@dblast There you go you finally have my first like haha. You made a good valid point. I watched Rudy try to explain sealed booster box prices and I figured if there is zero balance to sealed product the cards values must be a nightmare outside of alpha beta which everyone loves because it’s the original. But don’t take my Magic knowledge series because I literally know nothing about magic outside of a few crazy Rudy videos haha. I never actually checked to see if the numbers were true. But he talks about box prices tanking and his patrons being pissed at him when this happens. He also made it sound like a regular thing that happens often in Magic
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Im already starting to see ( atleast in the UK), a larger amount of listings, the specific saved searches i have are for pokemon collectables, it was averagin 450k listings past 2 weeks , now its up to 480k listings. Doesnt sound like alot but that 5% or so increase if it continues ( we wouldnt of had the surge of PSA card grades back for another 1-2 months in the uk yet), if it continues you will start to see declines in prices.
I wouldnt bet this for the high end cards though such as 1st edition WOTC psa 10s, i have a feeling they will just get eaten up with any price retrace as people now know the power of low supply even for a month or two…let alone the supply of these in 5-10 years!
Obviously a key question re: prices is what will happen to the graded population. Higher prices will definitely drag cards out of the woodwork if they exist. I don’t think we can have a sense yet for the true pops of cards starting with the neo series. Take neo genesis 1st for example. There are 930 or so submissions for lugia. About 4% of those graded 10, and the ratio of 10s to 9s is about 13%. For the other holos from that set, total submissions are around 50% or less relative to Lugia. Slowking is the next highest with 575. Yes the 10 pops are low for many of the other cards like T17 and slowking. And the comparable ratios for those two cards are about 1/2 (2% and 6%). But could the 10 population double? Maybe. That said, unless a hoard of these cards is sitting out there it doesn’t seem likely to do much more than that. Even if it tripled or quadrupled, that’s still not a lot to satiate all of the collector appetite. And what about 9s? When 10s aren’t an option due to scarcity, those will also be in demand. It will be interesting to see what happens with neo pops in the next 12-18 months. Another one that will be fun to watch are the EX series. If you take graded gold stars as a benchmark for EX series, it would imply quite a bit of ungraded mint product out there. I’ve also found it incredibly easy to buy ungraded mint product on ebay for those.
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I see MTG as a floor rather than a ceiling. Pokemon is orders of magnitude more popular. We are just a bit younger, so we have a few years to before we hit where they are overall. However, we are going to blow past their numbers in regards to valuation. So, while I note how magic is doing, I don’t worry too much about them. But what do I know 
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Some of my all time favorites are the cheapest cards available to this day. I mean, there are literally thousands of awesome cards available for next to nothing. You can still have plenty of fun in this hobby on a budget.
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Insight really helps here. I do find myself occasionally worrying about prices and whether or not I will be able to afford what I want. Then I remind myself that these are misplaced feelings of genuine excitement for the hobby. Part of the joy of collecting anything is working hard to obtain something precious to you. I’ve found that buying cards I have saved up for tend to be more valuable and rewarding to me. I remind myself that part of the reason why I missed the good prices in the 2010s was because I decided to invest my time and money in getting an education. Now that I am done, I do not have to worry so much about price increases because my education allows me to get a higher paying job than I would have without it.
I believe that many people in the Pokemon community like to feed their instant gratification monkeys in their heads and lose the bigger picture. You can still obtain most of what you want given enough time to save. No higher ed required. I also think that the Pokemon community is now being forced to make important value choices: “Do I need the perfect 10 or do I just want to have a nice looking card in an 8?” Asking myself these questions has helped me a ton with focusing my collecting goals.
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Agreed!
I think a lot of people get caught up in the ‘competitive’ aspect of collecting, but there really is no such thing in the long run. What I mean by this is that some collectors see other collections and how others collect mostly high dollar cards from the older eras they were a part of and want to emulate that because it is seen as the ‘best.’ Not saying this is the sole reason for collecting older mint sets, as I grew up with and collected them too, but there is an aspect of this if collectors would admit to it. The whole linear PSA 10 mindset is a prime example, as 10s are deemed ‘the best’ despite having a couple minimal flaws, but so many collectors believe they can only collect them.
This is one of the reasons why I love the E4 community, as most collectors here follow their own collection goals and don’t conform to this competitive fallacy. We share our collections and thoughts with one another and value each others opinions while not trying to push our own agenda. As others have previously stated, there are countless ways to approach collecting and different budgets allow for different spending, but at the end of the day…we are all kindred collector spirits!
I fell prey to this ‘competitive’ fallacy myself long ago, as I am not really a ‘set collector’ like most people as I care most for my favorite Pokemon/cards mainly, but I still had quite a few set collection binders. Why? Because all my friends and practically everyone I knew were collecting the sets specifically so I joined in and did so as well and completed most the sets I collected. However, did they have that special meaning to me that my own custom collection had? Nope. Now I’m not saying I didn’t like the cards and going through the completed sets, but they just didn’t have the same appeal of my own personal assorted collection which had much more sentimental value.
As collectors, we must collect what truly makes us happy. If we can’t afford something due to our budget, there are lower grades/raw cards and many other print variations that we can chase, as the possibilities are endless in this great hobby!
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Wasn’t a jab. I literally thought you were categorizing a group of people in the hobby who have no income and were including yourself in it. Was just curious of how that actually works. I didn’t know whether you were retired or what.
Gotcha ya it’s all good. Didn’t mean to get this thread off topic. Things are definitely crazy right now. Pokemon prices not being effected is kind of like a fresh of breath air. I had to recently take some money out of stocks because the stock market it so crazy right now. Trying to pick only investments that will remain steady. Some stocks are still fine but a ton have recently tanked with no sign of it going back to normal soon. Hopefully Pokemon will remain unaffected but who knows what will happen and if it does we will just buy more. A price drop doesn’t give insensitive to sell unless it’s a emergency.
Expect a 2nd wave of spike in card prices and pokemon in general with the 2nd stimulus check on its way. Just my thoughts. I love investing in pokemon!
So many red flags in one post.
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What did I say that was wrong? 2nd stimulus check will cause another spike since more people will be spending. Again people who make just around 70K will have another free money check coming in. Pokemon is on the uptrend in general as well which makes it go another another huge spike. I enjoy investing and not selling. Yea so many red flags…
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There is no second stimulus check.
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Pokemon increasing now does not mean it will increase forever.
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The current increases started before the stimulus or the virus and while they may be exacerbated by them, you need to look a lot deeper to understand why the market is rising, and therefore when or why it may stop or decrease.
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You didn’t say anything wrong. You used a lot of meme words, red flag, stimulus, investing, spike, etc.You can go ahead and do a quick search in forums about how many posts we get daily of people speculating on things literally no one can predict, asking the same questions over and over, etc.
I’m not interested in knowing buying habits of people nor if they invest (one can easily ignore it) but the thing is it reaches a certain point where 80% of the content in here is severely limited by the huge influx of “price checks” “is it worth investing?” “most underrated set?” “buying 4578 burning shadow boxes for investing” “stimulus checks boosting sales”, that’s the issue.
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That 2nd stimulus check is not going through the senate, so please don’t plan your spending around that.
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@fresco Exactly you also can’t forget the horrible cringe worthy B word used daily. I have vowed to never type the word again haha it is extremely overused
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i am skeptical of the market at this point, but still buying and still selling. this is how you properly “invest” in any market.
CONSISTENCY is king
Unfortunately, looking at this through the eyes of a collector or flipper or whatever other types we have in the hobby makes it more difficult to deal with swings.
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I purely collect vintage Pokémon and they always seem to be consistently trending up. I’m glad I got in very early and not having to overpay. I can’t even afford my own set tbh. I’m just one of those old school collectors and it’s been a fun ride. I enjoy seeing the cards I grew up with trending up even higher now since that means more people are appreciating it. Also for those who ridiculed Me for holding so long can no longer think I’m crazy. Pokemon truly is amazing!
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I am a net seller into this market. It was a tough decision given I only collected what I truly liked and not for speculation but at these prices I am happy to sell and use the proceeds to buy lower presentable grades to keep. I will almost certainly regret this 10 years from now, but everyone has to make their own decisions in this hobby
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@keto is the king of trolling and I love it.
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