I have been in this hobby for quite some time. I have a good job which pays me well, and a genuine passion for collecting which have allowed me to (over time) grow a collection that is worth a good amount of money (high 6 figures conservatively).
I am quite a private person and don’t tend to talk to people about my hobbies much, but recently it has come out that I “do that Pokemon thing” and all I get now is people telling me to SELL SELL SELL!.
I have no interest in selling. I do not need the money I would get from selling. I will happily talk to people about my collection, but do not want to talk about about value all the time.
My wife and I recently hosted some friends and family at our house and and pokemon came up. I was quite happy to show off some cards and talk about the history of them and the people I have met through trading and experiences I’ve had, but all anyone wanted to know was the value of each card. Literally every card that I brought out was met with the questions “so what is that one worth?”. To me, priceless at the moment.
The current climate in Pokemon has everyone obsessed with value whether or not they are that familiar with the hobby. It surprised and saddened me. My collection is worth way more to me personally than its financial value.
I understand where you are coming from but put yourself in other peoples shoes. They aren’t into collecting Pokemon cards, or potentially any form of trading cards. Their exposure to trading cards is most likely clickbait or highly shared news articles/reels/yt videos showing incredibly valuable cards. When they hear about it of course they aren’t going to be interested in much more than the value.
The monetary value of something is one of the most easily understandable and relatable aspects of anything. I wouldn’t take it so personally that it was the focus of their comments. To them they are just colourful pieces of cardboards with characters on them(which is what they are), and they don’t have the context to be able to apply the value to them, they see the potential in their sale value because they are thinking about what THEY would like spend that money on and that is okay.
When my friends spend 80k on vintage car that costs ~6000-7000 dollars a year in maintenance, I respectfully enjoy his enthusiasm and passion but I think to myself: ‘Damn, I would have spent that money on something else,’
I agree with you to an extent. I wouldnt say “everyone” is obsessed with value, and, though i dont mean to presume your situation, people are bound to ask about valur if you have a single piece of cardboard worth more than their house (which it sounds like you do?). Its only natural that once you say something is worth X (where X is a life-changing amount to most people) then every other card will be subject to the same question, especially if you can hold a million dollar collection and “not need the money”. Money is a universal constant which 99.9% of us chase constsntly for the best part of our lives, so it’s the easiest thing to ask about especially when a persons’ knowledge of the item in question is limited.
yes I have currently got (subject to market changes) some “valuable” cards, but I have also been collecting for a while and have MANY cards haha. i think my frustration came from the fact that while the value of my WHOLE collection is quite high for now, it was assumed that i should therefore sell everything because the money would be better.
Completely understand. Perhaps your friends were equating your collections’ financial value to a kind of stock market bubble and were trying to look out for you in their own way (sell before you lose everything!). It is great that you see your own collection beyond monetary value, and i’m sure you have wonderful memories of how and when you got your collection.
On a related note i’d absolutely love to see what you consider the highlights of your collection, it sounds fantastic!
I too have experienced this when sharing my collection with non-Pokemon people. I do think it’s an area of genuine interest, for example my husband is always surprised when I show him two very similar looking cards with wildly different values (why is that one $100 but that one is $1?)
At the same time, it’s hard not to feel judged or like they’re “missing the point” when you’re telling people you spent thousands of dollars on cardboard.
My mother in law gave me a lovely and extensive tour of her teapot collection the last time I visited. My grandma collects art, and she showed me each of her pieces and told me who made them. Not once did it occur to me to ask the prices, that isn’t what the tour was about — they were showing me something they loved. But it always comes up with Pokemon, I think because people are surprised when the cards are valuable
I describe my collections to those inquiring about value by giving them a range. Some cards worth 50cents, some worth $1000 (note: i dont actually have any $1000 cards). But i also add in what i like about them which is the journey and time taken to find specific ones.
it’s nice to have ppl like you in the hobby.
would you like to show off any of your cards? We love collections here
I think with pokemon in particular, ppl have a hard time understanding that the cards are not worth that much without a grade and that the difference between a psa 7 (looks to many novices the same as a psa10) is only worth a fraction of what a psa 10 might be worth. Or that a psa10 might be 5x a psa9. In extreme scenarios in can be 20x like with lugia 1st gen neo
then they just get the impression that its really stupid. because the grade carries most of the value instead of owning the actual card in general
but i guess because pokemon cards are not that rare, so we derive value from grade scarcity but try explaining that to a random who doesnt understand pokemon
Haha i see your point. I was just trying to highlight that while my collection does have value now, to me it is not about that and i would love it just as much if they were worth pennies. I was fortunate that most of my “big hitters” were already in my collection before the price booms.
I would say most are in a similar position. Im certainly not a crazy rich person but am comfortable. They just couldnt understand why i wouldnt sell everything and buy a bigger house etc.
On a complete tangent, @tfgh I see you are in Edinburgh so if you’d like to talk to like minded collectors who aren’t just value crazy @Josh and I will be at this event.
I totally get the frustration, but I would think 99% of non-collectors would think the same, ie. “That piece of cardboard is worth how much??!! SELL!! Buy something you can actually use!” is an incredibly sane thought.
I would view it as a unique opportunity to evaluate and reaffirm your value system and what is important to you not so much in terms of whether or not you could use the money from a cash out, but what you could buy WITH that money and why the cardboard is more important to you than that. For eg., most of the other stuff I own that is important to me does not allow me to test that since the other stuff isn’t monetarily worth enough.
I have gone through this process with vintage video games and recently with some Pokemon cards I decided to part with, and ONLY because prices have gone up so much have I forced myself to ask, “Does the market value this more than I do?” and make a decision to sell and buy back in lower grade, or just emulate the video game, etc. Having a wife to also offer her input also didn’t hurt! Although most of the time I don’t ask since I don’t want to know.
I’ve found this process to be very difficult and a true process that takes time to actually think and feel my way through, and a chance to really embrace gratitude for what you have and the incredible privilege in human existence it is to have that perspective. Because it really is quite ridiculous what some cards are worth and how great it is to just say, yeah, no, it’s worth more to me than anything else it could buy me.
I would challenge anyone who’s not done so to take on the task of figuring out, “If I could only keep 10 or 50 or 100 or 200, etc. cards, which would they be?” I was able to get myself down to knowing there are 150 cards I own that I never wish to part with. And if I had to get it down to 10 I could do it, but I would not be very happy about it! For others that number might be 1000 or more and could include binders or some sealed boosters or ETBs, etc.
Anyway, just my thoughts. I’m glad you shared yours.
Are you using this term correctly? This is suggesting that you have somewhere between £500,000-£900,000 in Pokemon. If that is the case, I am not shocked in the slightest that your friends are impressed or disturbed by the value.
Or did you mean £150,000-£190,000? That is still quite a valuable collection, but much more reasonable for the typical onlooker.
I have gotten similar responses when I discuss my collecting habits with family or friends, but it doesn’t bug me at all.
It makes perfect sense that folks outside of the collectibles world would only view your collection in terms of value, because it’s the only metric that they know or can relate to. I can appreciate a Yu-Gi-Oh! collection because I am a collector of TCGs and they all share characteristics, but I would have great difficulty navigating a different hobby and may only be able to appreciate differences by value.
