Putting $10,000 into Perspective

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Thought this would be a fun thing to do for myself and anyone else who may find it interesting. This weekend, a PSA 10 Ruby and Sapphire Mewtwo ex sold for $9,900. We’ll call it $10k. It feels like more and more cards are nearing that threshold. You might think that’s not really that much (Is $10k a lot to you?), there are cards make that sale look downright cute.

But, that $10,000 could also buy you:

22 nights at the All Inclusive Cancun Marriott

A 2019 Nissan Sentra with 68k miles

10 months of groceries for a family of 4 in the US (source)

Average of 5 months rent in the US (source)

About 4 months of rent for a 2br apartment in Toronto (source)

500 $20 pizzas

A really nice wardrobe upgrade

1-2 weeks of a really nice trip to Europe

25 PSA 8 Ruby and Sapphire Mewtwo exs

New records are set everyday, but the world keeps turning. Sometimes it’s hard to keep perspective, but helpful to reground from time to time :slight_smile:

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Side note, anyone else who thinks 500 pizzas might sustain them for a year

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Easy

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Yea, $10k is stupid money. Im broke. One day only the doctors and lawyers will enjoy vintage.

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$10,000 is middle class now. You’re a functional member of society (barely!) but will get looked down upon by the elites and their PSA 10 gold stars and Gengars.

$1,000 is poverty tier. You have to save up for half a year to afford a random ex bulk reverse card. If you can only afford cards in this range you should consider applying for welfare and check out your local food bank.

(This is satire at how absurd card prices have become)

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Been thinking about this a lot Will.

I know there’s a lot of longtime collectors here kinda got used to cards being casually worth crap tons of money now that it’s been 6 years and counting. I remember the 25 year bubble memes in 2020 when things first started exploding. But I’ve seen some truly entitled takes here over the last few years where people not only don’t express shock at high prices, but almost as if it is expected. Yeah, sure, there are some very rich people buying PSA 10 chase cards and such, I get that, but outside of that small minority, it seems people are starting to just see the value of cards differently, like it is normal for just some set card to be casually in the 100s, whether it is a vintage set or especially modern.

This is wild to me, and always will be. I’ll abstain from the usual reflections of missing the times where cards were pennies on the dollar and all that but I will always view the cards as cards. It’s important to keep perspective and realize even 100s of dollars for any but the most rare and desirable and limited cards is wild, wild money to be spending on cards. Maybe not if you make 300k+ a year (that’s like 3-4% of the US), sure, but to the vast, vast majority, it is nothing short of reckless to be spending the kind of money I’m seeing on cards. To this day, 2k is the most I’ve spent on a card and it was a lottery card, a unique purchase, it felt bad to spend, I’m happy I have the card, but the perspective I’ll always have is that that was A LOT to spend on a card being a person of average means. Even considering I sold cards to even get it, which I have the privilege of doing so since I collected cards from the long long ago and was able to take what was originally maybe $50 worth of cards and sell for and upwards of 1k or whatever.

I think it’s not just a conversation about perspective, but to urge the reader to be frugal and not spend above your means just because the status quo of this uniquely expensive hobby has this sort of high cost. When you can get a motor vehicle, significant percentage of a house downpayment, etc etc, for the cost of one graded card, you know things have gotten incomprehensibly wild.

10k on a card is only for those who are dealing in 100k’s worth of liquid assets, and their entry cost was low. Otherwise it is completely reckless and wild. Perhaps we’ve still yet to grasp just how much ultra wealth has entered recently for the express purpose of speculating, and that will become clear in the next year or two.

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ballooning psa 10s dont scare me that much. What does scare me though are when the raw cards start to explode. It becomes harder and harder to buy without either lowering condition and/or readjusting main collection goals. With each of these booms we see new floor prices. Kinda sucks.

It used to be that the crazy prices were relegated to the top graded, most rare, arguably most niche cards. Now we are seeing everyday cards shoot up. Not that this card is an everyday card, but you get the idea.

Even amongst some very played, definitely ungradable, “niche” (unpopular) cards im after im seeing $50+ for raw copies. This adds up fast

Also, member when modern psa 10s were under $1000…

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And 1/2 of a gameshow promo

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I am struggling with this recently. I have spent maybe $1500 so far, this year, on cards that two years ago would have been $600.

I just moved into a new place and find it easier to spend money on cards than necessities. I am extremely cheap when it comes to buying food, clothing, or furniture.

It’s caused a little bit of a problem.

I think your comment is very well said and we have to reprioritize how we collect in today’s inflated market.

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I generally cope with these trends by purchasing cards I like that are inexpensive. The surprising thing is when those cards randomly skyrocket in price too. Some of my $10 reverse holos from just two years ago are now selling over $100. It never fails to surprise me

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The PSA 10 premium is literally out of touch with reality. Even vintage sports cards don’t run into this issue.
If a low pop high-end vintage sports card is worth $18K in a PSA 9, the PSA 10 is going run you around $22-25k. Not to make light of a difference of 4-7 thousand dollars, but not that drastic percentage wise.

Meanwhile, in the English market thread, we see a Porygon-2 PSA 10 from Unseen Forces go for 4.5K+, and yet I can go on eBay RIGHT NOW and buy a PSA 9 for less than a hundred bucks. Completely out of line.

Logic and collectible principles have left the building; it’s purely speculative, pop count be damned. These certain sectors of the market aren’t just echoing NFT’s, they’re straight up following the map NFT’s left behind like it’s an episode of Dora the Explorer. I think these people are going to be supremely disappointed when they find out that there is no other person willing to spend more on their cards.

“What do you mean nobody is going to pay me 20k for the expedition magby holo I spent 13.5 on? I thought Pokemon was 100% liquid and going up 5ever!”

–———

In response to the thread itself, yeah, it’s bonkers how loosely people talk about spending thousands of dollars on trading cards now, as if the majority of Americans don’t have less than a thousand in the bank right now, let alone folks from less wealthy countries. I’ve undoubtedly spent a buttload of cash on my hobbies, but I’ve always reminded myself of how damn lucky I am to do so. The blatant lack of regard for financial awareness and collectible principles I’ve witnessed both online & in-person over the last year is truly, truly concerning. Spending multiple hundreds, thousands or more on a card is something that’s supposed to come with tenure, and a degree of hobby wisdom, not “I just started collecting yesterday and bought this PSA 10 vintage for 8K, was that a good price?”

When this boom period took off, there were valid arguments on both sides about whether this was a bubble or not, but at this point, I just can’t understand a point of view that doesn’t see it as one.

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Agreed. It’s interesting to me, in terms of what the future holds, that even some of those who can afford to spend more than they are have decided not to support the current market.

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For most of my time in this hobby, there were ceiling prices that cards would get stuck at. For example, hitting $1000 would be notable and for set cards, it was hard to get over $2000 other than a handful of exceptions (charizards, or single digit pop cards, etc).

I think the odd thing today is that that price ceiling has just been blown away for PSA 10s specifically. It feels odd. Who are these buyers that will drop these 4-5 figure amounts for such random cards and where were they 5 years ago? To me there definitely feels like a level price variability that is unsustainable.

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I think about this a lot.

I’ve been interested in watches for over a decade now. That is obviously a hobby that for decades has been seen as kind of the epitome of veblen goods luxury spending… and now, what was once my most extravagant hobby is just utterly and ridiculously overshadowed by my Pokémon card hobby.

In 2026, 10k in watches gets you a refined and respected little collection - a Rolex, a vintage Omega, a couple of unique microbrand watches bought directly from the company founders at a watch show.

2026 in Pokémon, 10k doesn’t even get you the inventory of a dime-a-dozen local card show vendor.

I think it’s emphasized by the fact that Pokémon collecting by definition of “Gotta catch ‘em all” is a hobby that really encourages breadth. It’s very rare for someone to buy 5 cards and call their collection complete. The quantity that is encouraged, on top of the mad individual values, is what ends up making the context of this hobby so crazy.

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Over the years I’ve been here, it’s become more and more apparent to me that I don’t care about expensive cards in general. It’s not that I have anything against others having them, and especially the niche promos are wonderful little physical remnants of history over the past 3 decades. I love learning about these cards and their history, but I could not care less about the price, and more expensive does not equal cooler or better for me. I’ve accepted that multiple-thousand-dollar cards are simply not for me to own- and that’s okay!

Set cards should not be hundreds of dollars out of the gate, and every time I see another sneaker-investor-finance-bro talking about how Pokemon card “investments” are the future, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t want my collection to be an investment. I’m never going to sell my Piplups, and if everything went to 0, I’d still be happy with what I already own.

Hunting for cards can be a blast, but I have way more fun tracking down a 10 cent common constructed deck card from 8 years ago in a language I don’t speak than clicking buy on a $200 listing of a card I’ve been staring at for ages. I begrudgingly save and purchase cards within my collection goals, but I’d be just as happy (probably moreso!) if those same cards were near worthless.

Multiple thousands for children’s cardboard is crazy to me, and seeing prices skyrocket and regular set cards become unattainable for the average person is even more wild than limited vintage promos going as high as some do.

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the new poke boom boom is more of a psa 10 bubble than anything :rofl:

if psa 10s have increased by 20-30x for set cards since 2024 then psa 9 might have increased by 20-30% :rofl:

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I can see a future where Pokemon never crashes, and the endless harping on its nostalgia is woven into the very fabric of reality like a Beatles or James Bond as the generational takeover that we categorically struggle to envision finally takes place. I can also see Pokemon falling into a pit in the earth, ill-remembered, a bloated vehicle for the worst of the digital natives built on the hollowed-out husk of an intrinsically cheap franchise. Or something in between.

But I am over it. Buying Pokemon cards became a foreign concept to me quite a while ago.

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If anyone is interested, I’m selling my collection and hosting a big pizza party

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10k is a lot of money.

My grandfather saved €50 every month from the day I was born until I turned 18. That added up to just under 11k..
18 years of putting aside €50 every single month, or in the Pokémon universe, buying one ETB every month.

Personally, current prices feel extremely inflated to me, and I doubt they can hold up long term. My gut feeling is that the broader collector base, considering its demographic structure and average income level, probably cannot sustainably support the market’s current valuation

Does it really make sense that thousands of people suddenly have 20k sitting in their closet just because they own a Mario Pika? The market cap honestly worries me.

Can all these assets really be liquidated? Would the market withstand a wave of liquidations during a crisis?

I do believe that new money is entering the market on a larger scale, but some cards feel more like a game of hot potato than genuine collectibles.

I’ve completely pulled back from buying, sold a few cards to and set myself a reminder for four years from now.

Hopefully I was right and I’ll be able to buy my cards back.

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forget my previous message re: pizza a day
i didnt do the math right at all