The Giant English Market Thread

It’s good to keep perspective. :slight_smile: BUT, while there’s not as much hype ATM, there is still plenty to discuss.

I got into Pokemon last year April-May 2020 and I really enjoyed it because it was readily available from the shelves. Learned quite a bit and I did feel a lot of fomo during the time when I saw cards I glossed over going for double and such.

I will never forget the day I saw hordes of people scalp Champions Path and it felt like the beginning of a very long Pokemon drought. Scalping/botting also became more common on the JP sites I frequented that I really became disheartened.

Regardless, I’m glad I stayed because of the conditions now. I have been buying a bit more these days, focusing on cheaper promos/trophies I can afford and working on those 2022 collecting goals. I do hope that it burns more people who scalp it and keep modern available.

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I think the hobby is at a refreshing place right now. Things are more than fine; plenty of interest and people collecting, buying/selling. Rather than flying at 60mph we are cruising at 25mph while enjoying the view.

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speaking of cruising. Is this you telling me I should sell my collection again Hisoka Style (aka YOLO) and buy a sports car to cruise around in :thinking:

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Time for the sequel :slightly_smiling_face:

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Your first paragraph describes items that would get the “occasional garage or yard sale” tax treatment. You don’t have to pay taxes on selling junk around the house, especially if it’s for a net loss, that would be absurd. You pay taxes if your garage/yard sale becomes a hobby or a business.

If you’re selling Xbox & games at a loss described in your 2nd paragraph, you also don’t have to pay taxes on that. But you can’t claim a loss on them, so you can’t offset gains from other sales.

The IRS takes fair market value or whatever you paid for it, whichever is lowest.

Also in general, just because eBay issues you a 1099 doesn’t mean you pay taxes on everything detailed in the 1099. They don’t know anything about your taxes other than what you sold on eBay. Everyone’s tax situation is different.

No promos or error cards, and some sets missing earlier/1st editions, but bet this still took some doing to put together:

ebay.us/aEHZOt

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“Nothing has graced eBay’s walls like this before”

He’s not wrong lol. He has a second listing for $1,000,000 with all 1st ed sets as well as like 50 other smaller sets and some reverse sets. Quite the massive listing, could definitely save someone a LOAD of time. Too bad not every set has reverse holos though.

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Hello,

I am relatively new to the Pokemon community (Involved for about the last 2 years. Thanks Logan Paul and Covid lol) and I am wondering what everyone’s thoughts are on what would happen if were to come into a large economic correction or another recession.

As of today, we have the highest mortgage rates since the beginning of Covid, China Evergrande crisis still being dealt with, and inflation has the highest % increase since 1982.

1.) With the collectibles market being such a volatile environment and not a liquid asset, are we in danger of the current trends for collectibles continuing to dip in the potential future with everything being taken into consideration? (PSA returns coming back, massive printing, and flipdip420charizardbro69’s leaving the hobby)

2.) Were any of you in the hobby during the great recession or shortly after? What happened to the prices and was it hard to stay interested and proactive toward your collections?

3.) Do you think that it would be better to have cash on hand and prepare for future buying opportunities or do you think that with the hobby being in a bear market that we should be taking all of the opportunities that are presented now?

Thanks! Just a 23 year old needing some good advice :blush:

Full clarity: I did not live through the recession and have only gathered information that I’ve heard on this conversation before.

  1. I think collectibles will be very closely tied to how the crypto market is doing. Winter time is a bad time for collectibles almost every year and summer will see an increase almost always. No one knows if we will continue to see dips across the board but there was definitely a correction that needed to happen and that’s what we are seeing.
  2. Can’t answer this.
  3. From what I’ve heard - people prefer hard assets in a recession due to cash losing a lot of its value and high end collectibles do very well in these times when the economy bounces back. There are many that love to soak up the buying opportunities that have the luxury of being able to do so even when the economy is in the tank so they can come out even further ahead when it starts doing well again and the buying power returns. (Also note: I said HIGH END assets. The low and middle end suffer tremendously in a recession due to the people that own these are usually the hardest hit and they flood the market with anything they can sell)

Just a 28 year old that is trying to learn as well and apologize if anything above is not accurate - but its what I’ve gathered over the past few years.

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alright, ill try to bullet my response in the same fashion and also welcome to e4.

  1. Short Answer: No one knows. Longer Answer: anyone can find a good assessment of the future through just viewing the trends occurring marketwise to make some safe assumptions, but no one here at all can predict what will happen even hours from now. If someone dares even say “this for sure will occur”, id be weary of em. Not because theyre wrong, but more because theres no such thing as being able to know for sure ever what to expect in dynamic markets such as with collectibles. All you can do is safely assume through viewing all aspects of what youre looking into, and that will give you your best educated guess.

  2. I wasnt there myself, but in my mind I tend to put myself there to visualize how id feel and what I would do. Personally with my love for Pokemon in all forms (merch, cards, plush, etc etc) its so deep that my interest wouldnt disappear just because of swings up or down. This already proved to be true when I started pre covid and things went way up. After a while, things started settling and they still are to a degree, but none of these aspects changed how ive been acting in my collecting. Its only stayed the course and well, thank my passion for that one and im sure many can relate.

  3. This question is all situational here as to what one is doing in collecting. My habits wont be your habits, and neither will anyone elses who may come into this mix for comparison. Since everyone comes from different aspects of collecting, buying, income, etc, I cant really give advice to this point aside from saying having cash on hand is always good of course, but also just do whats best for you given your own life situation and what your future goals are. Never extend beyond those barriers and you should always be fine.

Hope this helps

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Welcome here @dnacollectibles, please post general market discussion here:

www.elitefourum.com/t/the-giant-english-market-thread/27424/1

what do you like to collect my dude

I think you are overthinking things a bit my dude

Personally I’m not trying to make pokemon a job or even a side hustle so maybe not the same relevance to you (?) but in my mind it doesn’t matter. I’m sure a most of my cards have appreciated since initial acquirement but I can’t see myself selling so… even if I look at something and go wow that’s 10x higher in price! Then I realize, what good does that do me if it’s a permanent collection piece?

@diogonen ,

We all have different approaches and perspectives. Pokemon isn’t a job or side hustle for me either. I haven’t sold any cards in almost a year. I agree for some cards it doesn’t really matter how they perform, while for others I care more.

Personally all the cards I own probably fit into one of three categories:
(1) Those I will likely never sell (deep, personal memories)
(2) My collection, which I’d probably sell in the far, far future (retirement)
(3) My “investments”. Maybe 5 year horizon, depends on the item. Profits will support the collection.

The cards in (1) are fairly static. The list doesn’t grow much, it is mostly childhood cards.

I can easily add new cards to both (2) and (3) by buying duplicates. One copy for the collection, one to play the market with. In that case I very much do care if a card goes up 10x, because I can sell it and use the money to fund other collection goals.

Anyway, when I read the super stonky investment posts in this thread I very much assume the poster is talking about (3). I do hope they have their own (1) and (2), but I suppose some people here might not (nothing wrong with that either).

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Hi, welcome to E4. Love your avatar, great taste. :wink:

The whole thing was incomprehensibly different.

It was not hard to stay interested or proactive but it was hard to spend any money because many of us were poor teenagers or early twenties “wasting” our paper route/burger flipping-money on a hobby with little seeming prospects, much to the despair of unaccepting parents and the amusement of mocking peers.

There was no internet nerd pop culture (the “pop”-part is important), no general acceptance, barely any social media, embryonic 240p Youtube and one or two forums. Interest seemed to be more an internal, private matter back then, which of course makes sense for several reasons but also because you more or less had to be genuinely interested to partake.

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@dnacollectibles That’s a good point (and I think I quoted the wrong person earlier haha), I guess it is product/card based too. If it’s rare enough but still affordable and I can’t be sure it’ll show up again soon, vs a relatively available higher end item, etc, are all different scenarios.

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