The question is…is this the new norm or will it all come crashing down?
I’ve been collecting Pokémon cards for 6.5 years now, and I haven’t seen it go down in general even once, so I doubt it will start doing so now. Sure, some specific cards/products might drop a bit, since fluctuations in any market is normal. But Pokémon TCG as a whole? Nope, it will only increase in general, even after this pandemic is over and loads of people stop collecting again. That’s what I personally think at least. And then I’m speaking of year by year basis obviously. As we’ve seen here, there are decreases every day if we look at it on a day by day or week by week basis, but those microtransaction fluctuations are nonsense in the big picture of the entire market.
One things I do personally dislike the most, is how fast it has grown in 2020. Some cards have grown multiplicative or even exponential in a matter of weeks in Fall 2020. As example: I’ve bought a PSA-10 red cheeks 1st edition Base Set Pikachu in March 2019 for 400 bucks. At the start of 2020 it was hovering at around 1k. But around September it went from 1-1.5k to 2k, then from 2k to 4k, and then from 4k to 8k in a 3 week timespan. When it was at 4k I was thinking about selling it, since I had a raw copy for my collection anyway, but while I was investigating how to properly send an insured package, it had already doubled in value again to 7-8k (I ended up selling it for 7.5k USD). And although it dropped to 6k around December 2020, I think it’s at around 12k+ now again. (Again, fluctuations are normal, but in general there is an upward growth.)
I had no doubt in my mind we would have had current prices eventually if you had asked me at the end of 2019 before the pandemic, but I thought it would be a process of at least 3-5 years. But nope. Due to this pandemic, famous YouTubers, and who knows what other kind of influences that all piled up, prices have doubled-quintupled for certain items in a year timespan, and every newly released card is bought up and sold for double-quintuple it’s value as well. After this pandemic is over, we’ll probably see some small price decreases for a few weeks/months on certain items, but on a year by year basis, I have no doubt in my mind it will keep increasing, which is also exactly why we see so many more investors and scalpers these days than before. We also had these in the past, but due to social media, more and more people are seeing the upwards trends with Pokémon, and getting money signs in their eyes.
Anyway, I nor anyone here can change it even if we would want to. We’re all just leaves drifting on this market flood. We can’t go against the current, only go with it, dodging rocks, and trying to not sink to the bottom.
One thing to add about the people stating: “everyone has to decide what they want to collect, and there are still loads of things to collect on a budget”: yes, completely true, but keep in mind that the more expensive the market as a whole becomes, the less amount of different choices/options there are to collect. If someone would start collecting Pikachu cards from scratch now for example, no way they’ll be able to get a similar collecting as I have rn in 6.5 years time due to finances, unless they spend hundred times more than I have thus far.
Or let’s say someone wants to collect misprints. When I started collecting you could find a lot of nice misprints for 5 bucks, and very special ones for a couple hundred USD. Nowadays even someone who gets a simple crimp on a card can ask and usually sell it for 75+ USD without too much trouble, and the kind of misprints that were a couple hundreds USD prior are a couple thousand USD nowadays.
What I’m trying to say: where 6.5 years ago primarily multiple Trophy cards, or all English cards combined, or similar goals would be (financially) close to impossible to ever complete, nowadays that applies to hundreds if not thousands of different type of collection goals if you had to start now on an average budget. There are still loads of options left to collect, but there are A LOT less than even just in 2019, and the more expensive the market as a whole becomes, the less options there are for new collectors.
Greetz,
Quuador
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A lot of interesting points here. One of the reasons I ended up coming to this community is because it’s full of people who collect for the love of it rather than profit, or at the very least, a mix of the two.
As someone who has been collecting since the beginning, I believe eventually, this will be a good thing since it means we’ll end up with a larger community. One potential reason things are really bad now could be because the supply is so far below expectations. From the local shop owners I’ve talked to, it seems we’re getting around 5-10% of expected supply, at least for the release wave of Shining Fates. Pair this with a surge in demand and you get some really sad stories. A friend of mine saw her local vendor of several years quit after someone followed her home when she was done with her route.
It’s also possible we’re also seeing a lot of sealed product resale from the US because it’s a fairly reliable return during a time where we’ve seen a huge increase in unemployment. Once supply returns to pre-pandemic levels and the economy starts to recover, hopefully the resale community will quiet down a bit.
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There was always a profit driven mentality, it just amplified with the new entrants into the hobby. People get excited about big numbers and quick flips but even back in the day (at this point a couple of years ago lol) people were flipping and flocking towards big ticket items. With limited supply and massive demand, prices are bound to increase and that gets people excited. I´m pretty sure that the tcg collecting community would have never grown this much when prices would forever flatline, thus only leaving the “true collectors” (loving the term! 
) in the hobby.
The noise is pretty loud nowadays but this is no surprise given the sheer amount of people involved. Just listen to whoever you want to listen to and don´t get discouraged.
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no one likes buying a tin for £42 pounds and getting £20 worth of cards
When the tin was worth £20, the cards were worth £10. Is there really a difference?
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If it makes you feel any better, initially, I got back into Pokemon cards this year solely for investment purposes.
But as soon as I bought my 1st edition Venusaur I was immediately hooked into the hobby. I will likely never sell.
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which tin shining fates ? I thought it was 27 I was talking about shining fates.
I thought hidden fates tin rose in price because mewtwo and the eevee cards sky rocket in price and the all other shiny holding strong, At that point sellers might as well open tins and sell the singles rather then sell the tins at 20 pounds with the good pull rate it had.
shining fates singles had dropped a lot the last time I seen them.
but is pokemon card collecting becoming profit-driven ? yes kind of no one likes spending a lot of money on packs and getting cards not worth much
Good point I guess that why booster boxes have risen in price too.Alot more people trying people profit from it. I guess booster boxes could stay high above retail price when released for a while. Didn’t think of that since I don’t really like booster boxes personally.
Where did this rumor start? I’ve heard multiple PokeTubers spreading this information, as well. As the number of packs you open from a package increases, the more the pull rate will seem to be be consistent.
Which means that the pull rate from a single tin is never guaranteed.
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I guess I interpreted this incorrectly. “While you may have had one experience with booster boxes previously, there are no guaranteed specific higher than rare cards or card types included in each booster box.”
I’m not really familiar with this space. With early WotC, I remember (although I could be wrong) it being a 1:3 holo pull rate. I thought that it would mean that one would pull 12 holos on average per booster box. I’ve heard a couple people say you could get 11, 13, etc so that seemed to match that. It sounds like I incorrectly used this to interpret the above statement.
I got back into the cards after a couple years out because of the original six amazing rares. The value aspect is interesting but ultimately except for having to save money a little longer or wait a little longer for better deals I really don’t care what people are doing their cards and boxes.