Vintage seems to be bottoming out for sure. Money supply has seen the biggest YoY decrease since 1930 or something so the macro is pretty terrible (10 year yields hit 5% today!). Will get better over the next few years as we approach 30th anniversary.
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Hmmm… its weird bc when i open my modern binders, i feel very happy flipping through them, despite the fact that im missing most of the chase cards. Same could probably be said for vintage, but i think i would value the presence of the holos in vintage much more than i value the presence of the FA/ SA/ Gold/ RR cards in my modern binders
I speak for myself, but I like many of the more “common” vintage cards, probably just nostalgia. 1st edition base hits hard though, even the energies. Collect what you love 
for me its the bulk in expedition aquapolis and skyridge! All of those cards could be a modern illustration rare tier card
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I’ve had an increased appreciation for a lot of the ex era, particularly the delta cards. there are some wild artworks. Arita, saitou, harada, kusajima, and fukuda (to name a few) were busting out so many bangers. That’s part of the reason why i went back and made gen 1 and 2 of my dex binder start with ex era cards at the earliest (aside from very few exceptions like neo 2 and vs umbreon and espeon and the corocoro shining mew which is just an all time classic. This bleeds over a bit into the DP/PT era as well. For me, there is nothing quite like gen 3 and 4 artworks.
edit (for legal reasons): ex era bad
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wailmer in the booth cooking rn 
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If I knew how to use those AI art extender things I’d make some kickin aquapolis common full arts
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Since my re-entry back into the Pokemon collecting sphere in 2019, most of my purchases have been in entirely in modern.
With sets like Hidden Fates, Eevee Heroes, quite frankly any Japanese set in the Sword and Shield era, it was hard not to focus on anything other than modern.
I’ve been working on a JP binder of some of my favorite hits for a little over a year now, and realized while I still have some of my old back Japanese set holos from when I was a kid, most were in played condition and didn’t really fit the condition (NM-Mint) expectations I have for my binder. To me you can’t do a binder of JP hits without the original cards somewhere sprinkled in.
So I started from scratch and found a treasure chest of options.
The past month I’ve been spending heavy and have bought 25+ holos from
• Base Set
• Jungle
• Fossil
• Rocket
• Gym Sets
• Neo Sets
98% are absolutely mint and the remaining NM. I shouldn’t be able to purchase these incredible holos for this cheap.
With Scarlet and Violet not as appealing for me with the exception of 151, grabbing these holos showed me how much I under appreciated the original Japanese era.
This thread was originally created in Oct 2023 and for the life of me I can’t figure out why there was/is so much vintage hate. The prices are still as affordable than ever just like they were last year.
I’ll stress this again. I shouldn’t be able to purchase these incredible holos for this cheap.
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You’re correct. Japanese set cards are quite undervalued at the moment at least compared to their English counterparts. Chase Japanese are the same - think Shinings, crystal and gold stars. Way more affordable in higher grades.
I would caution on going heavy on Japanese set cards from an investment perspective as they had heavy print runs with a high print quality rate.
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I have seen these types of comments and I’m wondering what cards exactly people are talking about when they say vintage is down. I don’t really stay on top of the market and just browse for set cards I am interested in- things in the $50-300 range don’t seem to have moved much at all since I came back when Celebrations was out. Are y’all just talking about the real high end cards or am I missing something?
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To echo @gengarbrigade I bought all JP Base Set holos in PSA and CGC 8-9 condition in the fall and most were low $100 or sub $100 for holos (outside the big three). Such great value IMO.
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I feel like I should retitle this as price of Pokémon. It feels like modern and vintage are just about money now. Really feels like efour is one of the last places that it’s about collecting
Like it doesn’t even feel like collecting. It just feels like showing off on instagram or YouTube. Idk what I’m saying. Rant over
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Keeping up with the Jones’ of Instagram.
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They’re all going to the binder. As some point investing has to take a backseat and admiring the art comes to focus
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I did the same for a graded binder! All CGC 8-9. A lot of them were like $20-50 and I think I even overpaid on some from impatience lol Only Zard was over $100
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