Hi! Anyone know why people spend so much money on graded modern cards that just came out? I’m talking about examples like Charizard Ex from 151 that sold for like 600$. I see this every time a new set comes out, and am always confused on why ppl are okay with throwing away this money. Am I missing something here?
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You aren’t missing anything. Some people have more money than brains
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You aren’t missing anything. They just want to post it on social media or have a severe case of fomo which always leads to losing money.
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Some people like to burn money for Internet upvotes.
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I think it’s a combination of rich and naive people. Some people have so much money it doesn’t matter to them if they overpay. Maybe some people are paying extra for the instagram content. There are probably people who genuinely believe the first graded copy will hold a premium (it never has historically). There are probably other naive people that can’t think far enough into the future to realize that the market is about to be flooded. Maybe there are some people who pump the price because they are about to receive their own copies back from PSA.
Who really knows? It’s definitely a trend that has been repeated over and over many times though.
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Short term flip, long term dip.
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On a serious note, it is kind of scary how people legitimately value the adrenaline rush of notifications on Instagram over money.
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I completely agree how scary it is.
For some people, their main source of socialization is Internet updoots. It’s probably not what they would prefer, but it’s what is immediately available to them. So I am not that shocked that some people would spend great amounts of time/money to farm that kind of socialization.
And for a lot of socially-awkward individuals and people on the autism spectrum or with social anxiety, in-person socialization is a fate worse than hell. If they are happy with this kind of social engagement, I can’t exactly fault them for it. 
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It might also be a financial decision, but not based on the value of the card but the number of clicks on YouTube or similar. If you need to keep pumping out new stuff to keep you millions of subscribers interested it still pays off to buy a card that will drop due to the view payments.
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Idk when you have people buying followers/ likes, its not that surprising. At the end of the day, who am i to criticize what people value/ spend their money on? This doesnt really seem too different from spending money in any capacity to show off, the medium has just changed.
Is it really money we value in the first place, or the things money can buy us?
I don’t think the people who pay for the first graded copy make any videos.
I’m proud of myself for not buying a Van Gogh Pikachu yet. I have given into fomo in the past. Not 12k black label alt art umbreon fomo, but a hundred or two over settling price here and there.
No one is criticizing what people spend their money on. What we are saying is that it is frightening that we live in a society where people value social media clout so highly.
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Also note that only PSA can proof which copy of a card are actually “graded first” by matching date records in their database because the cert numbers are not assigned sequentially. Aside from early submissions to a lower tier, you can sometimes get a smaller cert number than someone else who submits before you:
AFAIK Japanese Summer Eeveelutions promo fall into such case as the first graded set has larger cert numbers than at least one other set submitted later.
They think those are the 1st edition but 1st graded doesn’t mean 1st print. 1st print (aka 1st wave) is more important becos:
- ink cartridges are fully loaded
- the print is clearer, higher quality
Similarly in collector’s books, like Harry Potter, the 1st edition and 1st print books are very valuable! One such book can costs the same as an Umbreon gold star PSA 8 or 9.
People do what people do
I do believe this type of trend will fade over time as more and more people experience this over and over again.
The cards are not being printed using an inkjet printer, the “cartridges” don’t work the way you think.
Source: https://youtu.be/RW1HJdW5XLs?si=_yfOAWMWUt7i_TEO
Ink is constantly being resupplied from giant containers. The same ink supply is used continuously across projects/orders, so there is nothing special about the first print run in this aspect.
There are also a series of rollers designed to spread the ink out evenly so until you are completely out of ink, you should get a consistent amount of ink being applied.
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Pay a little more and get it right away, good deal