Maybe someone wrote something and deleted. I think that brings the topic back to the top. Wasn’t me.
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It’s definitely going to revert. Too many are learning that grading is absolute bs. All this modern grading is especially hilarious.
A variety of reasons:
- Authenticity, consistency, and the monetary value that PSA or any other company add to the card. You cant refute that PSA (and grading in general) greatly boosts the value of cards. PSA is very consistent, as are the other two main companies (CGC/BGS). If they weren’t, no one would use them. There are also some cards that are rampant with fakes, so an authenticated one is much safer and less stressful, albeit more expensive.
- Continuing/Completing long standing goals. Many people have been collecting graded cards prior to 2020/21. The reality is that you cant buy some of these cards in psa 10 for cheap. There simply aren’t other options available in some cases. 2020/21 was a double edged sword. On the one hand, many collections shot up in value overnight. On the other hand, all the cards you didn’t have also shot up.
- Cost/Benefit. Much easier to buy an already graded card then spend the months it may take (or years) to find mint copies and send to psa, hoping for a 10. This goes back to point 2.
- flexing/investing/flipping culture. If a card is $1000, one can reasonably assume it may go up or down. I’m not saying its a smart strategy, but there are people sitting on Battle Styles packs. Clearly, logic doesn’t mean anything.
- People want these cards. Ultimately, the people that are buying these cards are largely those who enjoy the hobby and want to collect cards in high grades. It may seem odd to spend $1000 on a graded card, but we all like and enjoy the hobby differently. I don’t even buy graded cards, but I see why people do. Heck, people will go out of their way to spend hundred(s) on a card just because it features their favorite Pokémon. The species collector thread(s) here are an excellent example of how serious and dedicated people can be to the hobby.
I just sorta rambled here
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The fact that people are out here trying to hustle by grading M-NM raw cards, and trying to flip them for way more tells you there are a lot of suckers in this market.
And grading isn’t always profitable. There are so many junk slabs being sold for raw card value. People don’t like to talk about their losses.
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I feel like it depends on the disposable income of collectors down the road too. If most collectors are priced out of PSA 10 prices, they’re most likely to get the next best thing (9’s). My thought
Whether or not you personally believe PSA 10s/high grades are worth the premium, enough people do to establish a significant market.
I don’t know where you get your information/insinuation that the PSA 10 market is somehow failing and people with 10s are dumping at auction. The graded Pokemon card market is absolutely huge and 10s are the main driver of that market. Sure, prices might go down here and there, but grading as a whole (and the premium placed on 10s) isn’t going anywhere.
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If that is the case, then the competition for psa 9s will increase, inadvertently leading to the value of psa 10s going up further.
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How many psa 10s are going up vs how many are going down? Decline in price and amount graded combo is very telling.
Just look at sales data. They peaked the most, and were hit the hardest. It’s a volatile market that is behaving like a typical bubble.
Psa 10s are also a lot less liquid. Good luck trying to sell them for what you “think” they’re worth.
My argument is they will not sustain their high premiums and that they are not very liquid. Just my opinion.
I’m also not against grading. I have 1st Ed base graded for authenticity purposes. But grading modern for psa 10 is what I absolutely despise. Just to clarify.
It’s not that simple. Even if I could give you an exact number of 10s “going up” and 10s “going down,” those numbers wouldn’t tell us anything about the PSA 10 market, they’d tell us about the broader Pokemon card market.
In order to test the argument that the PSA 10 premium is decreasing, we would need to match the change in 10 prices with the change in raw/PSA 9 prices. If PSA 10 prices are going down, but so are raw and PSA 9 prices, that doesn’t support the argument that collectors are devaluing 10s. However, if 10 prices were going down significantly while raw and 9 prices went up or stayed the same, that might provide some support. In reality though, that very rarely happens once a market price has been established.
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Never ceases to amaze me when binder-only collectors feel they’ve got multiple graded card markets figured out and are above all the “suckers” who pay for “overpriced” slabs.
Anyway, the graded card market, especially the PSA 10 market, is quite healthy these days. Nothing moves in a straight line, and one would be remiss to generalize every category of card (EN vintage set cards, JP vintage set cards, JP trophies, EN modern, JP modern etc) into a singular trend. The higher price point of PSA 10s does result in fewer sales compared to lower grades, but this stuff does move and will sometimes even result in record high sales.
One needs not look much further than the plethora of daily threads on E4 discussing different graded market trends and sales to get an idea of the activity. Heck, the past few months with the JP modern market should be an indication that there’s a huge global demand for PSA 10s right now. Whether one personally believes the 10 premium is justified or not is irrelevant if so many individuals are willing to pay said price and establish a floor and ceiling.
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Sales data for what? For every WOTC PSA 10 that has gone down since 2021, I can point you to a Japanese PSA 10 that’s 5-10x’d in value.
Volatility doesn’t spell doom for a market. Housing is volatile, stocks are volatile. Those markets might go up and down, but they aren’t going to become obsolete.
The idea that 10s are not liquid is straight wrong. 10s are the easiest to sell for virtually any Pokemon card.
I literally have the entire 1st Ed holo base set slabbed in psa. Binder grader? No. This is a conversation about premiums on non grail psa 10s. And by grail i mean when the raw NM card can surpass 1k.
Not… “oh this card is $50 nm raw but $1000 psa 10 omg!!!”
So you think nothing can become obsolete? Lol
Not everything is guaranteed to appreciate over a long period of time. And there are such things as buying at a peak and losing money.
Am I included here? I’ve loads of graded cards just in case I am.
We are witnessing market manipulation because healthy growth has ceased. Sure there was manipulation in the past hence why a 1st ed Charizard is where it is now and even that is half the value from the hype.
When I see certain cards in psa 10 fetch more than a LP 1st Ed base zard… something is wrong. I’m not saying psa 10s will go to zero but I do forsee a big correction down the line.
And we are already seeing it today. How’s psa 10 moonbreon holding up? How’s psa 7 zard holding up? Hopefully you didn’t buy the psa 10 moonbreon a year ago.
It’s doing fine, my dude. There are bound to be spikes and dips in any market. Even after the dip it has seen a stable recovery and predictable growth.
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PSA 10 Moonbreon hasn’t been going down at all. So good I guess?
It’s been going down and even if it’s going up we can all pull an example back and forth showing the opposite. The trend is down and will continue down. Then we can spike properly again.