Trophy cards had established value many years ago. If someone had 100’s of copies, he/she would have offloaded them gradually. Why now? Several reasons - demand and prices have skyrocketed for pokemon cards in general. Economical situation in Japan has not been fantastic, add covid-19 to the mix and you’ll find a lot more sellers.
Every individual values cards differently. Some desire a high-quality PSA 10 worthy card, some desire the trophy case and some desire the best of both worlds. As poke-geri has stated, there is absolutely no way of knowing even with the trophy case whether these cards were extras, or obtained from previous winners. Cards can be traded and swapped. Likewise, trophy cases are also sold on platforms in Japan. How could anyone possibly verify whether this card was actually a ‘winners copy’ if this is the case? Verify it by asking the seller for photographic evidence and match the holo pattern. Let’s face it, nobody will go to that extent.
The only cards that CAN be verified are the trainer cards with the winners names/faces printed. To make things simple, let’s leave out the possibility that people still consider the someone owning a card printer and churning out all these extras.
Now let me ask you (let’s dream a little and imagine this were possible), which would you prefer:
Option A - BGS black label pika 97, no trophy case, no verification through photographs whether it was awarded, sold by someone who is selling blank boy girl trainer cards.
Or
Option B - psa 5 dented pika 97, trophy case, owner provides photographic evidence that he was the winner and for some reason also documented detailed images of the holo pattern.
The answer for majority of people currently is: i’ll take what I can get, literally.
Why?
The current supply cannot meet the demand now. This means, it will never meet the demand unless hundreds of these cards surface in a short span of time. Try to understand something, sales/trades happen in private and for each sale, it will only reach record highs. Collectors will continue to hold their cards simply because they do not need the money and because I know each of them truly believe that their cards will be irreplaceable the moment it is sold.
There is risk in everything that we do. If you truly believe there is a printer out there churning out these trophies daily, then putting in 6 figures is obviously not an intelligent decision. Consider your financial situation and If you love the card, the history and importance of it, then decide for yourself - is it honestly something I am comfortable with, owning a part of history even though it could be a copy?
Nothing that hasn’t been said already, but put me in the ‘would prefer one awarded as a prize but oh ok if you insist I guess I can take this ‘extra’ off your hands’.
The cards are so rare that for most people I think it’s a case of beggars can’t be choosers (I hate that expression and no one spending 200k+ on a card is a beggar, but you get the point). Is someone really going to pay significantly more for an ‘early’ PSA number, or pass on a ‘newer’ one in the hope that one surfaces in the future?
Is it a guarantee that all of the ‘original’ cards available were definitely prizes?
I actually think you point out a really good example here.
Let’s say that SOMEHOW we *knew* that one of those Poliwraths, Snorlaxes, or Mr. Mimes were the ones that were awarded to the contest winners.
Would anyone be willing to pay an insane amount of money (typical trophy card amount of money) for the winner’s copy DESPITE the fact that the card is completely indistinguishable from the cards that were mass produced for the vending series (edit: Red/Green gift set)?
I highly doubt that.
Which again emphasizes the point - what we’re really after here is incredibly rare Pokemon cards, less so the “this copy came from the winner” aspect.
I’m actually sorry to stir things up further, but I have to bring this up:
You guys remember the TMB trhopy exeggutor with “wide” borders, that was presumably handcut from the sheet by an empolyee?
As far as I remember all the knowledgable guys here agreed that it comes from an original sheet out of the original printer, but it was more or less worthless (or at least FAR away from the “real” trophy value), because it didn’t have a verifiable legitimate release.
This argument now pretty much collapses back up on itself, doesn’t it? Where is the line then? Does the act of being cut by the original machine decide whether a card has value or not?
Again, I’m not trying to be contrarian here or anything, but the arguments back then were made with a claim to absoluteness. These new circumstancens might require a reevaluation on this topic, no?
Yes, I think that the trophy card must be unique to gain value.
Corocoro illustration contest Poliwrath is different from the one in Vending series 1, but I dont notice differences from the Poliwrath red/green gift set (maybe a little the brightness/color, but the card looks the same, both have No symbol).
It’s not worthless but people may value it less because it is lacking in the following areas (my assumption):
the card is not properly cut
the condition is not ideal
the card cannot be graded regardless of it being printed officially
Let’s say there is a PSA 10 ‘copy’ (unverfiable)
vs a PSA 8 ‘awarded’ (verifiable)
Both come without a trophy case though, because the owner decided to keep it. Are you telling me those who had a choice would pay higher for the PSA 8 awarded copy?
It’s down to preference but I would just pay for the PSA 10 ‘copy’
I’m not arguing at all whether one card should be worth more or less than the other.
All I’m saying is that the main argument (“no official release”) from two years ago doesn’t seem to work under these new circumstances.
I think it is pretty awesome provenance to have a file copy card from one of the original contributors to Pokemon. The oversized TMB has 0 provenance and is completely different to a card from our lord and saviour Pkonno’s vault.
The idea of a card being handcut / not properly cut / not gradable takes a lot away from the value of the card IMO.
It is a very different situation from a file copy that was cut properly and is indistinguishable from one of the awarded copies.
*OF COURSE* all of this is completely subjective. There’s no right or wrong.
The value of that wide-bordered TMB trophy is of course whatever someone would be willing to pay for it.
But as far as whether or not it’s a “legitimate” copy, I suppose that’s a matter of scale? It would be something less authentic than an awarded copy and a file copy. But also something more notable than a regular-old fake. At the end of the day it’s what people make of it.
eh… this might be an unpopular opinion but the real card is the real card and i wouldn’t care one way or another if it was “awarded” to someone or just kept on file by an employee after it was printed from the factory.
That said, those trophy cases they were awarded in are awesome looking and a lot of collectors would be willing to pay additional money for the case, because they see value in that.
I agree. Although I would prefer an awarded copy to pkonno’s copies (if choosing between 2 cards in the same condition), it’s hard to make an argument against pkonno’s copies not being legitimate when the guy was one of the creators of the Pokemon TCG and his copies are the ones that were used for the Pokemon bible. Like I said, I’ll take what I can get.
I think a better analogy would be when a basketball team has championship rings made for the team and a few extras go out to some non-players that the team decides to honor such as someone who was traded or is a team ambassador or is a high up executive.
Do you really think Kyle Lowrie’s championship ring with the Toronto Raptors is worth more than say, Drake’s? Drake didn’t compete. He cheered from the sidelines and dropped albums instead of balls through hoops. It’s the same ring. It isn’t a jewler’s test ring like an earlier analogy someone mentioned that I don’t think is accurate.
Well, yeah I agree that I would personally prefer a pkonno regular card over the hand cut one. But I that’s not really my point…
What I’m asking is, should we scrap the “legitimate release” argument altogether? I mean for all trophy cards, not only this one.
Look, these were the main arguments in the TMB thread early on:
*"PSA won’t grade it.
The card was clearly not awarded at the tournament.
Arguing about any other point is a waste of time as it is obviously not a legitimate release."*Arguing about “legitimate release” as a deciding factor of authenticity and value doesn’t really make sense anymore, does it?
Wouldn’t it be closer to market reality if we replaced the “release” argument with a “(authentic Media Factory) production” argument?
(of course PSA still won’t grade that fat TMB card, but that’s not my point)
As for the actual topic: I personally wouldn’t care if it’s from a winner or an extra copy. Both were (most likely) from the same sheet and cut by the same machine at the same time. Whether it was once owned by a winner or it’s an extra copy directly from the factory, is irrelevant for the rarity of the actual item. If I one day come across a SNAP Photo Pikachu which I can afford, I will buy it. If I can choose between a played version that was actually rewarded to the winner, or a NM factory copy, I’d choose the NM factory copy any day of the week. Not that there would ever be such a choice, since the last SNAP Pikachu sold that I’m aware of was in 2005…
The fat-bordered TMB trophy would be a different story though. If a fat-bordered SNAP Photo Contest Pikachu would exist, I would see it as a separated variant for my collection, and I’d (theoretically of course) want both of them.
