Who is this guy?
I’m new here so this is probably the wrong topic to be throwing my chips in, while having no credibility in the community.
Rudy has a massive following and pull when it comes to MTG, I don’t really think that it’s a meme that he drove up the price of sealed boxes in MTG as more and more people got exposed to the “trade secret and how to properly invest your money in cardboard”.
There are a lot of people entering the market of booster boxes because of Rudy, while buying directly from him too, who then figure that the numbers aren’t as exciting as they thought they’d be and liquidate back to him for cents on the dollar.
This isn’t exclusive to MTG or TCGs, but he did it in a special way that is probably somewhat transparent to most collectors here, while banking on all the Timmies who don’t know how to do their own research.
While I don’t think he did it to “scam” his viewers, considering his background I think that it’s fair to say that it was all calculated.
He’s in full “buy the dip” mode, even if he has to artificially create that dip with misinformation (which obviously pisses off Daniel, but I still need to watch that vid).
As someone who has collected and interacted with PTCG and MTG communities over the years, MTG is way too serious about their numbers/prices so these waves will always feel like tsunamis, and if you don’t have the capital at the right time people will run circles around you.
And I’d argue that with young kids spending more time at home, parents giving them more screen time, etc. Pokemon as a franchise will come out of this stronger than before.
Along with the fact that PTCG thrives outside of LGS and doesn’t depend as much on the competitive scene, I think that drawing comparisons to MTG, just because they’re both TCG, can be very misleading.
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@asynchrony, Just about everybody here knows Rudy very well. My only objection is that he’s never said a thing that wouldn’t benefit him. Besides that, he has his positive moments and works very hard. He deserves what he gets.
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It’s definitely a very interesting time to be observing the market. As has previously been mentioned, there doesn’t seem to be any clear or obvious change to prices yet.
It may just be a coincidence, but I did notice an influx of booster box sales recently, however they seem to be moving at market value pretty much the instant that they become available.
I’m not exactly plugged into the community in the way a lot of you guys are, but even if a small portion of collectors do decide to sell up - it sounds as though the rest of the community is likely to quite comfortably absorb it at current market price. I would imagine there would have to be serious saturation of specific sealed product/cards etc before there’s just too much for the rest of the community to absorb and prices organically drop.
The social distancing situation doesn’t hugely affect Pokémon as a franchise in general either. People will be playing the games, opening up product (so long as it can be ordered online) playing the TCG online, playing at home with family, watching the TV series etc.
Long story short - my feeling is that it’ll take more than a global pandemic to dent Pokémon as a collectable or a franchise in general.
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There have been no new deals added and selling is actually becoming harder for me since all the naysayers are claiming my rare items will become cheap in a few months despite being literally the only ones on the market in this case
Right now is a beautiful time to have some buying power whether it be for cards or for some stock. You can’t guarantee a win, but you can do your homework and stay vigilant still. Rudy is so big and has so much pull, it’s almost like insider trading for him lol
I haven’t posted my thoughts on this yet, and I don’t want anyone to take what I say as gospel. Currently, I’m very hesitant to selling anything. I’m personally in a situation where I don’t need to sell and won’t need to sell for years before I become in danger, and I recognize that not everyone is in the situation I’m in. I only mention it because it might influence others to not do what I do.
I believe we might be in a situation where hyperinflation could come into play. If this occurs having an asset that’s desirable is good. I know a lot of people think that Pokémon isn’t essential and in a crisis and won’t be worth anything. The issue is if money isn’t worth anything I want something rich people want instead of cash that’s worthless to everyone. Even if hyperinflation doesn’t occur the huge influx of cash into the economy will make prices jump when things go back to normal.
In all I think people are too focused on the short term, which I understand for a lot of people that aren’t prepared for something like this, but in the long term I’d much rather have an asset that’s hard to liquidate in a crisis then cash at this time.
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@cullers on point. This is one of the reasons that very wealthy people invest in art. It’s value survives unforeseen economic changes that might arise from a major global catastrophe, world war, etc. Whoever has the money afterwards is going to want the art.
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Art = Original art, usually 1 of a kind or 1 of a few. Not prints with 10,000s of copies 
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Base Set Caterpie will be the new $100 Bill once the smoke clears from this whole situation - heard it here first! LOL
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I didn’t mean to be bashing on Rudy as a person or his work as content creator, just the part of buying old cards for 20 cents on the dollar rubbed me the wrong way when he’s lying about older raw cards not being liquid.
I read all the other posts and it seems that he isn’t fooling anyone in this community, which was what I expected from an **Elite Fourum.**However being new to this forum, I’m not sure how many of you dabble in MTG.
The message that I wanted to get across was that even if Rudy was right about vintage Magic being less liquid right now, it still wouldn’t directly translate to raw unlimited base set Pokémon cards, if anyone is currently scared that might happen after watching his video.
It’s also worth noting that this video is his 3rd most viewed video this last month after only 3 days, only slightly behind Mystery Box openings.
I’ve been working with Social Media Marketing and content creators for the past 6 years so you could say this grinds my gears in a very special way.
Maybe I’m being too harsh, and I respect that content creators need to get theirs, but in my opinion this was exploitative.If people are already messaging him to cash out of their vintage Magic out of need, he just needed to handle that privately and not fearmonger more people into parting with their hard earned collection for 20% of their market value.
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Warren Buffet once said “Buy when they are selling, and sell when they are buying.”
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You sure that wasn’t Wallace?
I know this opinion is probably not held by many others on this forum, but I think the repercussions to the economy are going to be far more significant than most people realize. Massive unemployment and layoffs, entire industries depending on government bailouts, another housing market crisis, huge numbers of people defaulting on loans (student, home, and auto), etc. As much as I don’t want to believe it, I can’t imagine a scenario where Pokemon remains unaffected, especially with the majority of collectors in their early adulthood (20’s and 30’s) who are most likely to be affected by the economic conditions listed above. I think Scott is correct about “sharks” with liquidity ready to scoop up the deals if/when the market drops (capping the lower threshold) . . . and it will inevitably rebound at some point (though that might not be for 5-10 years). There could be some SIGNIFICANT long-term opportunity for those able to wait out a down-turn and risk some capital to double-down.
Personally, I think real-estate is going to be the best investment (in both the short-term and long-term). If the economic implications that I suspect do manifest, I might attempt to purchase some property . . . if/when prices dip. Again, I’m not an economist by any means, and I really hope this is all just a blip on the radar. Either way, I’m holding my personal collection regardless of what happens to prices.
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Very well said, my friend. I hold the same view for the market but will hold onto my precious regardless.
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Totally agree with you. Is hard to compare previous events to this one when conditions were very different. But yes, the big sharks might benefit in the long term with this but the vast majority will be hit in moderate/big ways.
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According to @oldskoolpokemon you’ll be rich soon, @robertocaterpie5. 
Or alternatively: your last few Caterpie cards to complete your collection will be very expensive to find. 
Greetz,
Quuador
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I will stay the course during this whole pandemic. No good reason to act on emotions. If the market does dip for us, I think it will eventually bounce back.
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Do you think it will bounce back even higher? Or it’ll just recover a bit?
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