I’m not offended. I don’t like sport cards. All my passion is towards TCG (Pokemon, Dragonball, Weiss Schwarz, Yugioh). I don’t know anything about spors cards. My statement is due to the results of the auctions. It is very difficult for Pokemon cards to reach thresholds above $ 500,000 even for vintage. While a lot of modern sports cards can do it.
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I think comparing the two at this stage is so premature. The Mantle is 70 years old from an over 100 year old hobby. We’d be talking about the 2060s or 2070s at earliest when it comes to Pokemon. We have no idea what the scarcity will be then of early pokemon cards. A lot more people in 1998 were preserving their cardboard than they were in the 1950s. Strictly comparing the Mantle to Pokemon is an apples and oranges comparison. We don’t know where the hobby is going in the next 15 years. There could be a world where the first $10 million Pokemon card is one that hasn’t been printed yet (if they ever decide to go the serialized route).
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Cards ages are not the most important factor. The great growth is due to social media (youtube, facebook, instagram etc …) 30 years ago (mantle was already 40 years old) it had a paltry value compared to today.
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The demographic/age group for Pokemon collectors is still very young. So I think it’s fair to say that it has an impact on how far the prices can climb. You only have so many Logan Paul types around or people who can spend 6 or 7 figures on a card to begin with. I feel this could change over time, like 5, 10, 20 years from now.
With sports cards I’ll be the first to admit I have next to no understanding of how the cards are priced or what makes them valuable outside of the most obvious factors. It’s such a huge varied market with so many different parts to it I find. I just don’t feel I really have the time or money to appreciate a lot of them, so I stick to what I enjoy most now which is Pokemon & Magic.
Anyway, I feel a lot will change over time. I don’t worry much about the investment prospects. I just enjoy the cards & collecting them and that way I can stomach any of the ‘risk’ involved because I don’t regret any of my purchases. If the growth continues, that’s just a bonus to me.
All I want is to live long enough for my cards to make me a multimillionaire. Is this too much to ask???
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Easy if you have a collection of 1,000,000 $1 cards
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This is genius. I know where I’m putting my life savings.
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Seems like modern sports is just a different beast. 1/1, autos, patches. Kinda neat to own the button off someone’s jersey I guess. I know nothing about sports cards but they at least have an actual chase component.
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The real money is in penny cards, literally can’t go below $0.01
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As someone who almost spent a lot of money on a Deshaun Watson rookie auto a couple of years ago, I feel safer spending money on the fictional character
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Super hot take that isn’t that hot…the Illustrator will never surpass Mantle or other high end sports icon memorabilia. It can possibly bridge some of the gap given enough time. It may be undervalued in the Pokemon world but it’s still incredibly niche.
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Go ask 10 people on the street if they know Pokemon Illustrator. At most 1 person will know about it, and that’s almost certainly because of Logan Paul. Mickey Mantle is one of the biggest sports stars in history. Sports cards are not niche.
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Sports isn’t niche, but sports cards kind of are. The vast majority of sports fans have zero interest in sports cards.
In contrast, cards have been one of the central features of the Pokemon franchise since nearly the beginning. Within the franchise, cards are second only to the video games. Whereas sports cards are a totally peripheral aspect of the overall sports world.
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To put into perspective, I watch every single St Louis Cardinals game throughout the season, but I haven’t collected baseball cards since I was a kid
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I would actually say it’s similar in pokemon. A majority of people interested in the franchise are not card collectors in any serious way. I agree though, it’s probably a bigger divide in sports than it is in pokemon.
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However, the Illustrator wasn’t and isn’t part of anyone’s Pokemon or Pokemon card experience lol You have to be a really deep collector (like efour members) to even know it. Also, PSA grades 3-4x the amount of sports card than tcg every single month. I don’t agree that less people collect sports cards as a percentage of overall fan base versus Pokemon but of course I can be wildly off.
Sure, though I’m not specifically talking about the Illustrator. The Illustrator is a beautiful, interesting card, but it was never a part of the Pokémon card experience in the same way that Base Charizard was/is, for instance.
I think the Illustrator is more akin to the T206 Honus Wagner than the rookie Mantle. The rookie Mantle is more akin to 1st Ed Base Charizard.
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But doesn’t this demonstrate my point? There are way more than 4x as many sports fans than Pokémon fans. Yet only 4x as many sports cards are graded. I think it’s pretty clear that a higher proportion of Pokémon fans collect Pokémon cards compared to sports fans collecting sports cards.
The real comparison is time. The illustrator is 24 years old, where the Mantle is 70 years old. The illustrator at 24 already has sold for over 1m, logans 4m being the highest. The mantle at 24 years old was low 5 figures. A lot can happen in 46 years. All I can say is I’ve learned over the years to not bet against pikachu or charizard. 
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But what happens to those numbers when people stop grading 200,000 illustrator charizards, champions path charizards and special delivery Charizards per month? 