True – whatever a card sells for is what it should be worth at that snapshot in time. But the factors contributing to a card being a certain price are often not authentic or sustainable. An example of this is the Kingdra ex PSA 10 that sold for $1k via PWCC (and was paid for). But for anyone familiar with the market for PSA 10 exs, it was clear that the $1k price point was fucking nuts and that it would be easily obtainable for significantly less than that in the future. And sure thing, one sold for $310 via eBay auction within the past week.
I’m using ‘value investing’ similar to how Jake from Pokenomics uses it (I really enjoyed your discussion with him, BTW). That is that there are objective factors (such as pop report, the popularity of a Pokemon, sales history, etc.) that inform the “actual” value of a card. But (for whatever reason) the market often doesn’t reflect the “actual value.” The notion of “value investing” is buying cards that, based on the objective factors I mentioned, seem to be transacting for less than what they should. This being a successful strategy depends on the assumption that the market will become less irrational over time. Pokemon is not yet a mature market and so we haven’t yet reached price equilibrium. “Value investing” is a way of trying to take advantage of that fact.
I’m not necessarily endorsing “value investing,” but I’m just saying that this is what I think the other person meant by “intrinsic value” – the “actual value,” as separate from the current market value.
I think the biggest concern over the next 6-12 months is going to be the influx of PSA returns. I believe most collectors are going to hold onto their returns, but there is going to be a lot of people who came for the money and overspent only to discover they need it back which could lead to a massive supply in 2021.
One of the more prominent UK middleman services said they were getting up to 25k cards per week although I’ve heard several submitters say that mint+vintage+holo is only a small percentage of that. It’s mostly modern and commons which I believe will fall to less than today’s prices in 2021.
All that being said, the demand is unbelievable that even overprinted modern sealed products seem to have disappeared. If that level of supply can disappear then maybe we shouldn’t underestimate how quick 2021 PSA returns are going to be snapped up
I’ve been hearing the incoming PSA card supply is going to crash the market since the beginning of covid, it ain’t happening guys you can stop saying it XD
This complete 180 on the opinion of this market being in a bubble is fascinating.
Back in March or near the beginning of the price surge, I was making comments that these price surges seemed unsustainable and we were in a bubble. This perspective was pretty much universally panned on this forum.
Comment after comment was saying, “not a bubble,” “prices are stable because the only thing that would drive down prices is more supply and that won’t happen,” “these prices are the new norm,” or some variation thereof.
And now, these same commenters are saying this crash was to be expected. The price decrease is not a big deal, even though there are decreases of 40-70% across many categories. And prices have not stabilized yet. From what I’ve seen on eBay, prices are still going down.
You’re mixing up two different events: the COVID spike and the Logan Paul spike
Things haven’t retraced from the COVID spike. Like, at all. All of my e-Series and EX Series cards went up with the COVID spike. And none of them have decreased in value. In fact, most of them are still very slowly increasing in value.
The Logan Paul spike, on the other hand, wasn’t sustainable. And so we’ve seen price retraces on the items that spiked because of it. Name an item that has experienced a 40-70% retrace that didn’t also increase as a result of this spike. The retraces aren’t related to the COVID spike; the items retracing are onlyitems that spiked because of the Logan Paul/influencer hype.
You’re just ignoring empirical reality to make this post.
I can cherry pick data that says the market is up 70% from last month or I can cherry pick data that says it’s down 70%. Just like it was incorrect in March to say that the market was universally increasing, it’s incorrect now to say that it’s universally decreasing. Your points are further weakened by the fact that if you go from March to now, prices are in fact almost universally up across WOTC, EX, DP-HGSS, and Modern. This has already been pointed out to you though.
The worst thing about Pokemon market talk is the people who refuse to take a nuanced look at the reality of prices and instead revert to pronouncements of doom or pronouncements of moon. Sure, if you want to vindicate yourself ignoring for months the reality of the massive and fundamental interest and market shift we have seen in Pokemon over the last year, this period of clear short-term price decreases on some items is enticing. Ignoring these price decreases is also enticing if you want to vindicate yourself ignoring the fact that the growth we saw was clearly unsustainable and Pokemon cards do not go up forever.
Sigh. I will speak more in generalities for you then.
In general, for the past year it seems as though the general consensus of this forum was that we were not in a bubble, the price increases were justified, and there wouldn’t be a crash.
Now there has been a crash ( large price decreases since you are concerned about %s) and this forum is now saying “oh yes, that was to be expected.”
There doesn’t seem to be an unbiased analysis because everyone is so heavily invested.
Again, you’re confusing the COVID spike and the Logan Paul spike. There hasn’t been a crash of the COVID spike prices. There has been a crash of the Logan Paul spike prices. But people (myself included) were pretty outspoken in noting that the Logan Paul price spike increases weren’t sustainable and weren’t going to last.
You haven’t been reading the entireforum then, as we get “crash incoming” posts daily for the whole year. Like your other posts, this is not rooted in a factual analysis of the overall market and more so your own personal opinion and a desire to feel like you were right all along about the market.
This is why I try not to engage in this thread, there is so much basic factual inaccuracy in people’s understandings even when people take the time to respond and correct misunderstandings. Many people are not here to learn but to seek confirmation for their opinion of what the market is doing/will do. Almost always the conspiracy gets thrown in where E4 somehow is unable to comprehend anything other than price rises because we own cards.
I would argue it is all interconnected. Logan Paul got into collecting because Gary Vee said that pokemon was a good investment. In Logan’s video he said he started looking at pokemon after Gary Vee texted him saying “get educated on pokemon” referring to the large price increases and investment potential. Gary Vee only said that because pokemon was already surging this year.
Gary Vee would not have even been talking about pokemon but for the Covid boom.
Regardless, I see your point.
My more general point is that there seems to be push back on this forum against anyone who has anything to say other than “pokemon will only go up.” Basically not open to other opinions. Not saying you that, but in general.
i can save you some time. i tried this taking BGS 9’s and 9.5’s to PSA before all this madness. i only tried with 5 cards just to see. i basically camped on bgs 9 searches for a few days and only bought ones that had sub grades i thought were good enough and then only cards that appeared to be really clean. you can only tell so much from photo’s online. they all came back a 9. granted its only 5 cards that i tried, but you’re going to put in a ton of time most likely and just be out the grading fees. dont forget, you can also have a 9 come back an 8.
What are you talking about. In my original post that you shut down I provided exact data from eBay sales for Charizard unlimited PSA 9. It was selling for $5000+ at peak and now at $1500. (yes, i know this is only one example. that does not belittle its relevance)
I am aware that there have been posts inquiring about an upcoming crash, and in my experience they were frequently met with comments of disregard that a crash could never happen. Did every post disaffirm the possibility of a crash, no. Was it a general sentiment, in my opinion, yes.
I do not need confirmation that my opinion was correct. I am more interested / concerned that when these topics were brought up in the past, they were mostly shunned and shut down by the bigger members on this forum.
This forum should be a place to encourage discussion. Not just pandering and reinforcing unchallenged opinions.
could be interesting, but psa had a million card back log before covid. even if they increase their grading staff, you’re not going to get everyones order back at once. and there’s only so much actual mint vintage out there.
Yes, it’s all connected. But the reality is that the portions of the market that are retracing are exclusively the ones that spiked in October due to Logan Paul. And I don’t recall too many people arguing that those spikes were sustainable. The price spikes due to COVID have thus far sustained themselves.
I agree with this, to an extent. Discussions on this forum are often driven (at least in part) by personal financial interests – certainly more than most would admit. But, in addition to the baseless optimism, there’s also been a good bit of baseless pessimism. Regardless, I’ve experienced a lot of pushback from people after observing that certain cards (namely non-holo WotC PSA 10s) were increasing in price beyond what they should reasonably be worth (given how much the pops will increase). But these observations angered some people – anger that I can only imagine was driven out of self-interest. But as it happens, my observations were correct and will continue to be shown to be correct.
It’s not worth my time to engage with people who (a) have clear factual issues with their posts (it’s just not true that there was some E4 hype machine of “big members” who said prices could never go down, literally what even is this???) and (b) believe that a “general sentiment that prices would not go down” as you say equates to some kind of worrying censorship instead of just disagreement.
@buckna, that WOTC sandbox looking awfully tempting…
sigh again. I will make it more broad for you. I am saying the general sentiment of comments that responded to “the market will crash” posts over the course of this past year was to say the market price increases were justified and a crash was not likely.
Was everyone saying that, no. Was that a very common sentiment, I would say yes. There was substantial push back on any comment that the market would decrease in price.
I do find it annoying that threads can be shut down arbitrarily to prevent further discussion, but I acknowledge that it is your forum and you can do what you want.
Is this censorship, eh, gray area. Conversation can continue, but in a much less visible location.
Do I think that the push back against market crash talk was driven by personal financial motive, either conscious or subconscious, absolutely.
Apparently believing that price growth in March was an appropriate correction AND predicting a crash in October is a complete 180 and just shows the bias of the entire forum. But in reality both are completely true and happened. It’s almost as if a lot can change in 8 months.
And yes, before the fedoras are broken out I understand that this is just a single card. But this is the card with arguably the best data and also has probably one of the most extreme trends.
@admiral77, Even though I disagree with you don’t feel as though you shouldn’t post here. There are things I strongly disagree with that other members might believe but I always try to post my thoughts
