Questions thread for newcomers from a newcomer

General
1

Hi everyone!

I’m a very new member of this forum. This is my first post and I have been lurking for just a few weeks which ended up in me making my account about 10 days ago. Short introduction of myself: I’m Belgian, a lawyer and in my early twenties. I got into Pokémon due to a terrible illness, which I am currently battling, and it is one of the things that has kept me busy and occupies (including this forum) for which I am very gratefull.

My intend with this post is to go from a “I have a couple of questions”-post to a “are you new? Check this one out for most of the answers”-post. Due to my limited knowledge (everything is relative, but you guys have quite the knowledge), my contribution will be limited to questions. I am also making this post to have a nice combined post with all the questions to help new forumers find their way without having to go through all the posts on General like I did.

First off, great community you got going here. I am usually very active on the forum of every game (mostly video games) I play. I tend to continue that by contributing to this forum in every way I can. However, currently this is very limited. I have read through most of the posts of this forum and I have to say there are quite the amount of great guides/articles/posts out here. For example the guide of cbd1235 ignited the OCD collector in me to go back, look at all my purchases/salaes and keep an immaculate record of everything. When I finished it felt oh so good.

Second, I wonder what the core of the debate is of the discussion between English and Japanese collections. From what I have gathered (without wanting to sound ignorant in any way or fashion) there exist more Japanese cards, they are rarer and of a better card quality. English cards on the other hand are less rare, have a better resale value and are easier to acquire outside Japan. I tend to have the feeling that Japanese cards are more exclusive and expensive while also being in a restricted market as not a lot of people speak Japanese (correct me if I’m wrong). I only collect English cards as I don’t speak Japanese and don’t intend to look for cards in another language that I don’t understand under terms I don’t know (blame the lawyer in me). I do wonder if it is “recommended” to buy Japanese sealed product like the Mario/Luigi Japanese product to resell at a premium. Obviously only product I’d also like to open myself if I won’t get a premium price. Do the premiums for sealed products for English cards run parallel with sealed products for Japanese cards?

Third, I am looking for a nice collection tracker. Currently my collection exists of the XY sets and all the prerelease cards (except Raichu and Clefable). In my opinion, a collection can only be satisfying if you know what cards you have and what cards you still need to pursue. I do however not find a good program for that as I want a reverse holo of every holo card, which only one collection tracker has. A spreadsheet can be done, but I was using one I found online which lagged very hard! Any tips on a good excel spreadsheet or would you recommend making one myself?

Fourth, my intend for my collection is to collect all prerelease cards, all McDonalds and Burger King sets and the POP series aside of the XY sets. I like these mini sets for some reason, any other mini sets I’m missing there?

Fifth, eBay. eBay has been, aside of pokemonmarket here in Europe, been my main source of getting pokemon cards. So far, I have not had any bad experiences (Yes I have read the sour grapes forum, and it scared me). I am, as stated, from Belgium so I purchase cards on eBay UK from UK sellers but also from American sellers. Gladly, these are usually opened products from the USA and therefore not subject to VAT and tariffs. I am just hoping here (from what I have read eBay protects the buyer in the best fashion), but are there any alternative sites? On the other hand, are there any sites that should be avoided at any cost?

Sixth, if there are many of one item for sale one can go for the best price/best rated seller to get the best end result. However, when there are only a few items or a single item for sale I am unsure as to how to determine the price. I am new and therefore think more along the lines of “what is it worth to me” (especially in auctions). I do know that thought process will get me in trouble or will make me overpay soon enough. The “I’ll pay what I feel comfortable paying” is starting to wear off as a soothing idea!

Zeventh, the illustrious PSA. I read multiple posts (like from Ozenigma) and watched videos (like from the_charizard_authority) to get myself familiar. I do believe I have a good understanding: send only rare cards in which you believe will get an 8, 9 or 10 grade. If not, don’t send them in. Being from Belgium, this service gets even more expensive. I did see smpratte’s post on sending these cards for you which is awesome and once again illustrates the quality of this forum (his video’s got me on this forum!). I do sit on a lot of jumbo cards, but I wonder if it is worth to get them graded if they fulfill the criteria of rarity and quality.

Eighth, what’s the best way to remain updated aside of this forum? Are there any high quality channels like smpratte? I am looking to expand my knowledge about the cards and anything relating to it like its history. (Don’t shoot me if I can’t ask this.)

Last but not least, if you could give yourself advice the second you started what would it be?

Sorry for the lengthy post. I hope I get constructive responses in order to turn this “newbe”-post into a powerhouse on starting knowledge.

Thanks again for reading and I hope to see you all on the forum! As I get more knowledge, I hope I will be able to contribute more!

P.S.: I wrote all of this on my phone. Kudo’s on me!

4 Likes
2

The best advice I can think of is know your limits.

Whilst I find it foolish for me to give financial advice to someone I’ve never met / not even sure of any of your situations etc, I find it important to say that you should establish your limits clearly.

Whether it be how you want to collect (raw cards, graded cards etc), what you want to collect or even down to how much you spend. Knowing your limits will help you stay in check and not spiral out of control. That’s the first thing I did when I jumped back in to collecting.

As for grading cards, I am a very firm believer in collecting what you want. If you want to have cards where the condition is known and the card is protected completely, you can’t go wrong with PSA/BGS. If you want to supplement your purchases by making money on graded cards, you need to really fine tune your eyes and be exceptionally critical of what you send. This is a big reason why I rarely sell what I grade, it’s just too much effort for something I do for fun.

If you want help on how to setup a PSA account and how it all works, I’m happy to help you. Typically it pays to use a middleman if only sending a low volume of cards sporadically. If sending a medium to high level consistently, I’d say gaining membership is a good way to go :wink:

We’re glad to have you onboard!

1 Like
3

Welcome to the forum!

You (mostly) got everything right with Japanese vs. English cards. Generally Japanese cards are more expensive because you need a middleman to get them, whether that middleman is a Japanese eBay seller or a service to purchase from Yahoo Japan, they will up the price. However base prices on the cards are fairly similar to English cards. Keep in mind that prices for modern cards are almost exclusively driven by their usefulness in the TCG, and once they are no longer competitively legal then prices will decrease. Japanese sealed product pretty much mirrors English, any sealed product is usually a good investment.

For a collection tracker, I found that building your own is the best way to go. It takes awhile, but you can tailor it to your own collection goals and make it in a way that you understand. I did this with my collection goals and it’s worked out very well.

eBay is usually your best bet for purchasing cards. Buyer protections are extremely strong, if you don’t like what you get you can almost always get a refund. There really isn’t much of another market on the scale of eBay. I would suggest avoiding Facebook and Instagram as much as possible. They’re rife with scammers and there’s little to no effective way to vet who you’re buying from/trading with. If you purchase something from someone on one of those sites, be sure to use Paypal goods & services as you get buyer protection. If a seller insists that you use friends and family, something’s up.

“Pay what you feel comfortable paying” is a really good philosophy. Of course you should always research prices on cards (eBay sold listings or making a price check thread here are great ways to do that) but there may be some cards you are comfortable paying more than average for and some that aren’t as valuable to you. Thinking about investment and price raises/drops over time isn’t something you need to worry about too much unless you’re a very high end collector.

PSA is another thing that is really individual to each collector. What you stated is the monetary view of PSA, that works if you’re trying to increase the value of your cards through grading. Keep in mind that most modern cards will only see their value increase if they achieve 10s. However there isn’t any requirement to send mint cards into PSA, I’ve sent cards that were in terrible condition but had personal value to me or I simply wanted them encapsulated. My best advice is to use professional grading in a way that feels best to you.

If I was to give myself advice when I started collecting it would be to wait and clearly define my collection goals before beginning to purchase cards. Looks like you’ve already done that which is fantastic.

Hope this answers some of your questions!

1 Like
4

Thank you for both your responses! Incredibly appreciated.

Aside of my ongoing goals, I decided to add a slow to achieve and more expensive goal: collecting all the gold stars in PSA 9 (since there is quite a gap in price between these cards in PSA 9 and PSA 10 which I can appreciate but not justify). I am trying to gather the average prices of every gold star card by looking at sold items and by looking at the current cards up for sale. I do not know however how I should compare the following: uncased cards, PSA 9 graded cards and PSA 10 graded cards. It seems PSA 10 cards are about 2-3 times more expensive than PSA 9 graded cards, but I’m lost on determining a fair value for “loose” cards (that can then be graded to be a 9 or 10). I’m also a bit scared to purchase such cards at such prices since I doubt you can properly see and determine the condition of the card of a few (badly lighted) pictures on eBay (props to gemmintpokemon’s videos for that one).

Once I got my estimates for all cards, I’ll be sure to check on the appropriate sub forum “Price Check” btw. However, currently I’m a bit lost.

Thanks once again! Great input, hope I can do the same soon enough!