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
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.
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
This is a good point. When I made the poll I didn’t have “everything goes back down to pre-2025 prices” in mind but rather “cards stop hitting record sales every week in auction” and “people stop fighting outside Costco for modern product”.
There is some nuance as to what we can define as a bubble popping, but I think most would agree it “feels more relaxed” is when we’ve returned to more normal levels again, whatever those may be.
I’m still waiting for the original 1999 time magazine bubble to pop.
Seriously though, everytime this topic emerges, arguing if its a bubble or not is frankly boring; the value is understanding what to expect. Its obvious right now the market is doing well, but its not really similar to previous bubbles. I’ve never experienced this much sales volume, especially for every single category. A better conversation is why is this happening, and what will slow it down in the short term & long term?
Sure, but what about my daily sales that range from vintage - modern (excluding ultra modern)? Not trying to pick on your response, I agree that printing more will help current sets. However, speaking to the general topic, I think many people simply don’t have enough exposure to the market to understand the differences between what is happening right now vs 2020, 2016, etc. I was selling through all of those markets, and none of them are like what’s going on today.
Feel like rip and ship is at an all time high rn. I hear of relatively small (by channel size at least) youtubers buying and opening tens of thousands of packs per month.
I think there are likely different root causes for different aspects of the current market. I’m in the “bubble” camp: the velocity of changes has been too fast, I don’t think the widespread demand is sustainable, and I’m a follower of the church of passion executive.
I think the modern frenzy is in part driven by Pocket. The amount of eyes it’s brought to things is significant, and the low barrier to entry is great for that crowd. There’s also a massive shift we’re seeing in mainstream gambling culture. Sports gambling, Whatnot streams for rip and ships/box breaks, it’s all a troubling trend that won’t end well for most participating.
I think the PSA 10 vintage market is being propelled by social media and speculators, which are symptoms of macro market trends. I don’t think those trends are changing anytime soon, but I do think those trends are fickle. That buying pool will jump ship to whatever will get them views/clout/tendies. I’m guessing it’ll be a while before there’s much of a correction, because I think there will either need to be macro market trend changes to suppress the money in the hobby, or there will need to be some other shiny object that offers similar/better financial returns.
I’m starting to reach the apathy stage of it all. There are certain categories of cards I’m just going to avoid for a while that have higher opportunity costs than I’m comfortable with. There are plenty of cards that are still affordable that I’ll focus on for the time being. I strongly believe that most cards that have seen huge price jumps upwards (100%+) since this fall will follow the chart included above.
For starters, more people than ever are interested in pokemon. More card languages exist today. China alone wasn’t relevant in 2020, now they are a main player, have exclusive promos, and it’s still early days. Conventions like collectacon and many others are a staple and didn’t exist 5 years ago.
The demand right now is more widespread. While stonkers and record sales generate a lot of noise, the customer base, at least from my end, feels more diverse. Even the most unsexy things like vintage Japanese holo cards are selling for me weekly. If I had to generalize, 2016 was pretty organic, 2020 had higher speculation and was more conditional than what’s happening today.
I already said that my most pessimistic estimations for things to get fixed was May. So far, I think I’ll be wrong. 6 months from now would be November. That would be a full year since the start. That sounds like it could be when things cool down.
That said, I don’t think its a matter of time anymore…And I’ll leave it at that for the purpose of this thread.
Interest will end when either outside circumstances dictate so (wars, depression etc) or no interest in pokemon anymore… what are the odds of either happening anytime soon? Also would be naive to think they haven’t thought of how to maintain interest, rememeber many pillars to the marketing.
