The unfortunate thing is Pokemon is no longer a collectible hobby as we knew it. Along with a lot of other sports “collectibles”
people have an investment mindset now. And many aren’t willing to lose out on what they’ve already put into their vaults.
that being said only thing that may bring the market down is a down turning economy that gives collectors no choice but to sell at a loss, to pay bills etc.
but on the flip side it might also cause further inflation on tangible goods.
That being said …. Either keep collecting at current trends , or exit or third keep what you have to look back to catch a small dose nostalgia high lol
The state of the hobby has gone in waves over the past 10 years. Yes there are a bunch of people jumping in as an investment right now. All it takes is 1 or 2 sets that are printed to meet demand and the shift goes back to a collector focus.
I’ve always tried to ignore the market for the most part and simply buy prices I feel comfortable with for my own collection goals. I’ve bought cards for 3x market value in the past more times than I can count, but halve of those are worth 10x of what I ‘overpaid’ for them in the market at the time.
I simply bought them to complete sub-collection goals of mine, so I was happy to pay the larger prices. I don’t intend to sell them anyway, and long-term they usually slowly increase in price anyway (not always of course!!). My motto with collecting, and for the higher priced items I buy in particular, has always been: ‘I only have to spend the money once, and then I can enjoy it forever’. (I’ve said this more than once, it’s a bad motto to live by, but that’s just the way I’ve been collecting.)
Having said that, right now I’m also not buying much anymore. Not because I wouldn’t want to pay some of the current prices for some of the recently released cards I want for my collection goals (even though some are really pushing my patience..). But simply because I ran out of money completely and can’t anymore, haha. (Mostly due to a card I’ve bought that I had only seen twice prior in the ten years I’ve been collecting, which should arrive at my US middleman this week. An opportunity I couldn’t pass on, even if it meant paying groceries and gas on credit for the remainder of the month until my next paycheck. It unfortunately popped up right after I had made some other big purchases, but I’m glad to say I won the auction regardless.)
Still, this market is defintely very expensive. In 2019, a total of 233 Pikachu TCG cards were released, and I was already collecting both English FA Supporter cards and Seviper cards in addition to Pikachu at the time. But even though I’ve stopped collecting all languages for Pikachu since Feb. 27th, 2021 (25th Pokémon Day), and therefore have only bought a handful of (mostly English) Pikachu cards this year, it feels as if my bank account is still going down faster than in 2019 regardless.. The quantity of cards I purchase on average have been decreased more than fourfold, but the average expenses did the opposite of decreasing.
Luckily, it’s mostly modern I’m collecting these days and trying to keep up with, so I hope this (modern-)bubble corrects itself somewhat™, while I save up some money again in the upcoming months. Although I’m not too hopeful tbch. I guess I’ll try to keep some money behind should another one of the illusive cards pop up (or my car or fridge or something breaks down), and I’ll keep running behind the market to keep up for as long as I can.
I’m focusing on vintage I want right now and trying not to give into the hype of more modern cards I want. Hopefully they are plentiful and I’ll have a chance in the future when/if things calm down.
I got the ones that I REALLY wanted (Black Zekrom, Lillie’s Clefairy, Shiny Gardie) and now outside of ~1 other card I’m going to hold out on modern. I want a lot of DR, but most of DR is way too much for me rn.
A lot of vintage is still affordable though. That and IR, which I’ll pick up time to time.
I am still buying and collecting through this market, so I would say no you shouldn’t wait. However, it all depends on what you buy!
Am I buying modern English alternate arts and gold stars? No - but if I bought them today could I make a profit tomorrow? Maybe, but maybe not. If I didn’t want to buy them when they were 50% cheaper last year, I certainly wouldn’t enjoy them in my collection now for double the cost.
Am I buying modern Japanese special art rares, and other japanese promos? You bet. The new Japanese SARs are at a solid value price fortunately, and alot of older Japanese cards still haven’t recovered from their ATHs back during Covid.
In general it’s better to wait as most of the replies already suggested.
However…
Assuming this is not another hit-and-run post (we’re looking forward to your show-off posts triple!), here’s a hint:
“Does the suggestion to wait apply on all languages? Are there any language not in most people’s radar right now and going to be surprisingly hard to find later?”
There won’t be a shift. Very wealthy investment and business-minded people are buying very large positions, with new big buyers entering the market every day. There’s absolutely no scenario where we go back to how things used to be; people aren’t just going to suddenly give up easy money and arguably the most efficient way to get rich these days aside from crypto.
This exact sentiment gets shared every single time there is a ‘boom’. Every time its ‘this boom is different’ and ‘big money is here now’…
sure, we might not ever hit 2022 prices on some cards. But to say this current state of constant 20-100% monthly growth on almost every card in the hobby is just the new ‘normal’ is kinda just crazy
This kind of reads like a crystal ball question: “will prices will go up or down?” No one can say with certainty if, but especially when prices will change. With that said I am very confident that between now and the end of humanity pokemon cards will be cheaper than they are now.
If everyone replying says prices are currently too high, would you go into hibernation until a predetermined time, only to ask again when you emerge? In my opinion it’s better to spend time around other collectors/engage with the hobby, even if you don’t buy. This will give you a better sense of what you’re comfortable paying, and what you would like to buy.
Sure prices are higher today than they were a year ago, but that doesn’t mean I’m not buying anything. We can only assess value in the context of other items (tangentially this is why pokemon card prices seems insane in general; there are some extremely interesting items that are non-TCG, or even not pokemon)
We will never again see product readily available for MSRP, though. There’s too much money to be made, especially now that cards are mainstream as investments.
Sooo many people said exactly this, right before a 18 month period of time where you could pick up early sv era boxes for $80
I agree the landscape has changed, but seriously all it takes is one bad set to get printed heavily and we’ll see just how quickly MSRP comes back around
We’re already seeing inklings of this with sets like Journey Together and Black Bolt/White Flare. Not bad sets by any means but product sat around far longer than other sets. Yeah, it’s not available at msrp but prices are fairly stagnant. Imagine what could happen with a “bad” set of all new Pokemon for Gen 10.
Uhm what? This is some Reddit investorbro thinking. The trend of “not avaialble at MSRP” hasn’t hit a year yet. The longer it goes, the more likely TPCi will build another print facility and meet demand for once
On what foundation are you assuming one year of unnatural growth means this is the permanent norm? There are pretty consistent cyclical market dives and lulls around here. Most recently, the entire market was basically stagnant for years once prices fell off after the Covid boom. If anything, the recent activity as of late with all of the speculation on currently in-print items (i.e. people guessing), unpaid high-end transactions, and boomer mainstream media attention should be alarm bells ringing in your head.
I’ve bought cards for 3x market value in the past more times than I can count, but halve of those are worth 10x of what I ‘overpaid’ for them in the market at the time.
(Mostly due to a card I’ve bought that I had only seen twice prior in the ten years I’ve been collecting, which should arrive at my US middleman this week. An opportunity I couldn’t pass on, even if it meant paying groceries and gas on credit for the remainder of the month until my next paycheck. 
It unfortunately popped up right after I had made some other big purchases, but I’m glad to say I won the auction regardless.)
Although I’m not too hopeful tbch. I guess I’ll try to keep some money behind should another one of the illusive cards pop up (or my car or fridge or something breaks down), and I’ll keep running behind the market to keep up for as long as I can.
)