As far as an investment vehicle that’s a no go - but as long as you like the card and the art that’s all that matters 
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Honestly I think PSA 10’s are undervalued. It has more potential for increase rather than let’s say a Pokemon Rocket 1st Ed Holo Dark Zard…those have risen yes, but they don’t have as much room for growth than the Shiny.
All in all, it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. I love the card regardless. Like you said, that’s all that matters.
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I disagree. Hidden Fates is still in print and sealed product is incredibly easy to find. So it’s very affordable (relatively speaking) to crack Hidden Fates packs and grade the cards. The same cannot be said for Rocket 1st Ed Dark Charizard, where if one wants to get a pack fresh one they might have to spend upwards of $10k in pursuit of it. Not to mention that people are much more conscious of the financial value of cards now (especially cards like the Hidden Fates Charizard that has been expensive since release) and so much better preserve them (additionally, people also now know and recognize the value of sleeving your cards, not putting them in o-ring binders, etc.). Newer cards are just generally much easier to find in better condition than older cards. I see much, much more room for growth for the 1ED Dark Charizard, which was was the second Charizard ever released, highly iconic, and over 20 years old now. If you enjoy the Hidden Fates Charizard, then you should cherish it and proudly own it. But if you’re looking to get the best ROI, I think there are few cards that would be a worse choice than a $1000 PSA 10 card that is literally still in print and has a population approaching 1000. It’s like a perfect storm of variables that make something a poor investment (within the context of a speculative market like that of Pokemon cards).
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Typically cards like that follow the typical hype cycle. When everyone wants it, the price is overvalued. As the hype dies down, the price declines but long-term there is the whole nostalgia cycle that eventually kicks in. Young kids grow up opening HF packs but never get the zard. When they become adults, they start working and now are able to afford to buy the card. Price goes up.
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Nice Charizard, will be 1k+ card
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As PSA continues to define itself as the “standard” for a lot of collectors, something I have observed over the years is the practice of getting cards graded so they can sell them.
Business-wise, this makes sense. I’ve done it with Yugioh and some Pokemon cards. You make a nice profit if you sell graded cards.
However, having searched for certain cards in the past, it has been increasingly more difficult to find certain raw cards in mint condition that aren’t graded.
My question is this: Do you guys think that the availability for raw and minty cards will be endangered in the future as the standard for selling in PSA continues to climb?
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Yes without a doubt. Why sell a mint card raw when you can make 2x or 3x more getting it graded? Pretty soon I think the only way to obtain a mint raw card will be to buy one already graded and crack it if you really want it raw.
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Of course! That’s already what’s been happening over the course of many years. As the population of PSA cards increases, the population of raw minty cards decreases.
If your goal is to sell a truly mint, highly sought-after Pokemon card, it makes a lot of sense to have the card graded which will enable you to sell the card at a much higher price.
Yes, there are some people who will buy PSA graded cards for the purpose of cracking them out and putting these cards in their binder collection, but for the most part once cards are graded they stay graded (I am sure far more cards are cracked out of a case for the purpose of re-grading them as opposed to for the purpose of being placed in someone’s binder).
This goes hand-in-hand with the fact that the quantity of sealed product is declining and getting more expensive, making the supply of new, minty raw cards very low.
It’s already become extremely difficult to find raw, mint cards for just about anything (at least for any highly desired card) and it will continue to get more difficult as the years go on.
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There’s nothing like finding a raw, minty card. That feeling when you open the package and finally get to see the card and it meets or exceeds the expectations of the way it looked in the online pictures. And you probably also paid less than the price for a graded card.
Unfortunately the opposite happens too, even if you are careful.
I know I’m in the minority, but that’s the principal reason at this stage of life I primarily buy only graded cards, even when what I’m after is a mint raw card. It certainly costs more, and it is a HUGE pain to crack the cards out of the case. And slightly risky (I have lowered the grades on two cards out of probably 1000, so risk is low if you are careful). But it lowers the variability substantially. And you’ll usually only have to purchase that card one time to get what you’re after. You still have to make sure you are scrutinizing pictures since we all somewhat have our own standards for what we want and PSA isn’t perfect.
I have purchased only a handful of cards raw that are more than $100. I just don’t want to take the risk. And for those cards over some value threshold (I arbitrarily chose $100), why would any seller not want to capture the full premium that a graded card will command. So I do expect “expensive” raw, minty cards to be hard to find and to only get harder to find. Frankly I’m automatically skeptical of any expensive card being sold raw. For me, raw cards are something I generally consider taking a risk on for things like non-holos or maybe reverse holos.
I collected comic books as a kid from like 1990-1993 or so. I collected them and never sold them. There wasn’t grading then, or at least if there was it wasn’t prevalent or if it was I didn’t know about it. In 2003 when I was early in my career and getting life started with my now wife, then girlfriend. I decided to sell my old comic book collection. Grading had exploded by then so we took all of the key issues to get graded by CGC. I was heartbroken that some of my most key books came back with a purple label (altered). Most were books I bought from a certain dealer.
People think I’m crazy buying graded cards and cracking them out, but we’re all shaped by our own experiences. At least I have assurance that what I own is genuine. Buyer beware.
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In my opinion, this is the major reason why the standards for NM cards in Pokemon and MTG are so wildly different. When you purchase a ‘NM’ MTG card you EXPECT to receive a pack fresh card. If there’s a tiny white nick or two that’s fine, but anything beyond that? No bueno. Any scratches or any wear visible to the naked eye makes it SP at best. When I order a ‘NM’ Pokemon card, I expect something closer to ‘MP’ by MTG condition standards. I’m slowly auctioning off literally 1000s of EX Deoxys reverse holos on eBay that were ALL purchased as NM on TCGPlayer. I purchased as many as 40 of each card I was looking for. At most, I received 2-3 actually NM cards. And I purchased these all from vendors that are on my ‘good list.’ Meaning they have consistent grading standards. EX Deoxys is a bit of a special case because reverse holos from that set are insanely fragile. But that’s generally been what I’ve been doing for every Pokemon card I’m looking for. I order all (or most) of the NM ones off TCGPlayer and am happy if I receive one that is actually NM. And by actually NM I mean PSA 8/9 minimum – at most a couple of extremely faint holo scratches or tiny sparse whitening on the back.
The laughable condition standards in the Pokemon world are, in my opinion, largely because of grading. Pokemon collectors grade seemingly everything in sight that’s in remotely acceptable condition. PSA/BGS grading in MTG, on the other hand, is mostly reserved only for cards from the first year of the game (late 1993 to late 1994). Anything after that is seldom graded. If I want a pack fresh, pristine card from 1995, I can buy a single copy from SCG or from certain TCGPlayer vendors and I know for a fact that it will be in the equivalent of PSA 9 or 10 condition. No exceptions. Whereas in Pokemon? lol no. Zero chance. Obviously, this is not ONLY because of PSA grading – Pokemon cards are generally more fragile (especially holos vs. MTG foils). But has PSA grading made the condition standards for raw cards lower? Hell yes it has.
One other weird thing with Pokemon condition standards is that people will characterize something as NM if it’s the equivalent of PSA 7 or better (because PSA labels 7s as ‘NM’). BGS does the EXACT same thing. BGS 7s are labeled ‘NM.’ But if you sold BGS 7 quality Magic cards as NM you wouldn’t be in business very long. But PSA 7 quality cards (which are little, if at all, better than BGS 7s, in my experience) are considered NM in Pokemon? It’s bizarre to me, but I have to imagine it will only get worse over time as the nicest condition cards continue to get graded.
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Well said!
I also think you’re absolutely crazy for cracking high grade cards just to stick in a binder 
Too much depreciation hit for most to stomach. And enough people are willing to pay the premium to keep it in the slab.
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Two different games, markets, collectors. You can draw certain lines to compare them but that’s it. Pokemon holos are way way harder to grade than most Magic holos, also there were no holos in reserve list or most of the vintage magic.
Still that’s your point of view so as long as it remains as an opinion, that’s good.
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I mentioned the fact that Pokemon cards are tougher to keep in gradable condition. But the prevalence of PSA grading is also a large factor in why Pokemon condition standards are different.
And yes, there are Reserved List foils. The RL goes up through the end of Urza’s block, and foils were introduced in Urza’s Legacy (the second out of the three Urza’s block sets). There were also quite a few foil versions of RL cards printed between 1998 and 2010 (i.e., judge promos and a handful of FTV cards). They changed the RL in I think 2010 or 2011 to also preclude foil reprints of RL cards, though.
Still, despite foil Reserved List cards being highly collectible, it’s almost unheard of for people to grade them. I’m not saying it’s wrong for people to grade Pokemon cards. I think the notion of professional grading has a LOT of merit, and it has had many positive effects on the hobby. But it has also had effects that I think are negative.
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I find that incredibly unfortunate. This hobby was originally designed for kids and I think this level of crossover into the graded world will make it harder for kids to gain some early-era wants outside of buying packs and crossing their fingers - but that only applies to newer sets. I’m also worried for low-end collectors as well. I dislike the idea of going down a slippery-slope, but I wonder if this hobby, with PSA, will eventually burn out low-end collectors out of the hobby if it hasn’t already done so.
@jonandek , I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re more privileged than anything. I wish I had the luxury of doing what you did as I would buy a few nice replacements for my collection. To me, it’s not about the grade. Heck, I have some cards in my collection which would be lucky to get PSA 6 because of how dinged up the backs are. As it is, though, I only care about the presentation in my binder. If the front looks minty, that’s all I care about.
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Yeah super true hahah, in MTG NM means NM. For that reason, I feel that paying unnecessarily high premiums is tougher for top of the line Pokemon cards unless I can personally verify that the grade stated reflects the true condition of the card
But base set also has a few parallels to ABUR in MTG. If i look at it that way, and compare the prices between an unlimited mox sapphire versus unlimited blastoise, you kind of wonder whether the market for Pokemon has hit its peak or not.
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I initially hesitated to post certain things like PSA 10 pick-ups or the fact that I’m cracking mint cards for my binder set but have gotten comfortable doing that here. Am I privileged? My younger self would certainly say so and would be very happy how things have turned out. But I don’t have a penny to my name that I haven’t earned over the past 20 years. In my career path it takes a long time, lots of politics and certainly some lucky rolls of the dice to work your way from the bottom rung, to the middle, then finally closer to the top. I take nothing for granted because along the way nothing was ever certain. I say that especially for the younger people here. Trust me, when I was in my 20s collecting things it was peanuts compared to now. I sold my entire comic book collection for $5000 when I was just getting my adult life started and that was a really big deal then and moved the needle. Then I recollected comic books and when I was 28 sold them all again for about $20k. And THAT money was a really big deal then.
The aspect of me that’s visible on this forum now at age 42 is basically a grownup kid fulfilling his collecting fantasies with all of the bells and whistles I can comfortably afford (and that my wife tolerates 
). No one should play a violin for me but I have made huge sacrifices and worked hard my entire life to have the financial flexibility I have now. Someone posted in another thread that I’m rich. I don’t consider myself that. I still work full-time and don’t have any plans to retire soon. I understand that I’ve opened myself up to comments like that - it’s fair to assume things like that based on the velocity of my pokemon purchases and the cards I am buying. I don’t mean to offend anyone who may be living off of trust funds or inherited money but that’s not me.
I enjoy the fact that there’s a community here of collectors and it has been fun to share and I hope to continue to. It makes it all immensely more fun.
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As a former MtG collector (1993-1996)(2013-2016), I can’t help but draw a lot of parallels between the two. There are some major differences, the main being MtG as a whole is more driven by the playability/power of the cards. Pokemon has such broader multi-media appeal and therefore seems to be driven by a lot of other factors first over playability (speaking for vintage cards not cards in playable rotation). But based on the parallels I see and from other hobbies like comic books, I think Pokemon is still relatively early in the cycle, although it’s harder to not think it may be coming out of that early phase with some of the more recent price increases. That was certainly my unwavering assessment when I came plowing in during mid-January! I think this hobby has long legs and a ways to go. Of course things may ebb and flow but I don’t see a peak for some time.
I don’t at all apply that statement to cards like the newer shiny charizard. I see that price coming down over time until it settles below $500. If I’m wrong about that then I’m probably wildly underestimating other aspects of this hobby too though. So I hope I’m wrong!
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I definitely don’t think the market for Pokemon has hit its peak (though it’s obviously doing quite well right now) but I don’t think there’s much of a parallel between MTG Unlimited and Base Unlimited. The print run of Unlimited was much closer to 1st Edition Base than Base Unlimited. I think Revised would be the closest parallel – but even then, the print run of Base Unlimited dwarfs that of Revised. And, to put it into perspective (though you’re probably already aware of this), Unlimited had in the vicinity of 1/20th the print run of Revised (possibly as high as 1/12th, possibly as low as 1/50th). I think the closest parallel would be 1st Edition Base ↔ Alpha/Beta, Shadowless ↔ Unlimited, and Base Unlimited ↔ Revised. This is a bit complicated, though, by the fact that the main chase cards (the P9) weren’t printed in Revised whereas the starter trio was obviously in Base Unlimited. And the fact that Alpha/Beta are much rarer than 1st Edition Base. I think this parallel, though, lines up more with the perceptions within both hobbies. Relative to ABU, Revised was printed out the wazoo (as was Base Unlimited relative to 1st Ed./Shadowless). Unlimited has become a highly collectible alternative to Alpha/Beta, kind of like how Shadowless is a highly collectible alternative to 1st Edition Base. And, as Unlimited has become much more expensive within the past several years, a portion of newer collectors are starting with Revised. I think Base Unlimited has experienced an even more pronounced increase in the perception of collectibility than Revised has, though. The perception of MTG collectors is still predominantly that Revised had much too large of a print run to be ‘collectible.’ Base Unlimited, though, has really started to become expensive and more desirable recently. If 1st Ed./Shadowless continue to rise in value, I could Base Unlimited experiencing a parallel increase in value as more and more people are priced out.
It’s really interesting to see how different the perceptions of the early sets are, though, between Pokemon and Magic. It’s still highly unorthodox to grade Revised cards. Base Unlimited, though? There is getting to be a huge premium for PSA 10 Base Unlimited cards. It’s very interesting to me just how differently people approach collecting in the two hobbies.
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Yeah I know what you mean and I totally agree - it’s just the fact that there’s no P9 in Revised that makes evaluating the big 3 in Pokemon in Base Unlimited a little tricky. Though, I feel that eventually, with time/collectors getting more money etc., the 3 chase cards for NM ungraded Base Unlimited will surpass Revised dual land levels (~USD 500 for Underground Sea?)
It’s really weird to grade Revised outside of dual lands. But what do you think @zorloth? I feel if lower graded 1st edition base/shadowless can still be bought now (like 8s or 9s), I’d prioritise that over multiple copies of PSA 10 base unlimited since the former is still kind of affordable, and because base unlimited/revised is just too plentiful in supply.
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Yeah spot on @jonandek, to me Pokemon has the potential to surpass MTG eventually as a hobby, because Pokemon’s market segment is much, much wider. MTG is great, and I never stopped collecting MTG, but they really need some way to get new blood into the market as that will prolong the lifespan of the game. I feel that the lack of playability for vintage Pokemon is actually a plus, since the current demand for it is solely due to the cards being collectibles. If MTG dies, I am sure the prices of Revised (our Base Unlimited) will drop.
I think the newer stuff for Pokemon is just too risky to be paying that kind of premium. I was amazed, however, that some of the Japanese exclusives e.g. Mario Pikachu/cosplay Pikachu appreciated in value so quickly. Pokemon is very species-driven too, which is not something we’d see often in MTG (unless anyone only collects… savannah lions?)
What affects the price of modern pokemon? I’m not very familiar with that, whereas reprints or card bans in MTG (as I’m sure you’re aware of) can totally destroy the value of a card. “Grim Tutor”, a USD 200ish card is going to be mass reprinted shortly, and the value of that will probably settle at USD 10.
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