I think the collectors with deep pockets looking for complete graded sets are still simply buying 1st ed and while other collectors will spring for a shadowless zard or blastoise or other holo from time to time but simply don’t have the liquidity to drop a shitload of money all at once for a complete set.
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I think some of us shadowless lovers also just have to face that the set is simply not as desirable as we might hope to the very highest end of collectors. Two confirmed shadowless boxes have sat on eBay at 30k w/ best offer with neither seller getting a satisfactory offer. Gary’s BGS 10 shadowless Charizard ended ridiculously low (less than he was willing to pay for a psa 10 some months later). This auction just seems to add credence to this idea.
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Not sure what people are confused about with the lower PWCC prices. There has been an exorbitant amount of product flipped in the past 6 months. When individuals constantly flip/flood the market with higher end product, it will naturally dip.
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Yes, I was shocked it was only 18000 or 19000 (can’t recall exact ammt). I had a max of 31,000 placed. I felt like I stole it lol.
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I was thinking to same thing, Gary said “How many Pokemon collectors can afford to throw down 30/40k for a shadowless set?” but how many collectors can pay 50k for a 1st ed Base Set box or 100k for a 1st ed Shadowless set? Not many, but they still sold at the prices they deserve. It’s high end investors that drive these prices up and I think many of them just don’t see the potential of regular shadowless since it’s not 1st ed.
In this case, both the shadowless and 1st edition base set cards finished what most would consider low, so I don’t think ‘high end collectors don’t see the potential of regular shadowless since it’s not 1st ed’ applies here
selling anything at an auction is a risk reward. say if 3 people here wanted the set and had 50K spare, then we would of seen the price go much higher.
but alas 1 person bid his highest and no one else matched him. congrats to the winner.
Do I think this hurts individual shadowless holo prices? perhaps. time will tell.
You have a point, maybe everyone is just in saving mode after all the big spending last year or everything is genuinely losing value, who knows? I guess we’ll find out in the coming months.
All base cards peaked in the middle-late last year after exponential growth.
Corrections need to happen eventually.
I’m the Godfather of Shadowless. I pushed and marketed the heck out of them for 15 years. I love them. But, they just don’t have the mystique of 1st Ed base, BGS 10, or an illustrator…to justify those big dollars.
I’m thinking in time they will though so don’t give up the ghost.
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Agreed. It’s also not a set I would risk putting at auction tbh. It’s the kind of lot that can take a couple months to find the right buyer for it. A similar case happened with the 1st Edition Base Set that sold for $80k at goldin auctions not long ago.
Someone’s going to make a very nice profit on this. The holos alone are worth at least $40-50k.
Both that one and the other one from the same submission were regraded 9’s. Cert numbers 27765182 and 27765185. He bought one for $115 from Pokemon Classics and regraded it first try to a 10. I hope nobody pays close to asking price.
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I feel like this was the most stupid time ever to have a it on PWCC. Its february and most people are “poorer” now after christmas and everything else. I myself have not been able to spend anything this month on cards because of that reason.
High end collectors might have deeper pockets, but with the prices going up up up the last months I think a lot of them have invested in other cards and didnt have the founds for this lot at this time. If he would have waited lets say 4 months I think we would se a higher price
Just my tought about this sale
Many of my co workers are as rich as they will be all year. They all recently got their loaned “refund anticipation checks”. Also bonus time is in two weeks for me and all my other salaried co workers which I think is commonplace in the US as the fiscal year is coming to an end shortly so I don’t agree with this.
I think it was simply a combination of “correction” and selling way too large and specific of a lot in an auction. I expected it to go $50,000+ so I didn’t bid. I buy everything through my credit card. How many out there have a credit limit that high? Sadly this would have fit under mine if I could have won it for the next few bids. I’m really kicking myself on not participating. But yeah I guarantee it they had that auctioned as 103 separate items they would have easily cleared $10,000 more simply for the fact that too many people are taken out of the game at that price point and many of the big dogs may not even be looking at shadowless. Plus… no “charizard” in the title. I’d waged that cost the auction $5,000 right there honestly. Good thing PWCC squeezed “Ultra Hi-Grd” in there as we all definitely include that as a search term. I think you’d see the same thing out of auctioning a complete psa 10 1st edition neo destiny set or something like that. Just not the right thing to do at this time with the combination of cost and low buyer pool. Auctioning individually will outperform as a set for almost all sets right now in Pokemon.
I think there’s a lot of people with this mind-set right now! I’m in the same boat as you; I thought for sure this auction would sell for around $50,000.00 - so I didn’t give it a second thought. If I had my crystal-ball, I would have un-loaded some of my Silver / Gold and scooped-up this set immediately! However, we really don’t know what the winner had for a Max. Bid - it could have been like Gary’s BGS 10 Charizard - where he won-it for $18,000.00-ish but was willing to pay $30,000.00.
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@oldskoolpokemon that is one thing giving me solace. I am sure the winner likely had a pretty hefty cushion between the winning bid and their max. It is quite likely that even if I were to bid in the 40’s that I would have been beaten anyways. Guess the seller is really wishing I had made a bid and the buyer is glad I didn’t. Crazy how that all played out. I am truly shocked there weren’t two people on e4 alone throwing ~$50k at it.
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The speculation is all over the place in this thread. Unfortunately a lot of it seems very emotional and unsupported by any evidence.
I think most people can agree that the lot went for less than the sum of its parts. The question is, why? One thing to consider that has been brought up by others is the buyer pool of people willing to dish out $30k+ in one auction is small. When you have a small number of people competing, it’s unsuprising to see such deviation from the expected sale price. All it takes is for one competitive buyer to drop out and the ending price could go from $60k to $30k. This is also something to remember the next time a high-end item breaks a record.
I see a lot of people speculating that this is just some market price adjustment or it has to do with the timing in the year. Just keep in mind that the type of person who would buy something like this is not struggling to pay off their holiday credit card and is probably not concerned with whether or not they got a deal. The question is why did this particular lot not draw more interest from these people with endless amounts of disposable income. Trying to answer that leaves you in the realm of unjustified speculation though, and frankly I’m not that interested to know because it doesn’t affect the sphere of collecting I currently operate in.
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^TLDR
Hate to be that guy, but I just thought it was funny PFM. 
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¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Fair enough, someone had to be the guy. In any other situation it may have been me, lol. Your interpretation of my words is not how I intended them, but I can see where you’re coming from.
I know your reply is mostly in jest but let me defend my post for a second. although I did rehash things already brought up, I only spoke generally about these types of auctions and the kind of people who participate in them. I didn’t provide any speculation on why things ended the way they did for this shadowless set in particular (merely that they have the potential to).
Here’s my costum tldr of my original post:
Things like this happen for high-tier items, trying to make extrapolations from this or to identify a cause for this listing specifically is unproductive.
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im super shocked! i would have put money on this going over 50k but im a massive shadowless fan lol