokemon community has sold itself out.
Also before any one says āim just jealousā my personal collection has well and truly benefited from this manipulation. But i just find the behaviour with in the hobby these days being exactly why most of the world is going to shit. Greed triumphs over morals any day it seems.
The world has been trending towards this flex lifestyle. I mean anyone 21 or youngerās instagram is just filled with this shit on a daily basis, itās just how things are now. All you can do is just live a simple happy life and tune out the noise if it bothers you like it does for me, and if you benefit from it as well like we are with our collections becoming more valuable, then thatās also great
I do agree though that it sucks that so much of the new interest in pokemon is strictly because of the financial side of it with the new age collectors, but again if it does bother you then you can still tune it out as thereās plenty of posters on social media that just post the cards themselves and leave out the financial aspect