Didn’t this really oversell? All of these could’ve been bought individually for significantly less. Odd. I think a lot of Pokemon people (or people in general) just suck at basic math lol.
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Not even first edition. Oof
Just looked them up and this seems like about what a psa 9 first edition holo set should sell for.
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There’s a guy with 0 feedback who drove up the auction but the actual winner has 300 bids and only 1 retraction so there is a very good chance it’s legitimate.
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Yup lol. I feel like lots like this either really oversell or really undersell. Some guy was auctioning off supposedly mint EX Series sets on eBay recently and the ones that I put snipes on ended up selling for like quadruple what I expected. And of course the ones I didn’t put snipes on ended up selling for like half what I expected (at prices I would’ve happily bought them at). Auctioning off complete sets, or really any lot, is such a crapshoot. I feel like they rarely end at fair market value – it’s always super high or super low lol.
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Yep, just people not being able to do the math on what the total lot of cards is really worth. Not to mention the actual value being highly dependent on quality which is really hard to tell for big lots, which I why I often don’t bid on them. Not trying to get a lot with 50% hp cards lol. Although thats not a problem with psa lots so no excuse for the buyer in this case 
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Hi there! I have a bit of a noob question but here goes:
I know that in the card community it is a knowledge based hobby which is true for Pokemon, sports, mtg ect. And I understand how it applies in sports where the rookie card is desired based on the players performance and their popularity and their longevity in their career and tournaments won and such. But when it comes to knowledge based in something like pokemon, specifically 1st edition base where the cards are not going to be played in the tcg, what are the factors that would be considered knowledge based? the only things I can think of is understanding the pop report and knowing how certain cards grade but is there anything else? I definitely feel like I’m missing something, but I might not be as well?
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Just updated my spreadsheet for the first time in a while and figured I’d copy it here. Just a lazy thing I do pulling the pokemonprice set analytics for each PSA 9 set, not actually going through card by card. I have had these all up on eBay in one lot for some time at a hefty price. That “hefty price” was about $50 or 80k through most of 2019 and most recently I bumped it to $1M because I couldn’t keep up with prices and don’t really want to sell it all.
All sets are 1st edition where applicable and these are holos only. The “multiplier” column is simply how many times more valuable the set was on 9/30/2020 vs. 12/31/2019. Note that this may not include very recent sales which could have drastic effects with a psa 9 base 1st zard having gone for $50k alone supposedly and this showing 51.5k for the whole holo set.
I get sick to my stomach thinking that in the January or February timeframe I had an offer come in the ~$50k range while I was paying two mortgages and renovating my new house and I probably would have taken it if the buyer came up to $60k with plans to re-assemble the set later in the year. I wonder how sick they are that they didn’t overpay. It’s crazy because I built so much of this multiple times over from 2016-2019 ish and just mentally figured it was something that could always be done and redone. Times have changed quite quickly lately especially.
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Kind of interesting that the highest gain was with Base Unlimited and that the lowest gain was also with Base Unlimited (a variant of it, but still). Another thing that’s interesting to me is how much more Expedition and Aquapolis increased than Skyridge. Maybe Skyridge was overpriced relative to Expedition/Aquapolis late last year? Or maybe it’s underpriced relative to them now.
Super interesting – thank you for sharing!
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Still, it points to the type of people who are currently buying in right now with regards to base unlimited. Easiest to understand. In contrast, base 2000 is even more abstract than shadowless if you think about it in terms of how to differentiate unlimited versus base 2000.
Across the board, prices tripling on average isn’t something a normal market should do lol
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True – though the gains are pretty consistent across the board. Almost all within the 3-5x range. So it looks like the entire market soared, but that certain sets soared a bit more than others. It’s interesting data to look at, though, as it kind of gives you a bit of a clue as to what’s over and undervalued at the moment (assuming that things were appropriately valued in December, which is a big assumption – but it was prior to the COVID speculative boom so I imagine that genuine collector demand informed those prices more than it does the current prices).
It would also be interesting to see if the relative increases were similar for PSA 10 sets.
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@zorloth, yeah definitely, although what I’m curious about is how sticky prices will be. I’m not sure how long we can sustain ‘record prices’ for blastoises & charizards, and at that point, to what extent will cards be dumped at attractive prices. I wonder whether some supply just gets absorbed because people don’t really know how to sell stuff on ebay properly or whether the money doesn’t matter to them in relation to their financial standing. Like $1000 is a good sum of money, but at the same time it isn’t life changing and perhaps not worth the hassle.
About things being undervalued/overvalued, it’s a bit difficult to discern what is undervalued, especially if new collectors/investors/flippers aren’t aware or just do not care about some of the newer sets. The DP series is pretty undervalued in my opinion, but I don’t think our top media influencers would care about these sets or about Gen 4, and this will affect the type of information that is being passed to their viewers. For all we know, it could just settle at current prices because there’s no demand for infernape & friends.
Nonetheless, I can’t deny that I haven’t stepped on the pedal when it comes to completing my collection goals & editing some as well. There’s a low chance that people care about… japanese exclusive ex cards like Imakuni’s exploud ex or Aura’s lucario ex for example, or the play promos for that matter, but I’d rather get them now when I still can. I haven’t bought WOTC in the past few months actually.
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I can speak for the Aquapolis set as I have solid data for it.
In December a full psa 10 holo set (not including crystal) individually sold for 4.7k total via pwcc.
Around mid April the set was worth 5.7k or so.
Today, based purely on last sales, the set is 24k/25k.
Roughly 4.9x. If crystals were included i guess it’d be higher as lugia has increased 8x.
Edit: I’ve updated the spreadsheet based on recent sales and Aqauplois H1-H32 (no crystals) is 29k. Representing a 6.17x increase
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Not sure why you think there is such pressure to ‘sustain record prices’. These cards have basically been at ‘record prices’ for the past decade. They just kept increasing each year so theyve always been at record prices. Stuff was at record high prices in the 2016 jump and then just kept raising after that just slower. I think there’s already been a slight retrace from the high pandemic jump in prices but id expect these prices as the new norm.
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Couldn’t agree more. From my observations, non iconic wotc holo 10s outside of base have mostly stabilized over the past few months. Now compared to base, they seem cheap again and the cycle continues
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if it goes up, we’re rich
if it stays stagnant, we get a breather and can work slowly towards buying again
if it goes down, we’re poorer but get to own what we love
win-win-win
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@krill , @shadowless , because something being overvalued and undervalued implies that there is a correct value. My point, which was building on @zorloth 's point, is just me thinking outloud about whether these ‘record prices’ are the ‘correct value’ based on my own subjective judgment. If its overvalued, then prices wouldn’t be sustainable in the short term. At that point - are they sticky?
Note that I didn’t mention any price crash - its possible that the prices just remain as what they are. I do think that prices increasing by 3x-5x in 1 year, when they didn’t do so last year or the year before, is interesting. In the long run, as you’ve alluded to, the ebbs and flows don’t matter.
There is some argument to be made as well in terms of how much people are willing to pay in cash. If prices keep growing each year, which is perfectly possible, what’s the maximum limit in terms of cash that your average high-end collector is willing to pay? There was a deal done with the trophy kangaskhan recently which involved some degree of cash + trade value. These would affect your valuation of a card and whether it’s under or overvalued or not, because these types of deals would be more private in nature.
Personally, I don’t really care because I don’t sell and I’ve always been buying - just quietly and in my own capacity. However, I can empathize with others who have yet to finish their collection goals and do not currently have the means to do so. Typically, these type of “bubble” conversations stem from people who feel that they are getting priced out of the market.
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The 1st edition Jungle holo set which sold a couple weeks ago went for about what I was expecting (albeit a few hundred dollars north of the total last sold market price of each card individually). I was really hoping to snag that one lol.
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Price were absolutely NOT increasing or breaking records in 2018 and 2019
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I feel bad for all the people that sold their collections earlier in the year. They anticipated that prices would retrace late in the year & they would be able to buy everything back eventually. You can even see comments that are only a few months old talking about this in this thread. I came very close to selling some top dollar cards too, thankfully I didn’t.
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Indeed. I remember not too long ago a member here asking if they should sell their PSA 9 1st Base Zard for like 13k and the consensus of most members was “yes, it’s a record price” so they went for it. With the information available at the time it was a reasonable decision, but seeing the value at 5x of this now, I feel a little bad for them.
Also vividly remember Buy threads earlier this year where people offered like 7k for this card and the responses were like “great offer, good luck”.
Good times.
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