I’m interested if the “not a bubble” camp also thinks 2020 wasn’t a bubble in retrospect
13 Likes
I believe ponchos are in a bubble, everything else is fine
2 Likes
usually the market dips during summer.
with that said, same time last year if i rolled into my local meijer store or best buy i would see the Pokemon section fully stocked with product. Today it’s still completely empty and I am lucky to see ANYTHING on the shelves
so it’s possible that going to the end of this year with the 30th anniversary coming up that we still havent even seen highs yet. The stuff that we say is ridiculously priced might seem cheap come December, Jan, Feb
the jury is still out
Bubbles are just a myth!
I should pick up a few more ex unseen forces smeargles at 2k
5 Likes
Here are some retrospective E4 threads for past bubbles. Those who don’t believe we’re in another one may want to have a read through these. There’s quite a few similarities to where we are now, just with different market segments.
2 Likes
In my mind bubbles, when they pop, cause some highly valued item to basically go to zero or some extremely small promotion of the ATH value. And in that way certain cards or groups of cards go through bubbles, but it’s hard for me to say the entire market is in a bubble when after the past few, the entire market remained much bigger than before even after it fell back to a more normal place.
But idk economics. I could be wrong about how to classify these things.
You didn’t actually answer my question lol
If prices stay elevated for long enough, a retreat in prices will only be minimal and you will never see former prices.
Think of the housing market. Everyone said huge bubble and will crash, ext.
Where I live a 600k house in 2019 is now well over a million. many of them doubled. Even if in the coming years there is a retracement of 20%, you will still be WELL over the referenced starting point
If the market accepts and sustains pricing for long enough it will be difficult to call this a bubble. more just a bull market that will eventually become a bear market… that will pick up again and eventually hit new highs once more
1 Like
also,
why is 6 months winning this poll?
you think going into the holidays is when the market crashes? what?
going into the 30th anniversary with all the hype, marketing, and promos is when u think prices will crash?
This is the new normal. There will be small corrections to the upward trend but no “crash”. Prices will rise 1000%, then drop 50% and everyone will say “haha bubble popped, i was right!”, but the new floor is still 500% up from the previous floor, and will start ticking up again. People have short memories. Rinse and repeat.
Just like loss-making companies with 1000P/E making ATH after ATH, there are no fundamentals anymore, just fear and greed. The world literally moves on one mans tweets. Greed will always overcome fear.
I hate to say it but Pokemon TCG is now an asset class, no different to housing or stocks.
Needless to say i hate this timeline.
Yes we’re in a bubble. pls tell the sneakerheads to go home and stop scalping pokemon cards
1 Like
its a poll, relax.
I get you but i want reasoning
there has to be a rhyme or reason as to why everyone is clicking 6 months. Which to me doesnt really make sense but id like to hear some arguements
In fact historically prices tend to peak into Christmas and the winter and then fall in the summer
Everyone will be fighting over all the 30th anniversary boosters and packs though. Given price appreciation of all the major anniversary products. You WILL see hysteria
especially if we see some exclusive japanese promos
market will go boom
What types of cards were you selling back in 2020 and roughly how much? What are you selling now? It’s hard to make this comparison if you were selling $2 oranges then and now $1000 mangoes now.
What cards are you picking up? The EU market is different from the US market and I have seen auction prices there be less affected. Countries are more cut off now due to the geopolitical state of things so it’s not out of the question for there to be less of a unified market. Perhaps this is why you strongly believe there isn’t a bubble as most of us on E4 are based in NA (or US specifically), where it’s very obvious there’s unprecedent demand and cards are increasing in value at an unnatural pace.
2 Likes
Imo, there are too many factors (some subjective) that contribute to market conditions and it’s never as simple as yes/no we’re in a bubble today. 1 month seems short-term but a lot can happen in 6.
1 Like
1 month was added as a cheeky option in the event everything tanks or reverts to normal levels just because Z&G went on vacation. 
1 Like
Back in 2016, for the 20th anniversary, the market was flooded with tons of promotional products, and people got overwhelmed. It became completely saturated, and many collectors gave up because there were just too many cards to collect in such a short time. A lot of former YouTubers either stopped collecting or significantly slowed down because of that. Many of us believe the same thing is happening again now — it already started in 2025, and 2026 will likely be even harder to keep up with, just like what happened in 2016
Its hard to say about the entirety of the market because many items didnt retrace to pre 2020 prices, some items continued to grow, and some items with poorer fundamentals crashed. Overall i would say 2020 was not a bubble because the market never returned to pre 2020 capitlization (at least to my knowledge but im no financial analyst)
Also people were saying this in 2020 too. It took a while but things did get better. Housing and stocks arent fully comparable to cards bc pokemon cards do not have intrinsic value
2 Likes
I think this is a key distinction here. If we define “bubble ending” as “everything goes back to pre-2025 prices” then the “bubble” will likely never end. Outside of smaller things which have been restricted to small individual classes of cards (e.g. 2023 waifu bubble), most bubbles have been fundamental restructurings of the entire market that don’t just disappear. Prices on things can and likely will go down, but not everything, and likely not even “most” of the market.
Segments of the market like the unavailability of modern at retail are likely short-term problems which will be resolved in 1-2 years max. This is a huge issue many people have with the current market, so when that gets resolved and prices for the most recent releases go down in turn people would likely say the bubble is done. But what happens to things like XY and BW era cards which have skyrocketed recently, as well as other low pop English 10s? It’s much harder to predict whether those will go down or if we’re at a new normal.
I do wonder how much “fundamental restructuring” the market can take before things burn out. I don’t think demand is unlimited and we might be getting close to the point where things simply can’t go any further and we experience a major drop across the board.
9 Likes
TPCi is smart they’ll drag it on for as long as possible, drop it for a little then bring it back I believe that’s how it’ll work from now on, bubble, dip bubble, dip, bubble, dip switching back and forth ever now and then, if people are treating a childrens card game like the stock market it’ll act like the stock market, I don’t t like it but this is where I think we are
1 Like