Ive made 3-4x on 151 product in like 8 months. It was just sitting around last year in abundance. I knew it was gonna go up but nowhere near this fast. Crazy times for sure
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Which gyarados did you get?
I think that the market is bound to see a downturn in the next year or two but with what degree is so much harder to say. Even with the 30th anniversary looming I wouldn’t feel shocked to see this happening tomorrow or 6 months from now - or 6 months after the release of the 30th anniversary set. Either way, in my brain, a dramatic correction and possibly an overcorrection depending on broader market factors is the most likely outcome to this madness.
I think a lot of people forget how quickly Pokemon became “uncool” for so many young people across America and sort of faded into the backgrounds of their lives to a baseline interest level of 0%. The signs that people forget this, never knew it or do not care at all are everywhere.
Now that it is treated like an investment vehicle and theres people who make money streaming themselves opening packs and grown young and old men are beating each other with blunt objects and brawling, we are obviously in a different world entirely but I do not see any reason why this same kind of tidal sentiment change couldn’t happen over the next few years. The people involved may be a little bit older now and their motivations to a large degree are different than the children of the 90s and early 00s but to think that the demand will continue so intensely and not correct drastically, ever, is really not logical in my humble and ignorant opinion.
How many overpriced PE packs will the average modern collector open before becoming disenfranchised? How many gambling addicts will lose everything? How many crimes will be committed? Its hard to say and I think we’ve got a little while to go until we see the peak degenerate bastard consequences - and the rock bottom - of our current gluttonous market environment.
Can Ash and Pikachu (not sure what they represent) stop team Rocket (gambling degenerate mind virus) and save the day? The answer is no.
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Pretty normal for a weak 10…
I don’t know why people think we’re in a bubble 
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its pretty funny how many of these old full arts have surpassed a lot of psa 10 1st ed base holo prices 
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The market finally realizes how bad most of base set holos are.
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I agree. I think people shouldn’t bid them up in auction and give these ugly Sugumario stock arts to me 
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I dont think base set is where it is because of some misguided notion that the art is incredible.
I think the market significantly overvalues flashy set cards and generally undervalues historical or contextual aspects of cards. But I say this with the acknowledgement that I’m an elitist collector and most of the market today doesn’t go beyond the surface level of valuing a card proportional to how many social media likes it can get.
Maybe I’m being cynical but I think that’s the market reality today and for the indefinite future.
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Some individual parts of the market (particularly single card purchases) are behaving in a rather bubbly manner, but the market as a whole is not in a bubble. We said covid was a bubble, but I’m pretty sure I don’t remember the market popping. New norms, new benchmark numbers of people in MAHAHBEE, some outlier bubble activity within certain segments, etc. Prices on the whole will cool off at some undetermined point, but nothing other than the smaller inorganic ‘bubble segments’ will actually come crashing back down.
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I am curious to know everyone’s perspectives on whether or not low pop DP-BW-XY PSA10s are considered to be in a bubble right now
Prices on vintage English increased across the board during 2020/2021. Prices across whole segments decreased during 2022/2023.
Of course there were exceptions, and some low pop cards stayed flat or kept most of their initial gains, but there were significant drops too.
I bought a 1st Edition PSA 8 T17 Typhlosion for $1500 in 2020. I recently sold it for $400.
That wasn’t an isolated incident. I have a family member who bought a PSA 9 Unlimited Charizard for $3000 in 2020. At one point it was $6000 — this individual bought it on the way down, thinking they were getting a bargain. Well it kept dropping all the way to $1000. Now it still is below $2000.
I know we can point and say those are isolated incidents but they really arent. English WOTC as a whole had many examples like this. That’s a big enough category to justify saying the hobby was at least in part in a bubble then.
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shiny charbar selling for almost as much as ppl dont even want a mewtwo for, a card that is actually hard to get in a 10
i had shiny charbar at 10k for months no one wanted it
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Was it new cert scans MBA diamond certified with a swirl? Thought so.
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I feel like you’re right, and if so that’s great for people who enjoy vintage.
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Honestly, this is most convincing thing I’ve read on this topic. Despite always being a fan of Pokemon, I’ve the popularity of Pokemon wax and wane over time. I feel as we continue towards unprecedented times globally, there’ll be a lot on people’s radars beyond Pokemon.
My opinion is that rather than talking about a bubble, I do think that the floor in the hobby has increased a good amount across the board for sure. I can easily see SV modern dropping some for sure, especially Prismatic, but vintage/mid-era? Idk. I think if the older, lower pop slabs start to drop uniformly, people will just stop putting them up for sale.
I know many of y’all have been here forever so it’d be interesting to get y’all’s perspective on if they’ve seen more vintage/older slabs showing up now then they did beforehand. I’d imagine that’s the case. I feel that given the average collector now has avenues such as Whatnot/Instagram/TikTok/card shows/Fanatics/personal websites to find/source what they are looking for now outside of just eBay, it’s easier for buyers to get exactly what they want and it gives sellers an easier time to find that specific buyer.
Could be dead wrong about all of it though. All I know is Prismatic better drop 
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I think it will be near impossible for Pokémon to carry that history forward in every time something new is released. The franchise is much larger now because of the flashy sets, new lore to develop, is generating a wider more popular ecosystem over the years with it to collect, and would ironically not be so relevant today if it kept relying on the significance of base set (Evolutions had exhausted that idea)
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I’m not specifically talking about base set nor am I advocating for a constant rehashing of base set.
I’m contrasting the idea of market price and collector value. That prices are driven heavily by whether the card (and grade) triggers the “monkey neuron activation” in the brain. The contrast being valuing items the same way a museum might, because there is some context or intention to the card that makes it really interesting.
It’s not necessarily a modern/vintage split. An example I can point to is how the stamp promos have not moved in price at all despite the “bubble” and even how the pikachu is like 5x the price of the cramorant despite being contextually equivalent.
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