Hi, I got back into Pokemon right before the 20th anniversary/Pokemon Go around when XY Breakthrough was released. My question is at what time period and how did XY Flash Fire (FF) start increasing in price and how can we look into investing into S&M Burning Shadows (BS) for the future.
Some factors that I’ve considered that caused FF price to increase:
Print run of around 2 years was held compared to the XY reprints (Primal Clash, Roaring Skies, ANcient Origins) leading to low supply and only being obtained through the secondary market.
Demand was lower compared to today so FF started with low amounts of product initially compared to BS being printed into oblivion.
Chase Cards Charizards (most popular pokemon within the TCG) helps increase product demand over time.
Not so good - Print Quality has increased PSA 10 card values. This is not a fair comparison but for reference (PSA 10 Secret 108/106 Charizard ~ 28%, PSA 10 Hyper Charizard ~ 47%)
Can we learn from the past to help us in our investment or are these comparisons too far-fetched to even analyze. Any opinion is welcomed.
Don’t invest in Burning Shadows.
Not yet anyways. We saw with a few of the more recent sets like roaring skies that Pokemon can still reprint. Maybe buy cases now because you can never be certain but remember you need to sit on boxes tying up capital for years.
The only good card is the charizard HR, the rest will not hold any collector value at all.
Investing in modern boxes is kinda stupid, for the same price of a box buy a HR zard, that will hold on to it’s value and increase in time.
once they hit rotation all those playable cards tank in price, Shaymin EX was up to $75 and $100 for the RA and FA at one point, now they’re $10/$15 and still dropping…
Not Burning Shadows specifically per se, but I’m only investing in a complete set of one each of the rainbow rares because they have massive appeal to me; yes, there’s so much S&M product being printed, but with so many secret rare/rainbow rare cards and such abysmal pull rates, it’s still not easy getting cheaper rainbow rares and grading 10s with them (it’s taken me a lot of time but I currently own 35/36 rainbow rares in PSA 10, most of them plucked off eBay for cheap where possible and graded myself, with Gardevoir being the last one I need and it’s out at PSA right now).
I think it’s easy to dismiss a lot of today’s product, especially while they’re still being printed, but the reality is a new generation of Pokemon fans/collectors is always being groomed and their emotional attachment/investment is going to be in these eras of full arts and what they know and understand to be chase/hard-to-pull cards. I think rainbow rares in particular are very under-appreciated because they are a variant of the full art version but they are each uniquely textured, consistent across the sets and have an appealing range of Pokemon (obviously with Charizard in BS which is going to be a rather safe investment imo and Mewtwo/Raichu in Shining Legends, etc).
Also, S&M series is the intro of Ultra Beasts to the franchise, which may or may not be significant down the line depending on what TPCI does with them.
TL;DR; if you’re going to invest in BS or any other S&M product, take the time to get cheap rainbow rares (even if it’s just Charizard specifically) and get those 10s…the monetary investment is not that great at all and the payoff is probably at worst a break-even down the line and at best a pretty decent profit margin.
Okay… So been having some thoughts with the future of some of the new sets.
I was quite reluctant to give any of the new stuff thought investment wise apart from burning shadows and shinning legends. But even those, It just seemed it would be not the greatest.
Howeverb… I said the japanese stuff might just die and not have any hope. but I was also like… hmmptons. The price of the japanese stuff is so high atm so maybe this will have effect where not many people will grade the charizard hyperbz and alot of people who do buy the cards will buy them up for mass play which could course a BW plasma zard kinda effect.
Moving forward a few months… Tingz are looking strange. There is only like 54 1st ed japanese burning shadowbz charizards graded in psa 10. I think.
But there is like 254 english in psa 10.
How crazy is it that people are buying the burning shadows cards for 500+USD all day everyday. WHen there is 254 of em.
Will the japanesies all be played and the price for the charizard stay very high ungraded untill alot are damaged from play and there is not so many mint ones left. if so… They may be hope for these beasts just yet. dun dun doooooooooooooooooooooom.
My opinion on this is relatively simple: it doesn’t matter if we have to wait 2 years or 4 years, a set including a secret rare Charizard will always go way up in value. HR Charizard is more rare in BS than the secret rare Charizards in Flashfire.
If you’re gonna invest in a modern set, you’ll always wait for a long time until it increases in value significantly, so it doesn’t matter if you wait 2, 3, or 4 years.
I’m not saying BS will grow as rapidly as Flashfire, but I think it’s value will be high in a few years.
As a set, it certainly has both more collectible and more playable cards than Flashfire.
It is always very interesting to read everyone’s point of view. Here is my 2 cents on Burning Shadows; Would I invest in it? Absolutely not. For anyone that wants to, wait a minimum of 1 year before doing so. IMO The 2 best long term investments in Burning Shadows will be the HR Charizard in PSA 10 and sealed booster boxes. Booster boxes will be the same price in 1 year, therefore there is not point in locking up your capital atm and IMO the HR zard PSA 10s will be cheaper than the 350-400$ selling prices we see now. Also, as some people pointed out previously, any long term profits have a chance of being crushed by a reprint like the roaring skies set. If you absolutely want to invest in newer sets rather than WOTC, I’d go with cards that are out of print/can’t be reprinted/didn’t have an outrageous print run; Evolutions prerelease comes to mind as a better/safer investment.
My point is this: it doesn’t really matter how good or bad a set is, if you are thinking really long term. If you buy a few booster boxes when it’s first released, their value will always only go up. At the latest when it’s out of print.
And if it’s only worth 150 per box then, it’s still a profit.
The last 12 months has gone to show that’s not the case anymore.
The fundamentals of Pokemon have changed greatly. We’re seeing reprints of out of print product, huge print runs and distributors magically finding product of out of print sets.
There’s a pretty good chance some SM sets are going to turn into the Dragon’s Maze of Pokemon at some point.
I think it’s way way too early to say that. And it’s not really in the best interest of the Pokémon Company to reprint sets forever because they want their customers to spend money on new product instead of old product. Fair enough, I’m not that into the mechanics of Pokémon TCG production, but once sets go out of rotation, there is no reason to reprint them for anybody. And I also think it has to be of some interest to Pokémon that their product increases in value over time. Love for rare, vintage sets keeps interest in Pokémon alive.
Granted, I think it will take a longer time for something like Breakthrough or Fates Collide or Steam Siege to increase significantly, but in my market of Germany, SM1 and SM2 booster boxes have already slightly gone up. There will be a small drop so that stores can clean out their shelves for new product, then the journey goes upwards.
I can almost guarantee, everybody seems to hate Evolutions now, but in 5 or 6 years, it will be sought after.
You can never foresee how a set will develop I think, but as an example of how an overprinted set can suddenly go up in value, I’m living through it right now with Heartgold Soulsilver. A year ago, HGSS was available online in Germany for 90 bucks still. Since then, it has at least doubled.
Finally another supporter for XY Evolutions!!! Haha
I purchased a few cases of Evolutions back when it was first released - back when Booster Boxes were selling for roughly $95.00 / Box. After making my purchase, I’ve just watched these Booster Boxes drop-off - although, I’m really not paying much attention to pricing right now. I’m not even sure about any significant ROI 5-6 Years down the road; however, I’m still holding-out that this set will become semi-valuable in the long-term future. I mean come-on, it’s the re-printed BASE SET!
Well, it was certainly overprinted for the demand in Europe at the time, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to pick up sealed boxes, tins and boosters still at original price in 2017. And Unleashed and Undaunted can still be bought at low price. I picked up a Box of Undaunted last August for 89 bucks. It’s going for about 140 now.
Tin boxes of that era are still in stores for 16,99. NOT repackaged. In fact, I picked one up today.
I just think it’s useless to overthink how a certain set will develop. For all we know, Pokémon could grow bigger in popularity, so that the amount of cards printed right now won’t be as much of an issue as people think. Could be the other way around, too. But If you have the money, there is zero risk in keeping a few boxes of a Sun & Moon set around. If it doesn’t go as you thought, sell them for minimum original price, and buy another set that has your interest.
I don’t see a problem there.
As far as Evolutions is concerned, this set is BARELY a year old. It’s not really a surprise that with the anticipation of Sun & Moon around the corner at the time, interest in Evolutions would go down a bit.
But Evolutions has everything a fun, interesting and collectible set needs. It has unique Secret Rares, it’s an anniversary set of Base Set, the Charizards in there are collectible, it has good pull rates, it has great art.
And the fact people hate it now is pretty much a guarantee it will be popular down the road. Just a feeling.
But it’s only a year old, collecting needs patience.
