As someone very new to this it doesn’t feel as if there’s many people out there collecting. It certainly feels as if most people purchase things as an “investment” and as most people don’t really care for the collection side of the hobby, the “investments” are mostly gambles.
I can’t speak on how things were before the COVID boom or the Pokemon Go craze, but I would assume the majority of people around then were doing so because they loved it. I could well be wrong and quite possible the early collectors did so as they predicted the market would boom as some point.
Anytime markets become higher valued you see a huge influx of entrants looking to make bank, and to me, it feels as if Pokemon currently is mostly a speculators game where the older, minter, rarer saying has been somewhat forgotten, replaced by social media grifters using lazy entrants as liquidity.
I’m not aware of other corners of the hobby such as E4 where you discover a mix of people that have been collecting for a while and collecting things the masses have no idea exist, who genuinely welcome people to the hobby and help wherever they can. For this I’m very grateful, however I also accept I’m unlikely to increase my bank account by delving deeper into Pokemon, in the short term at least. I’m also not looking to make money from this and am fortunate to have a good job and have begun collecting because I enjoy it.
Whether the market is stagnating or not, having increased liquidity is always a positive. I’d expect a lot of people are going to feel a lot of pain that are chasing pumps, as always, and once enough people get burned the market will stabilise.
i think this is still the case today. Theres more of that investment side today, but thats such a niche part of the overall hobby. Its also one of the loudest parts and content tends to focus that way, but I wouldn’t say anywhere near a majority are in that mindset.
That would be amazing if true! I assumed what brought most people back to the hobby during the booms wasn’t their love of Pokemon and more so their love of $, which is also seen by the attention cash focused content gets compared to info based content.
Anecdotal but I certainly first thought about the ability to make some cash, which very quickly shifted to building a collection I can admire and pass onto my daughter/enjoy the hobby with her. So would be great to know the nostalgia of Pokemon and joy from collecting has also seeped into the pores of others who first saw dollar signs.
I don’t remember if it was a thread or a series of posts but I think it might have been @pfm who was talking about the decline/eradication of forums for centralized social media that has resulted in a loss of institutional information across most disciplinaries/hobbies/topics.
In that sense it feels that most hobbies’ communities have also been diluted/fractured since social media in general has horrible search, zero organisation and ironically has poor community ties.
This is completely, 110% anecdotal but most of the loud, obnoxious “investors” I meet in-person at shows tend to be younger, in a lot of cases early-to-mid 20’s. Not always of course, but after attending and vending at lots of shows it seems to be pretty consistent. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re more easily influenced by the sleazy “investment expert” YouTubers/influencers or because early 20’s kids think they know everything (we’ve all been there), but that’s just what I’ve noticed the last few years. Most people around my age (I’m 33) that are engaged in the hobby seem to do it because they love it and are trying to take a nostalgia trip back to the late 90’s/early 2000’s.
I would say nearly everyone is in this hobby because they love it.
That being said, there is a large segment of people in this hobby today that rely on cards primarily as a means to acquire something else, whether it’s money or recognition.
For anyone whose default window into this hobby is instagram, they just feel like an entirely different species of collector
I really want to resell pokemon cards and things, but I feel like I always put the money back into collecting more cards. I want to make a profit, but I also want to find artworks that I can really enjoy.
I used to think the same as well, until I found time to read through the E4 archives.
You would be surprised from reading threads from the past that the sentiment on value and future growth was very much evident in those periods as well. I think the notion of buying, selling, investing, collecting, are all intertwined in some form or another.
This is exactly how it should be tho. The flippers bring out the products that are high population, valuable, and appeal to kids and adults wanting to make a quick buck. They could fall in love with pokemon cards and decide to buy more, adding to their own personal collection. When they want to sell those cards, they could sell them to flippers and other people, repeating the process.
This system is what allowed pokemon to grow over the years, and it still holds strong.
I had a good chat with my friend the other day on the topic of secondary market. He was hard on against the notion of selling or selling cards for profit, especially with people opening stuff to sell. I did share that there is toxic side to this where people weigh packs, or manipulate sealed products such that they can obtain max value from sales, but if everyone were to open and keep their singles, or keep sealed for the future, how will collectors/players have access to reasonably priced singles?
In order for the ecosystem to work, someone has to open the sealed products, sell those sealed products, in order for those who wants it to have access to it.
Using myself as an example. I am a collector and I rarely stop buying things…
I do have an eBay and I list cards above market value in the off chance my location/price is convenient for a fellow collector. These sales just go into my bank account and meld with daily life spending and collection purchases.
Once in a blue moon I will go on a vacation or a trip. In these scenarios, I will sell specific cards to fund the majority of my trip at or below market value.
The first time I did this was when I sold a 1st edition charizard for 1200 in December 2019 to give me some spending money while studying abroad in Denmark.
Second time I sold a card for 5000 and funded my Japan World’s trip.
Recently I sold a card for 1000 and used those funds to go snowboarding in Vermont.
I do not have a business and do not care to start one. I feel like most collectors are in a position like mine.
As a teenager who dosen’t really have money available (I am currently waiting to start a job in the summer) It feels like I have to sell pokemon cards to get MORE pokemon cards. It’s a sad cycle, due to me also wanting to make money for myself, but I also really like collecting the cards. I’ll have to do things like starting a youtube channel or reselling for a higher price in order to get more money to buy more cards.
For some people, reselling is their way of making income.
I really think the dividing line I see is where your motivation comes from - intrinsic vs extrinsic. Are you developing your own preferences and curating a collection that you personally enjoy or are you just after the next hot thing everyone is looking for and you’ve optimized your collection for showing it off to others?
I have found I can really connect with anyone that is intrinsically motivated, whether or not they have an e4 presence. The latter I have a hard time engaging with. I also don’t think it’s coincidence that the first piece of advice often given here is “collect what you like”.
I mean, that’s true for the last part, but for everything else its still holds. Flippers can help people get back into the hobby of collecting, and they could build their own stuff to sell too. Without the people that sell the pokemon cards like flippers and people in the business of selling pokemon cards, how would we get them? Collectors can easily fill the position of flippers if they dissapear.
I love artworks and cards that are super hard to get due to the rush of chasing and eventually getting those cards. I’m not after the hot thing everyone is looking for, but I’m also trying to find a thing to collect that I enjoy.
Just my two cents but I would suggest taking things slowly and focusing on completing higher education and securing a stable, high-paying job first. You’re still very young and have lots of time. Life is especially confusing at this stage and the last thing you need is more material pressures. As others have noted before, the life of a Poketuber & flipper is far less glamorous than it seems.