It’s interesting how much people have gotten burned on almost everything from 2021. I remember having some videos come up in my feed about some Marvel trading cards from the early 90s that were literally worthless for 30+ years to all of a sudden selling for $1000s in PSA 10 grade. Turns out they were all from a junk wax era, and the prices have mostly collapsed since then.
People were just throwing money at anything that seemed undervalued. The speculation was really out of control, and now the real fundamentals have come to life with a lot of things.
2020 and 2021 was a strange time. Anyone “investing” in Pokemon (or any shiny cardboard) needs to pretend that 2020/2021 doesn’t exist. Sales from that time period are so abnormal, so inflated, that they serve almost no purpose in present day.
I worry about the speculative crowd that sees massive declines in 2022/2023 and thinks, “Wow, there is so much potential!” I don’t think that we will ever see a 1st Ed Jungle Pikachu PSA 10 sell for $1,200 again.
Top 10 Pokemon posted two videos on cards with massive declines since the boom, and they really put things into perspective.
Sure enough all of my lgs are suddenly either out of stock on booster boxes, or have majorly increased prices on what little they have left. Taco man might actually be on to something here.
Let me also add I did abunch of digging and research. There is someone on tcgplayer named Poke Gram. He is buying hundreds of cases and most of them were off other tcgplayer sellers. Good thing is he paved the marketplace to sell and slightly beat his prices. Bad thing is for people that still needed to buy.
Recent rapid price increases feel a bit more fomo driven. I do hear that distros are pretty bare but at the same time basically all of these sets (minus evolving) are still readily available on pokemoncenter. Even Brilliant Stars which is 143.64 on PC vs some people buying for 180 on other markets…
its amazing how many videos he churns out which can all be summarised by:
“buy sealed product at or near msrp, hold for 3 years and you will have guaranteed above market returns”
like that’s it. that’s all you need to know. as with most finance related matters in life, temperament, emotion and risk appetite will likely prevent you from actually doing it.
There’s nothing natural about it indeed, some people are plugged into copium because “they are great sets” and people heavily bought them the past couple of months.
Last night he was selling 30 cases of Crown Zenith ETBs (10 ETBs per case). It sold out in less than 2 minutes. The demand for Pokemon from all TCG/CCG sectors is incredible.
I bought a booster box from him off eBay about 7 years ago, before he had much of a following, Just so happened he was the cheapest BIN with shipping, didn’t know it was Rudy.
He shipped it to me in a bubble envelope. Of course it showed up in less than favorable condition,
I have gained a considerable amount of new confidence in the Pokemon TCG for the long-haul after the past year. With the incredibly negative investment sentiment in other areas, Pokemon marched through it all like it was no one’s business. Even though I’m primarily a vintage collector and only dabble in modern once in a while, I love seeing it continue to succeed like it has.
It really is astounding. You can look at almost any other card game (e.g., Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Flesh and Blood, Weiss, Force of Will, MetaZoo, etc.) and none have fared as well as Pokemon in the economic downturn of 2021-2023. Pokemon has solid leadership and communicates effectively to their consumers. Other companies could learn a thing or two…
Not only that, but I think Pokemon has done an excellent job at never forgetting their old and new fans across releases. I love seeing older Pokemon that I grew up with in newer sets, and they still manage to keep them as fresh as they were originally, or in some cases even better in terms of artwork and things. It just has such a wide range of options to work with, and everyone has a favourite Pokemon as well.
Overall, it’s just really hard to not finding something to like I find.