25 PSA 8 Ruby and Sapphire Mewtwo exs
Conditional rarity feels unattainable now. But I love that raw / “non-gem-mint” prices haven’t scaled as much. Perfectly happy buying cards to go in my lightly/heavily-played and below binder for <1% PSA 10 prices.
The current price situation really does read as crypto investors fleeing after their own bubble popped to an “asset” that actually has enjoyer…
But I really do think that a lot of the hype is ironically due to these types selling to eachother.
They’re hoping that they can maintain the interest of rich kids who need a quick flex, or people of more moderate means who are genuinely willing to finance PSA 10 zards just for that nostalgia.
I think the latter’s interest in the hobby is currently propping up the bubble, but how long until they get bored?
I just did the rough math based on a large dominos pepperoni pie. I would gain about 150lbs in the span of year.
i think the noobs underestimate how difficult some of this stuff will be to sell once the market eventually stops booming when they have an ebay account with like <100 fb 
(i suppose u can always send to consignment but then u dont have full control over ur stuff)
thats not even considering that most of the “pokeinvestors” think sealed product is the best investment because it is the most braindead one (i.e. just shove it in a closet for 10+ years and youll get 10x gains at least). even if sealed product replicates the performance it did in the past (which it wont because everyone and their grannie is hoarding it) they will have no clue how to sell it coz its not like u can just go post a 10k booster box on ebay with a no feedback account without everyone tryna scam u and if you go sell your sealed product at conventions, auction houses etc you are getting 80% at the very most (but most likely a lot less). and almost all consignment places are gonna refuse sealed product due to online scams and the fact that no one can grade it since there is no way to tell with 100% certainty that it hasnt been resealed.
at least with slabs you can sell like 6 figure slabs on your own without the risk of getting scammed because of auth guarantee… but even then a lot of ppl dont kno alot of the nuances coz alot of pokemans will remove the guarantee if u just list the title normally due to keywords
Lots of good takes here, what strikes me is that for me personally, and the type of cards I tend to go for, $2k was this kind of higher end price ceiling for so many cards I wanted to buy–for years. So that $2k was grounded in the reality of what $2k means to me personally, and was I ok with everything I could have bought with that money as a family man. Even if I thought (which I often did and still do) think, “This card should be worth so much more,” I had to assume if forced to sell I probably would not get my money back on it. Now $2000 is getting thrown around like chump change. So, I am working hard to constantly remind myself $2k is still $2k and not, “Damn, if I’d just picked up that Coro Shining Mew PSA 10 at any point in the years I was thinking about it,” that card would now be gone and replaced with many, many delicious pizza pies for my family to consume. And I’d still be here thinking I sold too early…
Since coming in year 2020, I thought what’s happening now could happen, and maybe even should happen, but I would not have and did not bet on it. If anything, it’s left me unconvinced the Modern market is sustainable year after year as an “investment,” while proving to me it can be a long term play year after year. Price memory, both low and high, continues to trip me out.
I am really glad that this thread has influenced people to start thinking about everything in terms of pizzas. Bravo, @Will
Yeah but those are like primo primo primo primo cards. I was more talking about primo primo cards.
I DO see poke channels often look at sets from 2016 and say, “wow look at 10year appreciation here in 2026, so now hoard these sets and watch similar price appreciation”. I cant imagine this happens again though.
like xy breakpoint etb was selling for $40 in 2016. Now the same etb is 800-1000 last solds. your talking 20x-25x
But anything pre-corona is not comparable to today and shouldnt be used as an example. The market has expanded tremendously since then and the amount of product pokemon printed in 2016 was relative to the demand of the time. So now you have many millions more people who have entered the hobby fighting over a small amount of out of print supply. We cant assume we will have a similar % growth in the hobby again.
Also, people didnt hoard sealed product back then the same we they do now for investment
With that said, just looking at a set like prismatic which has been printed into oblivion and still well within its print window. And if 151 taught us anything (now close to exiting print and becoming less available) even the modern sealed is appreciating over time. Just no way in hell we can expect a 20x return on any modern mass printed release 10 years from now. But something like 5x? yea i can see that. A set like ascended heros with so many heavy hitters including the first intro of M Dragonite (we cant assume we will see another mega dragonite SIR for the rest of this generation so this might be the only way to even get one)
There are still sealed products I would recommend. A sealed case of ETBs for $1k, could i see it go for $5k in 2036? absolutely
I think we should remove the chip that “there’s too much product” and it can’t go that high.
That used to apply before, but sets as evolving skies, fusion strike, crown zenith, 151, etc.
Sets that are years old and were printed to oblivion keep climbing. We just gotta re adjust that what used to work has changed now.
This ^^^
Evolving Skies and 151 were printed to all hell and the sealed products continue to climb in value far quicker than we previous thought was possible. So yes, while more people are holding or “investing” in sealed product than ever before, there has also never been the widespread demand we are seeing now
Maybe we won’t see products 20x and 50x as quick as we have seen from certain Sun & Moon sets, but the unprecedented demand will make up for the larger print runs
Gah this statement hits too close to home.
well, i think the overall point I was making is lost here. I mentioned prismatic and 151 as examples that even modern product is still appreciating despite many reprints and still in print window. Prismatic etb ~180 even after a relatively recent reprint and 151 is mooning right now. i just dont believe there is 20x-25x gains anymore. So many collectors have joined (or rejoined) the hobby in the last 3-5 years. You would need a similar percentage growth to happen again for such crazy gains and i dont think its realistic. I have 2 cases of AH etbs that i scored for 1100. Why? because I know its a great investment. But do i think if i checked in 10 years these cases will be $20k-$25k? heck no. If you really believed that you would be sitting on 20 cases right now. The emergence of heavy buy and hold sealed is still new. Yeah its been done for decades but in small scales and nobody believed Pokémon would get this big. The amount of growth this would need to see to burn through all the investing bros collections would be enormous. Pokemon is already on top, I can still see growth in the hobby but it would need to be dramatic again. Eventually you fully reach a market and saturate it; and continued growth becomes slow and incremental not explosive as we’ve seen.
This happens with all mediums. Okay playstation maxes out around $100 million consoles and they know it just cant grow more than that, no matter how much marketing, killer apps, or promotions that they do. so they have to flip the next one and rinse repeat. They can still make gains, but incremental gains. They cant go from 100mil ps5s to 500million ps6s sold, and they are aware of this. Pokemon prints to what makes sense for the given collecting population while still keeping products slightly scarce (keeping the products you know, actually collectable)
doesnt mean that there isnt tons of gains to be made in sealed product.
but you simply cant compare to the past anymore
20 years later a single booster of ex deoxys costs $175,000. This will NEVER happen again.
Do not get me wrong, I agree with you that it is not realistic.
But I keep getting “data to the face”, I have been for the past 7 years (even before covid, things were ramping up).
I would have said there’s no way a modern bb is 2-3k$, yet here we are. People keep saying or placing “arbitrary” ceilings, in some cases I agree but then again the next day something happens and changes it. Look at the bull run of last year and the “pseudo cooling off “ towards year end, it was literally nothing and now we are to exponential gains, once again.
My point is, we are in a moment where rules keep re writing every single and there’s absolutely no way to say something is not possible, it’s unlikely or maybe highly unlikely but possible. People who has been in this hobby for more than decade, knows very well, a lot of this is cyclical but even veterans can tell you right now we are in uncharted waters.
Maybe because we’re at the stage where buying sealed to hold is relatively new.
Most people who are involved in that part of the hobby wouldn’t have that many items or that many repeated items and can most likely sit on those that they do have since there has been no crash and the prices keep rising.
We’ll only know just how much is out there when there really is a market crash and then they are ready to sell, how long that takes though and what it is the causes it is the question.
You can do a lot with 10k, and to many people, 10k is a lot. However, 10k is not a lot to everyone.
@rainbow articulates this point extremely well and clearly (Putting $10,000 into Perspective - #36 by rainbow).
I would hazard a guess that the draw for many serious long-term collectors has been a passion for the franchise, often stemming from their youth. People are very attached to their nostalgia, so it’s quite easy to capitalise on and drive prices around it. That brings in the financially incentivised, and is kind of why we are where we are now. I’ve said it before, but whilst many people populating this forum don’t care for the big sales numbers, the average person is attracted predominantly by the big number, especially those who have no affiliation with the hobby or care for Pokemon. Any relative or friend I speak to about the hobby, their queries are always financially focused.
I see a lot of newer entrants into the hobby nowadays referring to cards as “children’s cardboard”, which during the initial stages was true. However, the IP has grown from its roots, and while there are products catering to different age demographics, I wouldn’t say cards are specifically catering to kids anymore. A lot of people view animation as “for children”, yet that does not make it so, nor does it change the actual consumer-base for the product.
Multiple thousands is crazy when juxtaposed with the average person’s wage and living expenses. Most of my friends are not in a position to take holidays, let alone purchase six, five, or even four-figure collectibles. Hell, some struggle to pay for car repairs, fix windows, or purchase groceries. However, there are still people who don’t have to be so scrupulous with their spending.
I think people severely underestimate the amount of wealth in the world. Many people, including myself, are surprised by investment firms not jumping in sooner because many of them could achieve buyouts and have a monopoly over certain cards for what would be a drop in the ocean for them. I’m not saying everything should go to the moon or that things aren’t overpriced. For many cards, I do believe they’ve exceeded expectations (and sometimes reason), but there’s a lot of money, a lot of people, and a lot of interest. Regardless of where that interest comes from, that’s a recipe for a strong market.
I don’t really keep tabs on financial reports, but even doing a cursory search, there are an alleged “384k millionaires, including 818 centi-millionaires and 66 billionaires” in New York City alone. “The Bay Area, Which includes the city of San Franciso and Silicon Valley, follows closely with 342,400 millionaires, including 756 centi-millionaires and the nation’s highest concentration of billionaires at 82.”
(USA Wealth Report 2025 | Press Release | Henley & Partners).
I’ll also attach this here.
This made me think back to how skewed my view of money became, temporarily, during the covid boom. Earning £500 here or £1000 there in a short period with little effort was the norm. Sums like £50 or £100 suddenly felt insignificant, and there was a dissociation with the effort it should typically take to earn those smaller amounts via conventional means. Reality took its cold grasp shortly afterwards of course, and doing a little blue collar work on the side here and there soon grounds you again.
Damn you had me nodding with you in agreement until you flagged as satire.
Sucks to know I’ll never be able to afford a goldstar set ;(
Thinking more on the huge wealth disparity in the hobby, I come to accept its very possible the crash that keeps getting brought up won’t happen.
It really doesn’t matter how many collectors of normal means begin to check out. You only need a few hundred-thousand young-ish millionaires with some sort of interest in Pokemon (and consistent, sustained buying habits) to keep demand and prices steadily escalating forever as they compete with eachother for a slice of the limited Vintage pie or modern pulls.
It’s a sad reality that in our current situation most people have no way to influence this. Those with the means to do so will probably continue to elevate pokemon - vintage singles and modern alike - until its completely out of sight for the average middle class joe schmoe.
To he honest, prices aren’t great right now, but I’m glad I scooped up most of the cards I wanted last year and not 5 years from now. Who knows what Ebay listings will look like?
Pokemon remains to this day an incredibly accessible hobby. Really the only things that are astronomically expensive are cards with arbitrary labels on them. Sure, “average” collectors may be priced out of PSA 10 chase cards, but binder collections and lower grades are absolutely not out of reach.
Getting priced out absolutely sucks, but readjusting your goals is simple and easy.
