What do you think of the southern island set in both english and japanese?
are they being slept on?
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I bought one of the Japanese 3 card sets and I really like it. The Pokemon inside are cute and the set stamp is probably my favourite
All time great artwork - the thematic consistency of the tropical island setting, plus the way the arts form a larger image when connected. Not sure about prices, but the last time I looked they did seem cheap for the non-holos 10s.
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Prior to the covid boom these sets were even more slept on. You could get sealed binders for like $60. By the time they were $2,000-$3,000, I still had $60-$75 sales in my watch list. That was crazy.
I think one of the things holding Southern Islands back, despite that sensational increase, is that it’s just so plentiful. Wrapped retail packaging is still available for both the two Japanese releases and the US release. People like the set a lot if they were around at the time, and it’s something a lot of people buy, but the fact we still haven’t even opened them all 20 years later and that packaging is readily available speaks to how much it was printed.
It’s very hard for demand to outpace that and I don’t even think it has. People just decided they were willing to pay more for it relative to all the other increases.
‘Slept on’ is always going to be a relative term in this hobby. In the UK, Southern Islands was pretty much unannounced as a release, very few people cared about it (which I believe was largely due to lack of knowledge of its existence) for 18 years until late 2019. In Japan they went crazy for it. I was buying sealed binders for £20-25 on eBay while at Uni in 2011-2012, which was like £10 below MSRP at the time. The 2nd half of 2019 was when it started to gain more traction, and the last one I personally bought was in April 2020 for £425. At that time, I thought I was slightly overpaying. Now, they’re listed for £1,500+. In April 2020 at that time and at that price, I didn’t believe the set was ‘slept on’ anymore. Turns out, like most other older items, they were. They may still be slept on at current prices, depending on how rare you believe the sealed product is and whether or not you believe it should be worth more. The problem with finding out whether something is ‘slept on’ is that you don’t know until you know. (Have you heard about Scott’s balls?)
What captured my love for the cards (as well as the fact it’s a beautiful art collection) was the unique holofoil pattern that was - holy shit - on the reverse side of the card!? In English at least it was nothing we’d seen before. Today reverse holos are part-and-parcel of the PTCG, but back then it the holofoil was a real eye-catcher. Unfortunately the Japanese set doesn’t have that same eye-appeal to me as the English set, but I still really like it nonetheless. If you enjoy the Japanese set then the sealed products are still at a relatively affordable price. They’re not rare, but if you enjoy them as most people do then it’s not a set you can go wrong with either as a collector or a stonker.
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Southern Islands is an awesome set. The artwork is incredible and it has a unique theme. It’s arguably my favorite couple pages to look through in my binder 
@stagecoach it doesn’t surprise me that sealed binders were/are going for that much. The Mew and Togepi holo in a PSA 10 are both worth a ton (granted the chances of getting a 10 is extremely difficult). Top that off with getting 3 guaranteed unweighed Neo booster packs inside…
Yup. For a long time I don’t think many people realized there were boosters inside. It’s the kind of thing people had seen sealed and seen opened and never read the description that indicated there were boosters. Neo Genesis boosters, nonetheless. I always wondered if some YouTuber might have pointed it out and that set the gold rush in action.