The equivalent thing also happens in sports, though lol. Look at the pop numbers for some of the newer rookie cards – very similar situation if I’m not mistaken.
That’s fair but $1m in 1975 is over $7m today so inflation definitely helps the equation. Like I said in my original post, I have no question the illustrator will continue to rise in value over time. It’s rare and it’s the pinnacle of the hobby. However, Kendrick’s psa 10 Mantle now has an estimated value of $20m. If Logan’s Illustrator is at $5m in trade value, it needs to 4x just to catch up and that’s assuming that the Mantle’s growth rate goes to 0%, which just isn’t happening, ever.
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Let me put it this way: Billy Joel has never namedropped Pikachu in a song.
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CGC 8.5s 
Thanks for clarifying! I knew that 50k copy was in the 90s, and wanted to play it safe.
I think there was a point in the 60s where they struggled to even sell 1952 topps packs for a few cents. Crazy how much its changed!
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Can you print a Mickey Mantle card to get rid of millions in inventory that is not selling?
[x] doubt
pokemon is a different animal
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I know absolutely 0 about sports cards however I imagine things are culturally different.
Logan Paul along with others has made collecting ‘cool’ - anybody who is into Pokémon in some kind of capacity is now aware of grading, keeping things in good condition etc so therefore you have potential of a much more inflated, good condition ‘old’ Pokémon cards in comparison.
I bring this up because I imagine a lot of sports cards from back in the day was similar to all of us back in the 90s - in terms of playing with the cards, cards wrapped round an elastic band (shoved in a pocket with coins keys etc) and taken to school to play/ trade with friends etc whereas now I think that’s a lot less common to happen because ‘these might be worth something in the future’.
I’m obviously referring to things outside of trophies here ofc 
With inflation, an illustrator will have to sell for almost $40MM on it’s 70th birthday to be comparable to the 12.5MM sale today
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That’s a lot of what makes vintage so sought after for many TCGs, including the old Sports cards. Not many preserved the cards, but so many people value the experience of it all. With Magic cards for example, I don’t recall seeing people use sleeves until the early 2000s. I carried my decks inside of a zip-lock bag and had no sleeves. We had no deck boxes, no playmats, literally no one gave it a thought. It simply didn’t exist for the longest time.
With Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, I remember everyone at school handling them around and trading, etc. With Yu-Gi-Oh, I vividly remember seeing people playing with starter decks in the grass or on the pavement, etc. They eventually got banned of course since they were so popular.
Logan and others have definitely caused a shift in thinking towards a lot of the cards for grading and everything else. Even now when I go to some card stores I’ll see people taking extra close look at raw cards. It’s a bit annoying, but it is what it is. I didn’t see that nearly as much in the past as I do now.
Just look at a Magic card from my childhood deck, you’ll probably never see this on a modern card again:
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Yeah I wholeheartedly agree. Kinda makes me sad - but times have changed! Let’s hope that the younger generation are getting just as much enjoyment out of cardboard as we did
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Not sure what 1/1 and autos are, but patches and buttons - they aren’t actually off the jerseys are they? So it’s another mass produced token, bit puzzling as to why they would be worth so much.
1/1 or 1/100 refers to a specific card that is serialized. So one of them says 2/100 and another says 9/100. There are only 100 total in existence.
It could be a piece of jersey cut up and only 100 patches were put on cards. Or for a specific card, the player signed 100 of them, so those are 1/100
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Some jersey patch cards are from game used jerseys, most aren’t anymore. A lot of patch cards are just “player worn”, which basically means that the player put the jersey on for 10 seconds, most likely at a meeting with the card company, and then took it off. 
But some patch cards say they have “no association with the player”, so it is basically a jersey piece from the gift shop. Autos refer to autographed cards.
I’m actually really glad Pokémon hasn’t gone down the route of modern sports cards. The amount of variants in modern sports cards is unreal… They call them “parallels”. Imagine if every single Pokémon card in a set had 40 different borders on it, instead of the regular yellow border. And “rarer” ones are serialized.
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I’m sorry but I have to disagree! In South America, every year panini releases a sticker album for each national soccer league, copa America, copa libertadores, and eventually the World Cup. Everyone goes CRAZY for them. And I mean, really crazy. If panini or Topps would release sports cards in South America, they’d make millions.
It vastly depends on culture. I can see that the US has huge basketball and baseball culture, as South America has for soccer. These are not niche at all, just not promoted/exploited enough
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I meant that sports cards are niche relative to sports. There are billions of sports fans in the world, and only a fraction of a percent collect sports cards. I feel like it’s a safe assumption that, of Pokemon fans, a higher proportion than that collect Pokemon cards.
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I agree on that point. Its just that, in my opinion, sports card market was never exploited outside the US, where some sports (like soccer) have massive hype and fan bases.
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That’s really interesting.
I’m based in South East Asia and follow the English Premier League, but I’d never be interested in any players outside of the club I support. Not Ronaldo or Messi either.
I guess I am not the typical football supporter though, but even typical supporters, would they be interested in sports cards? Maybe, but it seems hard to imagine.
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Its just that in South America, there are no “typical supporters”. Football is a cultural phenomenon that transcends everything. It’s something that you share on every family reunion, that is on TV every day, and that country problems get opaqued by the national’s team results.
You should have soon folks from Peru celebrate when they reached the World Cup in 2018 after not being able to for 36 years.
If I were topps/panini/whoever, I would definitely put some product in South America. Hell I tried to be the link, but they never replied lol
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Yup, Pokemon cards are uniquely positioned this way. So many things make it a fun collector item than many other TCGs or other collectibles. Because Pokemon itself is inherently about capturing & battling Pokemon, the whole collecting side to me really goes hand in hand with everything else and is a big part of the appeal.
To me, collecting Pokemon cards is about as close as it gets to being a real life Trainer and chasing down certain cards actually feels like trying to capture a rare or legendary Pokemon and that’s a big part of what I enjoy about it the most compared to any other collectibles I have.
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The old catchphrase ‘Gotta Catch ‘Em All!’ has been ingrained in many a 90s kids’ mind and I would bet on it being one of the primary driving forces for collecting Pokemon cards.
Because who doesn’t still want to become a Pokemon master?
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