Bought this for around $200 wayyyy back. The responsible thing probably would’ve been to sell it at some point during the covid madness but I’m happy to have it still.
I also bought PSA 10 20th festa for very cheap what it goes for now. If I remember right it was late 2018 and I paid $350 for it. One of my favorite cards in my collection.
It is a wonderful card!
Bought these for $250-$500 ea back in 2016-ish (plus another couple that I stupidly opened). I only ended up realizing they had gone up in value in late 2019. When I discovered that my initial ~$1000 investment had turned into almost $10k over the course of just a few years, I immediately listed them (they all sold within a month or so). It felt fiscally irresponsible not to cash out at that point.
Of course, right after I sold these I started to become interested again in collecting lol. Fast forward to 2023 and I’ve re-acquired several more EX boxes and am actively looking to purchase a Ruby box for more than 20x what I paid in 2016 and more than 2x what I sold mine for in 2019. Ahhhh, the joys of collecting Pokemon cards…
This Neopets Sketch card of the LE “Draik” pet is one of the handful of items in my collection that I purchased with 0 expectation of future value, essentially spending $250 for pure personal enjoyment.
It’s not that tough to say no with offers that are +1000% in value since it was purely bought out of love for the item. But I do wish I had purchased multiple different sketch cards back then to sell now.
in 2005 We went to Austria to play a tournament.
The promo they handed out was nothing special, they had 2 different ones. I traded a few to bring home for my fellow collectors, however 1 of them was not as much given out as the other during that day. But I managed to get enough of them.
Later on that year, I traded one of each to a fellow collector, I had spare ones so 1 less wasn’t a big thing.
2017 my fellow collector told me he was going to sell his whole collection.
I asked him if the cards I brought him over the years were still in there.
Most of all that particular one. I found out over the years that card was rare, very rare.
Yes he still had it along with many setcards and different promocards.
I never buy cards/sets but this time I wanted that card back.
So we agreed on a price, I paid and got it back.
It’s there in the middle of the page, glad to have it back.
I think it’s worth now as much as I paid for the whole collection that time.
Oh that is freaking awesome
Easily my Japanese PSA 10 Rayquaza Gold Star in unlimited. Bought it for $100 in october 2015 and its now easily my most valuable card. I was actually talking with my girlfriend yesterday about how much it was worth but the fact that i didnt think i would ever be able to bring myself to sell it due to both never being able to require it due to the cost and my attachment to the card as it was my first “big” purchase when i got back into collecting.
I guess this is my “one that got away” kind of story. Right as COVID started I bought a Base Set PSA 9 1st Blastoise - aka my favorite Pokémon. Don’t remember the exact amount, but somewhere around a couple thousand. Was so happy I’d finally bought one. When I got it, I found a weird blue goo-like substance under the case. Worried that it might have damaged the card, I contacted the seller and managed to get a refund. Was really, really bummed about it.
The next part is a little murky, but some other items came up and I purchased some other cards. Meant to get back to Blastoise and find another copy… Well we all know what happened with prices during quarantine and I quickly saw that Blastoise had increased more than 5x. I even think it got so bad later on that PWCC sold one for close to $18k.
To this day I wish that stupid goo hadn’t been there. My best purchase and worst loss all rolled into one.
I picked up PSA 10 copies of the 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 Festa Pikachus back in early 2018; think i spent little over $500 for all of them.
I just really loved the art and I had expected it to be an ongoing annual series that I could add to. But when the 2016 was going for over $5K I felt like I had to let it go because I dont really collect graded cards and the money could do a lot for me at the time. I miss the cards especially because i dont have ungraded copies for my Pikachu binder but don’t really regret my decision.
Similar story with Mario and Luigi Pikachu boxes bought at ~$250 each with the intention to open for my Pikachu binder but I left them sealed too long until I felt opening them was too much money.
I bought a single German 1st Edition Base Set pack off of Mercari last January for $250 to celebrate finishing my Ph.D.
Well…
Back in 2017, I collected the whole CP6 set and started to notice that there are also Japanese XY-P promo cards with the Base Set layout, and after some research I noticed that most of them were fairly easy to get (except the $300 Suzukisan that is), so I decided to collect them all as a stretch goal.
Out of all the promos I listed, the price of Basic Energies were $70 per card which were somewhat high for Basic Energies, but the price tags were still within my reach so I bought them without thinking for too long.
Now those Basic Energies are in a safe.
I don’t recall seeing these energies before. They sure look neat, though. What’s their backstory and their current going rate?
I would have to pick my very first Art Academy, I picked this up on eBay for around $150 from the Winners father, not expecting it to become a $8000+ single card in the future. In 2015 this was my most expensive single card purchase!
The CD promos were the first slabs I ever bought, and I got each for $50-$60. I bought the Art Chairzard for $35 raw.
Sightseer I pulled myself (I opened 4-5 Tag All Star boxes around release). I’d never buy one at the current price
The Energies are known to Japanese as Anniversary Energies (アニバエネ) .
Unlike Evolutions, the CP6 set doesn’t include any Basic Energy, and all Basic Energies were released in Japan as XY-P promo cards instead. Non-holo copies can be obtained by participating any Card Gym battle during the 20th Anniversary celebration period between August and October 2016, while the holo copies can only be obtained by enrolling into either of the two Anniversary Battles (October 10 in Niigata or October 23 in Aichi) and win 5 consecutive matches (if you’re familiar with Champions Leagues in Japan, the difficulty is about the same as getting one of those Pokémon V promos in CLs). In addition, each participant can only receive one card per tournament out of all 9 different types.
This explains why the Energies were expensive from the start (although I have no idea at the time and just wanted to complete my stretch goal ). The difficuly of obtaining them combined with how they resemble the past had gradually made them one of the favorite types of Energies among players who build and play high rarity decks, however that further increases the demend as these players need multiple copies of cards that were already hard to get. By 2018 market prices have raised to $400 to $500 per card, which is when I decided to submit them for grading. My set became the first complete set graded by PSA and luckily the first complete set of all 10s.
After 2018 the prices have dropped to around $250 per card, but in 2021 people celebrated the 25th anniversary by hyping Evolutions and CP6. Market prices skyrockted even more in 2022, when actor Kanata Hongō entered Japan Championships with his high rarity Jolteon deck and his game streamed live to wide audience.
The live stream attracted more players and collectors who were not aware of Anniversary Energies, and the market prices eventually climbed to the current prices of $2000 per card except Fairy Energy’s $1000 as it’s no longer legal in Standard Format.
As far as biggest increase in price percentage, probably my Evolutions Staff Machamp. Got that not long after it released for like $25 or something
Thank you so much for the in-depth answer! That’s awesome information. I absolutely love such obscure, super limited release stories!
Especially since an unsuspecting fool like myself would easily glance over these cards if they ever come up for sale (… not any more, though )
Dude I’m sad now. I want those energies! I’m a sucker for rainbows of holo energies! Ahhhhh!!!