My take on investing in modern sets & a theory

@wenshenxi, I see some of what you’re saying, but you can’t talk about investing in English modern on E4. That’s like admitting you like big butts in front of ivory tower academics.

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If I have to choose within modern, I think Japanese sets like eevee heroes will be a better choice than evolving skies. They are printed less in numbers and demand for Japanese cards look like it’s going up. The recent Japanese sets have been outperforming the English ones in terms of price for the chase cards ( correct me if I’m wrong).

Something like the eevee hero gym box would be good to hold onto!

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Haha! I’m sure people would be more open to investing in big butts! :upside_down_face:

In all seriousness, I think it’s because the same song is played 1,000 times. Most people here collect modern. But English modern has really become a bug light for blind speculation. Tbf for the op, I don’t think they are one of these types, but it’s so hard now to separate the post 2020 culture of English modern.

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I wouldn’t summarize the opinions of every member on the site in such a way. The OP is also as much of an E4 member as anyone else, there’s no test to get in

But if we want to speak very generally, I would say the broad sentiment here isn’t that modern is uninvestible - most people understand there is opportunity almost anywhere in this hobby. But rather that there’s no guarantee that today’s modern product will be more popular and/or harder to find in 10 years from now. It’s definitely a highly speculative category. Something like 30% of all Pokemon cards ever printed were made in the last 2 years.

But the other time the printers were in full force was 1999. A massive amount of supply isn’t a problem if the demand scales with the supply. Ultimately its a big unknown. Modern product will always be the most speculative least time-tested class in this hobby so it makes sense why people are hesitant, sometimes to a fault

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I still stand by that Modern is investible, depending on your investing goals.

If you are someone who really believes in the long term success of the hobby (I’m talking 15-20 years from now, not 3-5 years), modern is a good investment because the cost of entry is so low. Will the demand or prices ever be as high as older product? Of course not. But just because Diamond and Pearl isn’t as valuable as the ex-era doesn’t mean it hasn’t appreciated well.

Yes, of course there is so much more product printed now than ever before. But demand is also going to continue to grow. If I’m a kid who just started my interest in Pokemon around this time period, an Inteleon V or Cinderace V in 20 years is going to be as nostalgic to me as Base set Charizards are to everyone who started during WOTC. Will an Inteleon V ever be an insanely expensive card? Probably not. But if I can buy them in bulk at 50 cents to a dollar now and sell them for $10-50 in 15 years? That’s a good, low-risk investment.

If your investment goals are on a 3 or 5 year timeline, modern is not investable. But for long term growth and diversity in product, at worst you’re taking a flyer.

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Modern Japanese product has a better identity than modern English, in so much as that right now in 2022 it’s a fun product to open and it’s a fun product to chase for good value if you can get it close to MSRP, but the long term future seems pretty poor to me. And I am saying that as a JP only collector with sealed boxes of most of the Sword and Shield sets and lots of sealed Sun and Moon too.

There are so many factors against modern Japanese sets. Mostly the fact that unlike vintage, even in a set like Eeevee Heroes (which is one set out of 25+ btw. Also, I realise you are talking about the gym box’s prospects but I see the same sentiment for the regular box too), people consider 99.9% of the cards they get complete trash. Now, unless by some miracle all the other cards in Eevee Heroes suddenly become insanely iconic you are looking at terrible terrible odds per box on getting the cards people actually want. EH is fun to open right now, because there is a kind of mystique and hype around it but will it be fun or appealing in 10 years? I think that is quite debatable. If you are asking someone to drop $1K+ on an EH box for a 1/200 box card or whatever then you really are just asking them to gamble their money with no expectation. They might as well go to a casino and put that $1K on red. It might even have better odds. I think at this point you aren’t targeting collectors or enthusiasts, you are targeting suckers who don’t know any better.

JP product reminds me a lot of Amiibos, yeah people who get them at MSRP don’t really lose but they also don’t really “win” either. I guess if you think making a few hundred bucks on something is life changing money then by all means buy and keep Japanese. The reason I have mine is more to remind me of my time in Japan collecting and enjoying a hobby than it is to make money. I really don’t have any expectation for that when it comes to Japanese.

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To clarify, not implying OP isn’t a “true blue” E4 member or anything of that sort. Just pointing out that investing in English modern is a contentious issue on E4.

The same would go for modern English as well which makes it interesting.

Would anyone want to spend that amount for that 1/25 chance in EH when everything else is trash? Probably not, then what more for English? So many more cards that nobody really wants clogging up the sets.

I think it’s because, incredibly enough, people are still ignorant when it comes to their chance of pulling anything. That, or they are just actually that illogical. There should come a point where the value stabilises and then drops because the amount of singles out there that can be sold is insane whereas the boxes have a minuscule chance of pulling anything.

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