What you have to remember is that guys like Scott and Gary are in the top 0.0001 percentile of people in this hobby. Scott and Gary would both probably bristle at this statement because they are both very humble, but they are the alpha dogs, and there can only be one alpha in a wolf pack. As Scott said: it’s not replicable. It’s a needle in a haystack scenario.
Your collection is still more significant than a HUGE portion of the people in this hobby. The average collector doesn’t have a complete 1st Edition Base Set, and they certainly don’t have a PSA 10 Trophy Kangaskhan.
So, your collection is still pretty enormous. It just seems small compared to the top of the top of the top.
Why exactly does this even matter? People who have massive collections will certainly not pop in here and make statements about their collections value or their sales data, this is private information.
I love my collection. It makes me really happy to own. It’s exactly what I always wanted, pretty much as soon as I learned that graded Pokemon cards were a thing 10-11 years ago. That’s all I can ask for. And the fact that my collection is now worth 10x what I paid for it is a very nice bonus. (If I had one regret… it’s not getting a PSA 9 Pikachu Illustrator when I saw it listed on eBay for $20K about 10 years ago and missing out on it again when it went for $55K in an auction 3 years ago… but what would life be if there was no chase?)
My comment is only meant to put what the top dogs have in perspective. To me, it’s crazy to think about how valuable my collection is. So thinking about how my collection, which I think is just amazing, is merely a drop in the bucket compared to what the top collectors have is just incredible. It puts the enormity of those collections in perspective for me.
Good topic. It’s fun to discuss all aspects of our great hobby.
On a personal level, the most important things to me is promoting the hobby as well as having a small part in helping others reach their goals. Yes, I have an impressive primary collection, but for 20 years I’ve used my secondary collection as a tool. There are years those items and that effort actually lifted a struggling hobby. It’s out of that secondary collection that I’ve helped others grow their own. I’ve continued to buy, sell, and trade out if it which keeps me active in the hobby.
Lastly, yes. It’s great to see what the values have done. I mean, what better indicator is there that shows the health of a hobby? But…I can safely say, that even without that growth Pokémon would still be one of the most important things in my life.
If we are going to measure inventory, none of the pokemon stores come close. DAcardworld spent $39,000,000 last year on collection purchases alone. These large stores beat everyone in the quantity game.
Can confirm. It was your listing of 16 1st edition base set PSA 9 holos back in 2009 (for $999) that brought me into high-end collecting, and I bought the vast majority of my complete sets through you too. If not for you, I probably wouldn’t still be in this hobby! Can’t ever thank you enough.
I think I said that if Anthony’s producer, Cade, would have walked up to me and offered me 5m for my collection, I’d do it. That was purely hypothetical. Honest to God, I have absolutely no idea what the value is. I can’t even state what all there is. I mean, I may remember things that I think are in there but they’ve been gone for decades.
One person we haven’t mentioned here who helped the hobby enormously and has a collection you couldn’t pole vault over is Eddie Brennesholtz. Since January 1999 we’ve done hundreds of deals together.
Yeah, Ed is another OG. following high-end cards on ebay for a decade, the number of extremely premium cards he’s put up for sale over the years has been enormous.
Not sure the OP was talking sales inventory but the above is totally true. A step further would be how much Wal-Mart has put into Pokémon over the years and the amount of their stock on hand. They win the pissing contest unless you ask them how many trophy’s they own lol.
Most valuable collections are surely Scott Gary and Jason. In regards to only Japanese it‘s Scott, Jason and 3-4 more collectors who own several trophies including old back (including myself).
