Is there a single card/set/product that tends to trend with the overall Pokemon collectibles market? I am trying to understand the current market health and trajectory.
I doubt there’s a single product that can give you a barometer for the entire market. The buyer pool for a Pikachu Illustrator vs an ungraded base set Caterpie is extremely different. @pierce developed pokemonprice.com, a site where you can see prices for individual cards as well as complete sets, which might help you. Additionally, @smpratte has mentioned using the volume of sales as an indicator for the strength of the market. I don’t have a way to measure sales volume, but I’d estimate it’s been increasing over the years, giving me confidence that the market is strong.
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I’ve actually made an analytics page that is yet to be released which is total sales volume, it charts the total number of sales and total amount of those sales recorded on the site month to month. It obviously won’t be 100% accurate but it should give a good idea on the health of the hobby and a rough idea on how much is transacting each month # and $ wise.
Page should hopefully be released at the end of the month, it just depends on some things out of my control atm.
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Wow that’s a good question.
Honestly, I would say no. I feel like the current market is all over the place. You have cards from the same set up 100% and other ones down 30-50% in the same time frame. The same happens with sealed product vs graded cards.
The hobby is very healthy, but you have to do your research. If you don’t want too much volatility, I suggest going for sealed product.
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tl;dr: Casual Hype can’t last forever but the truly sought after cards have a deep market.
The main thing you need to understand now is that people generally aren’t jumping at “trash” like they did 2 years ago, ie; people aren’t lining up to buy 1st Edition PSA 10 Base Ratata but will still spend money all day on a 1st Ed. Base Zard.
People used to throw money at everything and anything in peak Pokemon Go hype but now we’re in an environment with less casual collectors and shrewd collectors/investors are dumping cheaper cards which at the end of the day are either bulk that somewhere down the line happened to get graded or cards which are not rare. An example of “not rare” cards are the majority of 1st/unlimited wotc holos pre-neo destiny and e-series. The market is saturated in early WotC cards and it’s going to take a very long time for the market to absorb that supply.
Cards like Shinings, 1st Base, Gold Stars, etc. are always going to be relatively liquid and sought after. There’s a deep market for these for every condition and grade.
So if you want to jump in and a prime concern is how strong the market is then you have to be smart about what you buy. Don’t spend $30-$80 on PSA 10 copies of $1 cards. Outside of the handful of sought after English cards and truly scarce Japanese promos prices are either stagnant or dropping.
On the other end of the spectrum people are devouring sealed product to the point where the market will be saturated in late XY and SM singles for years to come. People are ready to jump on anything new from Japan as well, we’ve seen the supply of Japanese sealed product evaporate every time there’s a unique promo given out just from buying packs as middle-men rush to get enough promos for their pre-orders on ebay.
The Pokemon TCG market is incredibly deep but it feels incredibly fragile when you consider new cards don’t retain value at all. Something needs to give imo, the teenage and grown adult collectors who buy modern product won’t keep spending forever and when you look at the online scene of live breaking, instagram and facebook raffles they’re definitely the demographic doing the majority of the spending.
I’d strongly recommend for the majority of your collection that you don’t sink money into a ton of graded cards. Buy graded copies of your absolute favourites and splash out for high grades of your personal holy grails. Your money goes further and if you ever have to sell it all you’ll have an easier time doing it. I see people trying to sell those aforementioned PSA 10 bulk cards every day for unrealistic prices. Someone tried to charge me $45 + shipping for a PSA 9 expedition totodile, they’re dreaming.
I’m cynical because I have the experience to deem what makes a given collectable sought after. Cards fall out of favour in collecting hobbies all the time and I don’t think there’s enough variety for Pokemon to keep it’s older casual collectors engaged and buying modern product at the current rate for years to come.
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Thanks for all the insight folks.
I’ve been researching investment strategies in stocks and housing recently. I don’t consider Pokemon an investment since I am unlikely to sell…because nostalgia…but I assumed it was subject to trends like stocks and housing.
For Pokemon, my big concern right now is buy in price. I am trying to make sense of current trends in the stock market, and then figure out if I should wait before I begin buying in. I don’t want to buy graded or sealed product if it’s currently at its peak buy in point.
Which brings me back to my original question. I don’t have enough experience to know if the overall market is on the rise, fall, or is stagnant. This is keeping me from pulling the trigger on anything substantial.
To answer your question, the market is healthy and many top tier cards and sealed product are selling for all time highs.
However, I’m not sure i quite understand your position so maybe you could clarify?
You said that you do not see Pokemon as an investment but are asking how the market is doing financially? Is this because you are looking to buy at the “cheapest price you can” for your personal collection? If yes, then It really doesn’t matter too much since you said you are unlikely to sell. Overpaying is also healthy for the hobby (obviously don’t be buying a base magikarp for $1000).
Or are you looking to buy higher end items for your personal collection and would still like to see them at least hold their value in the event that you do sell?
I assume it is the latter.
Or are you actually considering investing? - Nothing wrong with this. If you are I would advise older sealed product or iconic/rare/scarce PSA 10’s. DO YOUR RESEARCH.
Hope this helps.
-Luke
Dang Luke. You are absolutely right. VERY well put
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Thank you Gary!
If you’re looking for a specific card to indicate market strength, you’re gonna have a bad time…
I’d say there are several sub-markets within the Pokemon hobby, and the strength of one is not inherently linked to the strength of the others. I’d separate the markets the following way:
The TCG/casual market (playable cards, new sets, collection boxes): this market has exploded in terms of transactional values. Print numbers have increased, record numbers of people are playing the competitive TCG, and there are lots of people who are just getting into the hobby with the success of Let’s Go. However, the increase in print numbers means you’ll see lower values for single cards which aren’t playable or massively collectible, and lower values than you would expect compared to previous cards with similar rarities.
The immediate secondary collector’s market (PSA graded cards from BW-on, new collectibles such as pretend Pikachu boxes): this market is a little more volatile, and depends a lot on supply. High supply numbers for new PSA 10s drives prices down as fewer people collect those, but low supply numbers on newer (more exclusive) collectibles will drive those prices up. Nobody is making money grading new set cards anymore, I’ll guarantee you that. Most new PSA 10 GX FAs you can get for $25 or less. These low prices indicate a lack of opportunity in this market.
The collector market (cards pre-gen 4, gold stars, shinings, cards over $1k in value): this is where a lot of people here operate and I think on the whole this market has been steadily increasing. I’d say that the number of cards over $1000 in value has significantly increased over the last few years. Might be an interesting project to look into that…
The Trophy market (cards from $5-10k+): this is where you see the most growth in terms of sheer values, other markets definitely eclipse in transactional value but everyone knows how 1st ed. base Charizard went from 4k to 40k in 5-6 years. I also think this is the most stable market due to the very low supply numbers.
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If I am honest with myself, I am considering all of the above.
Prices seem high no matter how I look at it. If I buy-in at 5k on a 1st edition Neo Destiny booster box today how much more can it increase? It’s already at least 5000% it’s original value. I don’t have even a vague idea where the peak will be, which is worrisome. The market for Pokemon isn’t mature enough for me to justify spending that kind of money.
But 30 years from now it will undoubtedly be worth more, as will be inflation. Is a 5k investment now going to be worth sitting on for 30 years just to see a 200% return, that could be eaten up by inflation?
To summarize, I feel like I’ve missed the S.S. Anne. Investing in Pokemon 10 years ago wasn’t as risky as today because the buy-in prices were lower. It’s preferable to make a 1k mistake than a 5k no matter how unsavory that mistake would be.
For instance, the premium of having a PSA 10 1st Edition 'zard isn’t worth it to me (unless I got an insane deal 
). But a PSA 9? PSA 8? Even a PSA 7? Those are all respectable grades. I doubt Lawrence III would scoff at a PSA 7 1st Edition 'zard.
That all said, I would like to know my “investments” would at least break in the event I ever did sell.
I’ve also wondered about peak prices for boxes. With Skyridge and others pushing $10k, I believe the opportunity to invest in those boxes has long past. There are so many other historical items you can buy for less than $10k, that have long term growth potential.
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Price tag mentality won’t help for rare collectibles. Technically the rarest cards were all “free”. Some worth 6 figures now.
Price tags are even more useless in older hobbies. Here is a partial box of baseball packs that sold for $521,183. It wasn’t even a full box (19 of 24 packs). The original price tag per pack was probably $0.05.
The initial price tag is only relevant when an item is still in production and consistently available.
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prices are relative, few years ago people thought that paying 5’000 USD for PSA 10 1st edition charizard would be crazy.
I think that sealed boxes, especially WOTC 1st Edition stuff, will be the most sought after in the future, similar to your PSA 10 charizard/goldstar card/ etc. Also people that own these boxes don’t have a rush to sell, they know aslong as pokemon is relevant, the prices will be stable or rise.
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I get it. No sense in beating yourself up on the woulda, shoulda, coulda.
I come back to to current buy-in prices though. Scott, if you weren’t already part of the PKMN Master Race would you buy-in at the current prices for vintage sealed product and graded cards as a long term investment strategy?
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I spend more today than any other point in time in the hobby.
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But would 20 year old Scott start the hobby today?
This is a terrible way of thinking. It’s easy to say this after the fact. There was nothing that indicated PSA grading would be this popular in Pokemon 10 years ago. Back then, Gold stars would look like what BREAK cards look like today. There was no reason to believe that people would be 4 figures for sealed boxes.
The risk was extremely high back then and only with hindsight does it seem like a missed opportunity. Additionally, speaking for myself and many others in my age group, there’s no way I would be able to simply drop $500 on pokemon cards 10 years ago. Today, I have a full time job and have no problem spending that kind of money if I want to.
If anything, its probably less risky to spend money today since the market has established itself as something that probably won’t just disappear tomorrow. Guaranteed, there will be someone in 10 years saying the exact same thing you said here except they will be referring to 2019 and not 2009
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