The Question of the Day is a way to facilitate community discussion to help members ponder the unanswered questions of the world that are somehow relating to the hobby. Questionsj are many times open ended and up to interpretation. Feel free to post your thoughts in as much or as little detail as you’d like.
Helpful Considerations may or may not help some people focus their answer, these are blurred to not bother those who have their own ideas.
Easy distinction could be anything over $1k. I think saying much higher than that is mostly copium of not wanting to be labeled a high end collector. E4 and the other online spaces we inhabit are a bit or an echo chamber / sampling bias rolled into one. But 4 figures or more on cardboard is a high end decision. The hobby mirrors real life - the majority of money spent is concentrated at the top even as the number of people making high end purchases is low
I was typing an answer, but then realized I was mostly making arguments for the term ‘grail’ rather than ‘high end’, so I stopped and googled the definition of ‘high end’ for a moment as a reminder:
Translating that to Pokémon, I’d say:
the ‘superior quality’ refers to graded-10 (or maybe 9+ in the current market) [1];
‘high price’ shouldn’t require an additional explanation. In the past I would have said 1k+ USD, but with the amount of 1k+ cards I semi-casually buy these days, I would now say 2.5k+ instead;
and ‘targeted audience’ mostly translates to popularity imo. Aka, Charizard vs Poliwrath for the Base Set; or ‘Moonbreon’ VMAX vs Medicham V for the Evolving Skies set; etc.
Greetz,
Quuador
For binder collectors among ourselves, it would mean NM+, not even accepting EX quality for the binder. ↩︎
Plenty of 1-2000$ cards nowadays are fairly unremarkable or have an inflated valuation honestly. Many newcomers and wannabe investors don’t seem to have any problem burning through that kind of money to buy random reverses, psa9 set cards or modern full arts.
I view it as being the upper echelon of products in the market, typically in PSA 10/Black label, unless you’re speaking of trophies/grails which you’re lucky to obtain regardless of grade. This can mostly be attributed to your Big Three trophies, Trophy Khan, UniKarp (10 Grade - one where I would deem the grade relevant), FA/Half-Art Worlds trophies, limited JP promos like PLAY Espeon/Umbreon (again, grade relevant), and certain WOTC cards like your 1st. Ed Base Charizard, 1st. Ed. Neo Slowking, 1st Ed. Jungle Khan, etc (all of which I would argue require a 10 to be deemed “high-end”). Putting some of these in the same sentence feels really wonky, but I’m making a broad point
This, however, can also relate to sealed product. I believe sealed product has a little less disparity and prices are quite proportionate. The top being 1st Ed. Base, with most other 1st Ed. WOTC sets in succession. Among JP sealed product, the only sets I consider being comparable to these English ones are the JP counterparts and the JP PCG sets, which contain your Gold Stars. The print window for these was extremely short, so good luck finding sealed boxes nowadays – they’re rarer than English WOTC. I know there were two collectors of these on E4, although my understanding is both parties sold their collections and are no longer active. I don’t know who they sold to, so I can’t say where the bulk of their collections went
I think perception also has relevance. At the end of the day, it’s cardboard. I quite liked the Ginza Tanaka Pikachu, but QA on those wasn’t amazing, and they don’t generate mass market appeal like everything else.
It’s terrible, and kinda sad too. Prices are at all-time high, while the bar for “grail” or high end status keeps getting lower and lower, since truly desirable cards or trophies are so out of reach for the majority of these people.
I was dissuaded by the money entering the hobby in 2020, and ultimately left by the end of 2022. I think it’s a double-edged blade. I find it takes the enjoyment out of it when I have to remind myself that I could buy a porsche for the same price as a piece of cardboard. At the same time, renewed interest in the hobby brings new opportunity and propels it down a path of long-term success. If I’m going to drop $50,000 on a card, I don’t want it crashing to $100 because there’s nobody buying
I’m gonna go even lower and say it’s anything over $500-1000 USD in the grand scheme of things. Most people simply aren’t going to be able to justify or understand spending that much money on a piece of holographic cardboard.
The standards are different in online circles like E4 where we’re all major enthusiasts, and mostly affluent on top of that. To your average person, that’s a large sum of money for a singular item with no real life use case.
Yeah, if we’re talking about what constitutes a significant amount of money to the typical lower middle class purveyor of cardstock in the year of our lord 2025 then that number is still low hundreds. “Normal” people still feel it when they spend $200 on something.
Bingo! And even if “X amount of dollars” isn’t a lot to your average user here, I think it’s important for us all to stay mindful, and be grateful for the cards life has dealt many of us. Yes, there’s a major difference between a $20k trophy and a $800 graded set card, but to many people out there, they may as well both be the same tier of unaffordable.
There are many people in the world to whom a thousand bucks would drastically alter their life for the better.
This summarizes a core part of my exhaustion with the hobby. I wish toys could just be toys. Maybe we either a) drop $50k on a card because we want it that badly or b) we don’t drop $50k on a card, but not c) we drop $50k on a card hoping it’ll maintain or increase in value.
It’s wild to see most of the traffic in the Pokémon card subreddits and instagrams etc shift toward VALUE?! INVESTMENT?! like ideally no actually
I like to factor in scarcity over rarity Poncho Pikachu or Van Gogh’s are good examples where its irrelevant they were in demand I haven’t checked recently but at their peaks not scarce but very liquid. I remember seeing a guy locally who was selling them at 1.5 -2.5$k then they went up to 8-10$k per PSA 10 …. Now fast forward.
I purchased a magazine much scarcer probably 10-20 max in high grades in the world Pikachu Cover Magazine with arguably a better cover art, and cant sell for 100-200$ profit …. Yes, makes no sense at all. So now a Japanese example I acquired a rare Nintendo Dream magazine from a large collection a month or two ago for very cheap I didnt know how scarce it was until seeing a guy I wont name who owned the Eevelution variant probably more sought after depending on the bidders and popularity of the Pokemon.
I personally prefer the one Kangaskhan Greninja variant. I own over the Eeveelution but I doubt its worth more and I have yet to grade it …. Another factor which has become annoying atleast for me lately 20$k + is hurting me because unlike others I missed the opportunities right in front of me over last 5-6 years.
To add: Rarity is a strange word in general what even determines it is really hard to say. I think the best way is demand for said good because if someone is holding a very liquid item where not many are on the market is considered rare.
Also, 20$k for me was hundreds of goods / sets not a single item 2$k was the highest to date then 1.6$k underneath that purchase. Then roughly multiple 500$ purchases over 3-4 years.
I think the speculative investment side of the hobby is tiresome, but it’s natural for individuals to not want their money thrown into a blender. People recognise that cars typically depreciate, but nobody wants their vehicle to drop significantly. Likewise, nobody wants their home to depreciate either. Both of these are a necessity to live, yet we don’t want them devalued despite fundamentally requiring them. Collectibles and cards are a luxury good, so I think people are even more sensitive to the price fluctuations of these than their required spendings
The hobby has kind of transcended the state of being toys, they are collectible items now and priced accordingly. Marvel PMG, MTG, Yu-Gi-Oh, One Piece… all these have very pricey cards. Wealth is concentrated pretty heavily at the top. I think people’s desperation for investment opportunity reflects the global economic landscape. Compound that with social media’s hype-culture sensationalism, the ease of influencing the youth, and a somewhat growing sense of laziness, it makes sense why this shift has occurred. People gather around gold rushes for a chance of striking it lucky, and Pokemon has been a mini gold rush for some, in a sense
I would welcome prices returning to pre-2020 values, but that simply isn’t going to happen. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle – at least not yet
And as much as I, or many others might not want to admit, we would all be adversely impacted by prices staggering and going down. Some might feel it more than others, and it might not affect the way we ultimately live, but nobody wants to lose $50k. That’s still a lot of money, and if nothing else, our kids can and would benefit from having an extra $50k
I do wish the high-end cards and related hype didn’t trickle down their price and affect the standard stock releases. I wish kids could enjoy cards like we were able to enjoy them back in the noughties – I think that’s the biggest downside of “high-end” pokemon and the impact it’s had
