I feel lucky and sad because I with the values growing I feel less compelled to open some booster packs. I never did this for the purpose of investment, yet my collection is now one of my largest assets. You ask any of the people who were early to market and they will tell you the same. We all did it for the nostalgia, fun and memories and it is only recently that I took a more investment approach to my cards. If I did not love the cards and want to chase them still, I doubt I would be as compelled to put in the effort I do.
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I got 2 of my friends into pokemon cards just 4 months ago and they were able to get some good stuff before prices jumped. Is that lucky for them? Idk sure its good but then again we could all have been stockpiling since the beginning grass is always greener
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@thevenusaurgarden, don’t regret and look back on it like that! At least you’re back in it now at a time where cards are more easily sourced and where you probably have more excess capital as well.
Like I mentioned, its not a race, and I feel that a lot of negativity is generated whenever we hear things like ‘oh you got in too late’, or ‘oh you should’ve invested earlier’. That’s nonsense, isn’t it? Sure, you may have to lower your goals e.g. not chasing that particular trophy card, but the majority of Pokemon is still affordable. Base set stuff is unbelievably cheap right now, be it unlimited or the original japanese print (not no rarity).
I fall into all buckets in your post - I had WOTC stuff in my closet that I forget and I just found recently, but only the foils e.g. Charizards, even more Blastoises, Shining Gyarados etc. I also bought consistently throughout the years through TrollandToad (lol I was a kid no judgment) to make sure I had every Blastoise, Suicune, and Gardevoir ever printed. And I’ve only recently been buying at a much faster rate this year.
Yet, the stuff I had previously isn’t worth 7 digits, and that’s okay because it means something to me.
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Regardless of whether or not people want to admit it, most of the time it’s simply a matter of good luck.
I wasn’t one of the ‘early collectors’ or anything like that. But I briefly got back into hobby in ~2012 after rediscovering my cards from childhood. Long story short, I ended up purchasing boxes of Ruby Sapphire, Power Keepers, Sandstorm, Delta Species, Gym Heroes, and a couple others (though I can’t recall which off the top of my head). Back then, these were all in the $150-$500 range each. I opened all of them except for three (the Ruby, Power Keepers, and Gym Heroes boxes). The only reason I didn’t open those three was simply because I didn’t get around to it. IIRC, school was starting back up and I just didn’t have the time for Pokemon. So they sat sealed until late last year, when I ended up selling them on eBay (much to my regret, because now they’re worth 1.5-3x what I sold them for lol). And we all know how much these things went up in value. Point is: my profiting on these three booster boxes was ENTIRELY a matter of luck. There was zero ingenuity or foresight required on my part. I bought them for the sake of collecting, and what do you know, they went up 1000% in value lol.
If I had to guess, most other people who were buying cards and/or sealed product a decade ago also weren’t doing it because of financial foresight or ingenuity. They were doing so because they had a passion for Pokemon cards. Which, while commendable (and shared), does NOT reflect financial prowess. For most earlier collectors, they simply got lucky because their passion ended up becoming more popular. I think it’s awesome that they got lucky (I don’t view it as negative whatsoever), but that’s the simple reality.
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This is some surgical level splitting hairs.
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Between ‘collecting’ and ‘investing?’ Isn’t the discussion about whether or not early collectors got ‘lucky?’ I assumed the ‘luck’ being referred to was re: the increased monetary value of cards. I’m disagreeing with the premise that there was anything other than luck involved in having been one of the early collectors (for the majority of those early collectors; for some, I’m sure there was more than just luck). Doesn’t seem like ‘splitting hairs’ to me; I think I directly addressed the heart of what’s being discussed.
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Yes.
If you pay the leprechaun enough four leaf clovers you will have success in pokeman
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The “lucky” ones are the people who established and built the hobby to what it is today. Is it also “luck” that an apple tree grows from a seed someone planted?
Of course there is some element of luck or serendipity involved but to just say some people were lucky because they collected when it was uncool undermines their persistence, genuine interest and any foundation they may have set to establish the hobby that exists today. To say that someone has the collection they do just because they are lucky says more about the jealousy of the accuser than the actual luck of the person in question.
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@zorloth, “Luck” is too reductive.
The reality is people are multi faceted. I can love collecting pokemon, and be practical. I started selling cards over a decade ago, and it helped me buy the next card. I was aware of the market before most, and that is what helped me. Its not luck, its effort. Even people who collect purely out of emotion, they own those cards because of their exceptional emotional value = effort. They weren’t lucky at all.
Using the same logic inversely, people today who have constant sales, data, information and access are “lucky”. That didn’t exist before. It is entirely the result of previous individuals effort. This is why these types of emotional judgments are ultimately moot points, because the true deciding factor is effort.
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Someone saying that someone was ‘lucky’ doesn’t always entail that someone being jealous. The apple tree analogy is entirely inapt – when one plants an apple seed, one has the reasonable expectation that, eventually, an apple tree will grow. There was no such reasonable expectation for people buying Pokemon cards 10 or 15 years ago.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for those early collectors such as King Pokemon or smpratte – I agree that those people largely made the hobby what it is today. But the fact that their collections have appreciated in value as astronomically as they have? That is luck. It’s luck that their passion for Pokemon card collecting became vastly more popular. That’s not a bad thing, and it doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve every penny of the profits they’ve generated off of their collections – in my opinion, they do. But having been an active collector of Pokemon cards in 2005 is a matter of luck. Assuming, of course, that those cards were collected out of genuine passion and not in an attempt to generate profit. It’s akin to having purchased one’s NYC residence in 2010 – it’s luck that what was originally purchased for $1m became $15m. Unless, of course, you had good reason to believe that price appreciation of that order would occur.
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You’re taking the implicature of ‘luck’ to be much broader than it actually is. When I say that early collectors were ‘lucky,’ I’m not saying that that they didn’t collect highly methodologically and with an impressive amount of care/effort. Perhaps when some people say that someone such as you was ‘simply lucky,’ they are meaning to say that. But that’s not at allwhere I’m coming from. I have nothing but the utmost respect for collectors such as you, who have, in large part, built the hobby into the robust community that it is today. I’m saying that a collector’s collection having appreciated 10000% in monetary value is/was, in most cases, mostly a function of being lucky.
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I don’t think “effort” and “luck” are mutually exclusive terms. You can have/be both, and there’s no shade being thrown for calling somebody lucky. I don’t think anyone is trying to deny the early collectors of their efforts in any way - at least that’s how I see it.
In your case Scott, I believe you to have poured your passion into the hobby earlier than most, and as a result of that you are lucky because you nor anybody else knew that the value of your cards would be worth what they are today. It is entirely possible Pokemon could have died a death somewhere along the way and your cards would be worth what you paid, or less.
I think that’s what is being referred to here as the “luck” part - nothing to do with your passion or persistence. Maybe somebody can correct me if I’m wrong.
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To claim everything on luck is dismissive of people who spent great amounts of time and energy acquiring cards either for their collection or for future profit.
However, with the median age of the hobby quite young compared to most trading cards, the age collectors started making enough disposable income to purchase the cards they wanted has definitely been luck based. If I were a few years younger, I would have far fewer cards in my collection. If I were a few years older, I would have far more.
This of course doesn’t apply to everyone. But in my personal case I consider myself very lucky for my collection goals and less lucky with my “investment” goals due to my relatively young age. This is because I have been extremely serious about buying specific cards for as long as I can remember and doubt a few years age difference would have changed that.
**Collection Wise :**I am extremely fortunate to have purchased most of my mint WOTC binder sets for laughable prices vs today. These are sets many people want for their collection but are now priced out of. I could easily have been in a similar boat. For example I purchased 1st Ed. Gym Challenge, Gym Heroes, and Rocket mint sets in 2010 for $50 each. I still have every card in these sets except I replaced the Blaine’s Charizard because I expected (correctly) it would grade a PSA 10 and I replaced it with a regular 9 worthy copy. I may do the same with 1st Ed. Dark Charizard. Yes, I absolutely expected these to go up in price at the time, but the “luck” is not so much how much they are worth now, but that I had $50 to buy these sets in the first place. I had so little disposable income I actuary tried to purchase only the holos from these sets for $30 a set instead of $50 for the whole set! If I were 14 and had the same goal today in 2020 it would be impossible for me to replicate this.
At no point did I consider this as a risky purchase even though it was a huge amount of money for me at the time, I simply wanted the cards.
**Money wise:**here I am less lucky simply due to less income. For example here are the cards I was looking for in 2009, because I was confident they would all increase in price:
As everyone knows, the prices for these cards were dirt cheap compared to today. The only problem with this post is that I was THIRTEEN years old and did not have the money despite low prices. This has been my basic “buy” list over the past decade and frankly has never failed me in terms of profit. I have been fortunate to have owned at least one of every card on this list in PSA 10 except base and expedition Charizard. While there was more risk involved with the cards on this list, the “unlucky” aspect has been my age / lack of income for most of my life. If I had more money I would’ve purchased more.
For a more present example… In 2017 I decided to buy the five booster boxes I thought were most “undervalued”. There was definitely an element of risk here but I was extremely confident in my purchases, enough to forgo other collection plans so I could sink more money into boxes (cough cough $4k psa 10 1st Ed chansey, which I also made a buy thread for in 2009 lol). For taking the risk, I believe I deserve credit. But candidly, I was lucky to have the money in the first place, and unlucky to have only been able to afford five at the time… I had made a list of ten boxes and if I had had the funds I would have purchased all ten. In a similar vein, I bought five PSA 10 Charizard ex FRLG in 2017 because I thought they were very cheap. If I was a bit further on in my career – even if I was simply at my present job – I would’ve gone for ten copies.
If anyone is curious, the ten boxes on my list were:
1st Ed. Gym Challenge ($1,800)
1st Ed. Gym Heroes ($1,450)
EX Holon Phantoms ($1,500)
BW Plasma Storm ($350)
EX Power Keepers ($680)
Those are the five I bought with price paid. These next five were the ones i didn’t have the funds for and what I had written as the estimated cost at the time:
1st Ed. Jungle ($1,400)
1st Ed. Fossil ($1,400)
1st Ed. Rocket ($1,250)
EX Deoxys ($2,200)
EX Dragon Frontiers ($2,500)
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My point is, whats the point?
The reason(s) why pokemon as a franchise didn’t flop is because of actual factors, main one being its a brilliant and unique concept. Pokemon is successful entirely because of immense effort and strategic risk. “Luck” is an arbitrary term that doesn’t provide a better understanding of anything. It only detracts from the actual reasons why something or someone is successful.
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I mean, I agree with you. Luck factors into everybody’s daily lives. It’s lucky I didn’t get run over by a bus today. It’s lucky I found that card for that price before somebody else did, etc. So yes, in that regard, “luck” is pretty pointless to discuss in my opinion.
I think the majority of people in the collecting sphere admire the efforts the early collectors went to in amassing their collections and acknowledge the impact that has had on the hobby today.
We haven’t really heard from anybody who has a differing opinion yet but maybe we’ll get… lucky.
I am a huge believer that over the long-term in life, people make their own luck. But I also think luck is involved in everything. Let’s take an extreme example… is a person who buys a winning lottery ticket merely lucky? Yes. Extremely lucky. They still took the effort to drive to buy the ticket, had some method for picking their numbers, etc. They still had a hand in generating their luck since it still required an action on their part. But largely in that instance they were lucky. What about the rest of the millions of people that didn’t win? Were they unlucky? Yes? You probably wouldn’t say that. It was expected that they would lose. You could look at all of the other decisions they made in order to decide if they were “lucky” in life.
So over the life of a collector in this hobby, if the cards they bought 10, 15, 20+ years ago went up in value, are they merely lucky? It’s not fair to generalize like that and say they are merely lucky. We are not talking about a single instance. We are talking about a multitude of decisions over a very long period of time. “Luck” plays a part, as it does in anything, but it’s not fair or accurate to say it is only luck. We can all be lucky or unlucky on a given day. But over the course of a lifetime we make our own luck through the multitude of decisions that we make. Good luck doesn’t happen over and over again, neither does bad. Just flip a coin, how many heads or tails can you get in a row? Just my two cents
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What you put into it, is what you get out of it.
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Answer to your question, is yes. And anyone else trying to defend otherwise is deflecting, but most importantly didn’t read your question properly… like someone else said there is nothing wrong with being lucky, admitting luck played in your favour in x situation, and just nothing wrong with luck in general. Luck goes both ways, both for success and for failure. There isn’t a single sound and evidence-backed answer anyone can make to suggest that luck isn’t responsible for the exponential growth any “old-timer’s/early adopter’s/first mover’s” collection may have experienced. Exponential growth, fuelled by luck and timing that eventually made your “gamble” pay off… to argue otherwise would suggest you had an element of control in the outcome of the success (in this case, the greatly appreciated/increased value) of the cards.
As for the future, there’s a million and one explanations we all keep entertaining, but as is often repeated, none of us really know, but on the plus side, there’s finally enough data and cycles to suggest that it’s very possible to make *better* and more *well-informed* decisions in regards to entries and exits and apply some type of predictable model beyond just gut, yes. Definitely nearing the final phase, and that being the cards and the hobby to once and for all solidify its position (NOT as a “collectable” market – which everyoneeee keeps saying be it youtube or the forums, reddit, etc. because these cards have been collectable since their inception), as an investment-grade collectable.
For that to happen, I believe the last stage/challenge is if can be used as currency. The publicized deal Gary made with his buddy to buy into ownership of the 'Zard collection was definitely ahead of its time, but once (and I’m not suggesting anything or encouraging these industries, or individuals) OC (organized crime), cartels, drug importers/exporters, white collar criminals, etc. start using PSA 10 1st edition shadowless Charizards to settle scores and tabs as an extensive money laundering vehicle, it’s still all speculation-based on intrinsic value.
(this is just an example that would fast track the process as has been done in other areas of collecting, think Rolex, Art, etc. because as I mention Gary’s deal was ahead of its time because you still can’t just walk into a traditional lender’s office and expect them to underwrite you a super attractive policy with awesome terms and take out an asset-backed loan)
** PS what a sick story line that would be for one of these crime dramas on tvs xD **
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Luck and success go hand in hand. You can put as much effort into something, and without that little lucky break, its nothing special.
You hear of the good success stories because that is what makes them special, luck. For the one person who makes it, there are hundreds or thousands more who did the exact same thing or even more and didn’t get that lucky factor. You can do everything to put yourself in the position to obtain said luck, but the success comes with it.
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Anyone? As in, no one? Not that it matters, but I think that’s being presumptive, especially considering who you know on this forum. 