So first of all… Yes, nostalgia drives the hobby. And I would say that 1st edition Base Set is the pillar of the high-end Pokemon card collecting hobby. It’s the original set, in English (the language spoken by the vast majority of people in the hobby), it’s the set that most high-end collectors have the most nostalgia for, etc. And the great thing about Base Set is that it has something for everyone. For the top collectors, you can get a complete PSA 10 1st edition Base Set, which already sells for $100K+ (and with box prices being what they are now almost no new supply has been added to the market in the last couple of years, making PSA 10 1st edition quite exclusive). But then you can also get a complete Unlimited ungraded Base Set for a couple of hundred bucks and feel perfectly content with that. Or you can get anything in between. The point being, there’s something for everyone.
But trophy cards are their own beast. They’re not inclusive; by their design they are exclusive. To own a trophy card is to own a treasure. Owning any trophy card at all is a status symbol. And there is no grail holier in Pokemon than a mint condition Illustrator.
So there’s no point in arguing between 1st edition base set and trophy cards. They’re both great. If I was an “investor” in this hobby (which I am not) and I had the capital, both of these are exactly where I would put my money (along with WOTC booster boxes) because I think the value of these cards will continue to rise in the long-run.
Bulbapedia’s article on the card has a section with absolutely no citations which mentions:
Counting those up, that’s 23 for the first run, 8 for the Mewtwo contest and 4 for the Pikachu contest… I think? It’s a bit hard to keep up. That would be 35.
…but it also says:
A Beckett blog post makes the claim that 39 are thought to exist, and a PSA blog post quotes @smpratte as saying that there are between 20 and 39.
I have no idea where these figures come from though. I’ve tried doing some research into the card on Japanese sites and all of them tend to mention that distribution figures are unknown. It really wouldn’t surprise me if the 39 is a made up number.
Pretty sure it’s safe to assume that Pkonno owns the 40th card though, regardless of how many there actually are.
the average person will not buy the card not because it’s too expensive, but most people do not think the way the real world actually works. if you all know the illustrator is going to $500k+ or even a 1 million within the next 5-10 years as history has proved time and time again that this card sets new prices every time, WHY won’t you just get this card instead of, let’s say, an investment property? people always say they want to jump on that next big investment opportunity but the opportunity has always been there. people are just too chicken. i should maybe move this to the other thread about unpopular opinions.
people, go buy those next tier trophy cards! Go buy that 30k trophy kangashkhan. stop thinking that you’ll find a steal. if you can find a copy and purchase it, that’s the real steal! just find a seller and pay above market price. don’t regret it!
It’s more that it’s just not feasible to assume that the card’s value will keep increasing.
The vast majority of people who are interested in this card do not have $200k in the first place, and the vast majority of those would be in a position where they’d be putting all of their eggs in this one basket, and that’s also a pretty bad idea.
Buying a property to rent it out is a significantly better investment option. Not only do you have an asset which will very likely keep increasing in value, you will be getting additional income each rental period. On top of that, $200k would likely be able to get you more than one property as, unlike with this Pokémon card, mortgages are a realistic option even when thinking about making investments.
I’m pretty sure the people bidding on auctions like these are people with significantly more than $200k of disposable wealth. You’d have to be nuts to put everything you have into this one piece of cardboard.
In 1960, stores were struggling to sell 1952 Topps packs for $0.01. Literally the lowest monetary denomination. Today a PSA 9 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle Rookie from that pack is worth 2.8 Million dollars.
You don’t need most people to afford the most valuable and one of the rarest cards. A PSA 9 Illustrator hasn’t publicly sold in 3 years, or had any additional mint copies in that time. 99% of the people talking about the card will never own it no matter the price; its just too rare.
Also Pokemon is not even close to the market cap of other trading cards. Trading cards in general aren’t even close to the market cap of artwork and other collectibles.
Ultimately if people chose to still deny reality, I’ll end with one of my favorite smpratteism’s: where is the cheaper option?
I think @pichufan was just arguing that the “average” person would do better investing in real estate than a single Pokemon card. The initial argument was that buying an illustrator was guaranteed profit and it doesn’t make sense to invest things other than high-end Pokemon cards. The counter-point is that one Pokemon card is probably not the ideal option for a lot of people
A couple of years ago I made a list of 7 rules for navigating the hobby of high-end Pokemon card collecting, and one of my rules was not being afraid to pay an all-time high for a card (because it may well be the cheapest chance anyone else ever gets again).
@pkmnflyingmaster, Sure I am just responding the idea of it decreasing because of that concept. I honestly couldn’t care less at this point where the price goes, I benefit either way. There just isn’t a tangible point on why it will decrease. And all previous emotional arguments over the past 2 decades were wrong.
I would bet on the Illustrator 9/10 in terms of investment returns. Do you own property? I have invested in real estate and I can tell you it is not as easy/lucrative as you think. I am in Dallas which has a decent real estate market. Simple stats: how much has your real estate actually appreciated in the last 5 years? How much has the Illustrator or these top tier trophy cards appreciated in the same time period? Do you know the maintenance and collateral cost of a property? Real estate is better in the sense that you do have liquid capital if you are renting them out, which Pokemon does not offer, except when you make a sale. Do you like dealing with tenants? I invest in real estate to diversify my investment portfolio to reduce risk, but in terms of real returns, you should take a hard look at actual NUMBERS.
I’m not saying the value isn’t likely to increase, I’m just saying it’s not feasible to assume anything will increase in value. This $200k auction might be an outlier, for starters - the next public sale might only fetch half that amount. As with investing in anything, investing in a single Pokémon card comes with a lot of risk, and honestly I think there are a lot better things to invest in.
If I had $200k to invest I’d invest in something with stability. If I had $2m to invest I’d be a lot more willing to invest 10% of that in Pokémon, but I don’t think investing the entire 10% in one card would be high up on my list.
I don’t think that anyone who has second thoughts about placing a bid on a $200k auction is beingtoo chicken, as @yz2428 said.
I purposely didn’t comment at all when the auction was live so no one would pull out the bias card. If anything I would personally prefer the latter to occur (decrease) as its easier to earn more money than illustrators.
@pichufan And that makes sense, thanks for clarifying!
You should go look at Rudy’s video on the THREE timmy’s in this world. Classic fallacy lesson. History and real world scenarios have taught us that holding onto a few super high-end card is a much better bet on retaining “value” than holding onto a bunch of lower value cards…
You can still be wrong/not benefit. Price decreases and you buy and then Pokémon falls off a cliff for whatever reason and you lose money on said purchase. I’m not saying this will happen but it’s a non zero probability. The illustrator card price would be massively leveraged to the overall health of the hobby. As such, if Pokemon dies for whatever reason (unlikely), so would the price is my view.
@randox, Not really. At this point I don’t care about the monetary value. If anything the increase in value makes it more difficult to keep some items, as these cards me a lot to me personally.
The scenario you painted is extremely improbable, and borderline impossible. If the highest grossing media franchise dies, there is probably a lot worse happening in that Apocalypse than the value of painted cardboard. Moreover, lets say for some reason there is a massive pitfall, there are so many people with enough cash to buy every single copy.
I’ve heard this same thing for over a decade, and its yet to happen. Mainly due to the facts of increased consumer income, more exposure/a larger market. You can’t reverse engineer those variables.
People here rarely seem to talk about it, but I think this is the most fundamental variable with regards to the long-term value of Pokemon cards.
If Pokemon wanes significantly in popularity, in the long-run it will impact the value of these cards.
On the other hand, if the popularity of Pokemon and Pokemon card collecting remains anything even in the ballpark of what it is 2019 over the course of decades, then I would strongly bet on the value of these cards continuing to increase over time.
Considering where Pokemon is today 23 years after its birth, in the position of being the highest grossing media franchise of all-time, and the fact that it has such a diversified portfolio across the entertainment spectrum, I think Pokemon has a damn good chance of continuing to endure in popularity over time.
In my opinion, the critical point for Pokemon was during the Gen 3 era (so around 2002-03) where the vast majority of people had lost interest in it. If it were going to die, it would have died then.
Not everyone on this forum may have been around (as in not even born) then, but for those of us who were, we can all attest to just how lifeless Pokemon was during the Ruby/Sapphire era. It barely even had a pulse.
The fact that Pokemon essentially popped out of a coffin and has come back as strong as it has is a pretty good sign that it is going to be just fine over the long haul.
