I mostly collect vintage sealed products, boosters and blisters from ex-era and WOTC era. Lately I’ve been seeing prices soaring for boosters and blisters from platinum, d&p and hg/ss sets. You would think there is a lot more sealed stuff from the newer sets in circulation compared to sealed stuff from Jungle/Sandstorm/Power Keepers/Hidden Legends etc, but regardless I see these newer sets going for basically the same price as the older vintage sets. Cards from Platinum, d&p and hg/ss sets doesn’t fetch a high price either when compared to EX cards, holos from jungle and gold stars from Power Keepers. I feel like the platinum, d&p and hg/ss set is very overpriced especially in terms of sealed product, but I don’t know. Could also be vintage sets being underpriced when compared to the newer sets. I definitely find this massive price jump in newer sealed product very odd.
Just me spitballing some ideas but one thing regarding the DPPt/HGSS cards could be that they will sell for more in the future and have yet to currently catch up with sealed prices? If we assume that there is a strong relationship between sealed:cards, then it could be that if sealed goes up first, the cards have to play catch up and will rise accordingly? I’ve seen people on E4 say 1st ed base cards are still undervalued compared to the sealed box prices so if that relationship plays out then there’s the potential for 4th/5th gen stuff to rise accordingly as well.
Other possibilities could be that people want to catch the next big whale and jumped on board with the DPPt/HGSS/BW era products making it rise more than expected. People talk about it with Hidden Fates, could be that some people see 4th/5th gen as a middle ground and got on board heavily. Could also be that people like the era and want to collect it, which is always possible but the sheer amount of investment-related sealed product purchases kind of obscures that.
Yeah agree with there being a big gap in sealed vs cards you get from that era. Could very well be that the DPPt/HGSS cards need to catch up to sealed product, but I would still question this as these cards are a lot more accessible on the market (compared to older stuff) or at least you would think so.
I guess it’s a matter of what people actually can afford as well. When DPPt/HGSS/BW boosters and blisters were selling for 15-40$ people might have been much more willing to pick up those than EX boosters an blisters selling for 100-200$. So I can see the appeal in that, but I still feel like that part (DPPt/HGSS) of the market needs a correction of some kind either cards catching up to sealed product or sealed product falling down to justify card prices
Crazy to me that the sealed product of HGSS and BW is so expensive. I played competitive for a bit at the end of HGSS to the middle of BW and those packs were everywhere. HGSS was being clearance saled at many places after it got rotated out. Until they introduced the EX cards again with next destinies because there wasnt any real value in any of those sets. At that time the most expensive cards in the sets were still only $20 at max and for BW that was the full arts. It was difficult to make back your money back then paying msrp for packs on end so it blows my mind that these have skyrocketed so much. (Call of legends is a different story and I see why it is expensive. Wish I had the foresight to see that and buy sealed back then to save). Even still, you see the raw cards being extremely cheap compared to the sealed product. Primes are still really cheap. With HGSS I never really saw boxes around at hobby stores but at retail blisters were everywhere. BW boxes were everywhere at hobby stores though. I would say that HGSS box prices might be supply driven but blisters should not be as expensive as they are and BW is FOMO driven. it is old enough now that it is really hard to get and people see the prices of other old sealed product and expect this to reach those points.
I think there’s often a lag between how sealed prices rise and how the cards themselves rise + you’re already seeing some growth in the 9s/10s of the lv.xs and the bw full arts. I know last year I picked up some Lv.Xs in 9s and they’ve doubled in value since so the popular cards are already seeing some jumps. I don’t know if it’s leveled out with the box prices, I would guess not, but there is some movement in that market. Not to say this is true, could be that sealed product has risen too far and will come back a bit, but in the current market it’s much more likely the cards move up than the boxes come down.
That definitely is a factor as well. It’s why you often have people buying up XY/SM sealed product or asking about if it’s a good investment etc. People buy what they can afford and so the 4th/5th gen sealed could’ve been a nice middle ground between wotc and modern where people thought if wotc/ex rose then the next era to rise must be 4th gen. Might be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy effect going on haha but I digress.
It is interesting. It may be that there’s a wave of people anticipating those prices following WOTC in the next 3-5 years, and have driven the price up as a result.
Another guess: it was a less cared about set when it came out, being significantly after the initial craze in a quieter period for Pokemon. Which may mean it was bought, sold, kept, and kept safe less.
I bought some, but not English, and not for the same reasons. Look at this pack/box art…
Look at that art! People can say Diamond and Pearl was weak all they want but I really think HGSS was an incredible era with a strong identity. Yeah the Prime cards aren’t the best but have you seen the Legend cards? Those are the real chase cards and they look so damn good. Everything about these sets from the different colored border to the artistic direction (even the regular holos are nice) just works so well. The market may or may not share the same opinion but I really think that people underrate HGSS and lump it in with the “gen 4 sux” mentality.
Yea it’s interesting, I could easily see people thinking this will be the next EX era in the market. One would think you’d see prices of EX and WOTC stuff increasing in price as those products are a lot more scarce in general.
Tha pack arts from that era are insane especially the Japanese ones. I love the Japanese packs from EX era and DPpt/hgss era. Haven’t had to much luck in finding Japanese booster packs from then though
I grew up with gen 4. I’m in college and just got my first internship. I spent 90% of my salary on gen 4, because it’s what I like. I wonder if more people like me exist. I don’t find the sealed product overvalued at all. I’d gladly pay whatever prices they are today after seeing what ex and wotc has become. I also think the card prices, even including stuff like master scroll mysterious pearl champ arena etc. are too low. Obviously, that’s just my opinion/perspective.
Yeah I like Gen 4/DP too, but HGSS is in a weird spot where nothing was really short printed. There werent any insanely rare cards in the first place, and Pokemon had already started to recover at the end of DP.
Fine for packs to be going up imo, theyre still just ~$30 except Call of Legends (which was a side set, but actually had chase cards)
Hmm, I do see a 1st edition symbol on the box, but no 1st edition symbol on the packs! Are those packs yours? If not, where did you get these pictures from? Sorry for all the questions, but apart from the three gen 2 starters I’ve never ever seen any unlimited edition L1 cards. If those are unlimited edition L1 packs that’s an immense discovery.
@quuador Not mine – I went back and looked after you mentioned it, and mine definitely have the 1st edition mark. I didn’t even notice these didn’t. Weird? I irreverently pulled them from Google images. Source is collector’s cache and an amazon.ca expired listing, but they’re labeled as 1st edition in the catalogue:
I remember DA cardworld having clearance sales from the collection boxes from those eras. They were practically giving these away. They were $2 a pack for the longest time. I never saw that much of an interest in the cards other than specific Pokemon collectors.
Thanks for letting me know! That indeed makes sense. I know a few sellers on Yahoo Japan who also use unlimited edition stock images for certain E1 cards, but they mention it’s 1st edition in the description. I personally find it confusing to sell a different version than you show pictures of, but whatever.
I guess these L1 unlimited edition packs are indeed stock images as well in that case. I’ve never seen any L1 unlimited edition cards, except for those three gen 2 starters I’ve linked earlier, so when I saw the unlimited edition packs I was very surprised, but you eased my mind. Ty.
