Discuss
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Currently an 018/PLAY Master Ball on YAJ for 40k yen ($385 USD) with no bids, what’s the highest one of these has ever sold for?
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Some of those have exclusive artwork. Full Arts are very popular. Full art females are very popular…not sure why…errhrmmm…
I actually picked up Erikas Hospitality, Sightseer, and Greens Exploration just because of the great exclusive (hopefully) artwork.
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This is my favorite from there, and 100% favorite trainer of all time. Possibly favorite card… and it’s Japanese exclusive! I hope other cultured people agree. I feel like this card will act like the latios/latias tag team gx and have its value carried by artwork alone long term.
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Hopefully this is the right spot for this conversation, but how are y’all handling Scams on buyee? I have known several people recently to get “scammed” in some way - either, bad listing with empty boxes selling for $800 (description totally misleading, somewhere in the fine print that the boxes were empty) or SSV “first prints” not actually come in as first prints - and Buyee just shrugs their shoulders. If you chargeback, buyee bans.
What are you supposed to do? It’s like the wild west when buying through Buyee. Take a gamble… no buyer protection… I fear Yahoo Auction sellers may even catch on and recognize buyee accounts, cancel bids in favor of a buyee bidder winning, knowing there is 0 buyer protection for a buyee buyer.
currently using remambo a bit, but seems to be quite a bit slower and had a few canceled bids.
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I was lucky enough to snag an auction recently with several complete minty vending sets. They make fantastic binders and the artwork is really incredible. One of my favorites for sure. craziest part, the minty vending cards weren’t even in the pictures of the collection! total grand slam. over 400 minty psa9/10 holos from base to neo 4. very exciting and rewarding collection purchase, but vending I feel the most proud of 
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I’ve been waiting for this thread! Had to read every single post.
Sharing one of my favorite sets. I remember the first time I saw the French Pikachu (second one from left on bottom row), one of the most beautiful cards ever.
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“somewhere in the fine print that the boxes were empty)”
Read the fine print.
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buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/l657852655
Another 1st Ed Mirage Forest booster box for anyone who’s interested, looks v mint.
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Anyone have a good resource on more obscure Japanese promos that are fairly expensive in Japan, but lesser known here and seldom discussed? Examples: emolga bw-p 81, Hiroshima gyarados xy-p, umbreon xy-p 140. I feel that some cards may be expensive as their release and rarity is well understood in Japan, but the information available in bulbapedia and outside of japan is very limited.
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buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/v751680831
Sure, but doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. This would be considered a shady listing practice on eBay and the seller would be warned / banned. This is intentionally buried in the “notes”.
On ebay if you had bought this, received it, and opened a case, buyer protection would have your back.
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I’m in the same spot as you in terms of wondering the distribution of certain cards and how prestigious a certain battle/event was from one to the next. Besides the obvious trophy cards, the cards that are given out at events that are not the World Championships are more obscure. Besides clicking on the card’s release history, there really isn’t much, at least that I know of, to deepen our understanding besides the PSA pop report and maybe a few old threads. I do think that the Night/One day battles, “awarded to top winners”, “awarded X amount of points”, and the price point are good indicators of rarity. Of course, price points also raising curiosity into why cards are rare, take Cynthia’s Feelings for instance.
Also that Umbreon is an awesome card.
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Another example I was mentioning,
buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/o447562420
SSV has First Print that includes campaign code. Seller claims that it includes the first print and campaign codes.
Buyer did not receive first print with campaign codes. It was the version of SSV that did not include campaign codes.
Buyee says “Since the photos of the auction didn’t show what was in the box, we can’t confirm the contents of it, and thus can’t do anything about it”
This just would never fly on eBay… so like I said, feels a bit like the wild west.
my original post was an attempt to do two things; understand how people work around this and help educate people who haven’t run into this yet when buying japanese cards directly from Japan 
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Japanese 151 v English 150
The Giant Japanese Market Thread thank you @smpratte , and everyone that asked. Looking forward to see what everyone has to say on the subject matter. These are just a few of the topics I would love to discuss and hear your thoughts.
Holo/Rare Variants;
Japanese Base : 2 Holo Variants
Japanese Jungle: 1 Holo Variant
Japanese Fossil: 1 Holo Variant
English Base: 3 Holo Variants
English Jungle: 3 Holo Variants + 2 Non-Holo Variants
English Fossil: 2 Holo Variants + 2 Non-Holo Variants
Total Graded;
I believe that English is more full but by the numbers I don’t see a world where Japanese variants outnumber English variants. The English market seems to have a surplus of variants I could technically have listed 5 Base Variants with Thick Stamp, Thin Stamp, Gray Stamp, Shadowless, Unlimited.
Japanese Base 15k v English Base 210k
Japanese Jungle 4k v English Jungle 47k
Japanese Fossil 5k v English Fossil 50k
There are 5k Japanese starter Trio graded compared to 42K English starter Trio graded. (Numbers are from PSA only)
The hurdles; Nostalgia, American/English Market, Price History
Nostalgia; this will remain to be subjective and hold emotional value that I simply don’t fully understand nor think I ever will.
If we collected based on what we grew up with many would have stuck with unlimited. While the leap from unlimited to 1st Ed is a lot smaller than unlimited to Japanese. It feels strange that the happiness would increase based on a 1st edition stamp rather than the 1st print and that font on the card would hold so much emotional value.
While I know there are re-prints in say MTG that are more valuable than the original copy these seems more related to artwork? If you have any examples outside of TCG that re-prints are more valuable than originals I would be interested in the read.
Where do trophy cards fit into Nostalgia; advocating for Trophy cards and not Japanese would be an odd position to have.
American/English Market;
TheAmerican/English Market dominates graded cards and what seems to be a whole of Pokémon TCG. This is not an accurate representation of fandom of Pokémon. The main reason Pokémon was attractive to me was the global market.
Price History;
I wont argue price history, supply & demand. English outsells. The one thing I found interesting is % wise Japanese typically out sells English. (Note this is by very small margins typically 1-2% and does not replicate) Good/Bad? Circulation? Interesting non the less.
CRYSTAL BALL DISCLAIMER
I’m not a wizard; nor care to discuss about the potential monetary value of cards.
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Regarding nostalgia being a “hurdle”, I think people put way too much value on it. Those that cling to it like anything outside of what they grew up with is not worth buying are really missing out. Give them like 3 years I bet 90% will branch out eventually.
Particularly with trophy cards but also with promos, no rarity, carddass, topsun etc., yeah sure you can say the artwork/style itself is nostalgic. But to me even that is irrelevant- they’re so freaking rare/historic/cool that even someone like me who wasn’t born when the events/release happened can appreciate and desire them because of what they represent in the franchise I love. So yea I don’t see the nostalgia factor holding japanese exclusive cards back, more so lack of exposure. Which can change with time.
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@serpintaxt ,
Yeah my heart goes out to everyone who can’t be fked to read the descriptions. There seems to be quite a few scams, oricas(fakes), and olipas(waffles) on there. Just gotta be careful I guess and be willing to risk it for the biscuit. I really take the most common phrase I see on there “nervous buyers don’t bid” to heart.
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A new Illustrator is available on Yahoo since today:
www.fromjapan.co.jp/en/auction/yahoo/input/h531547048/lgk-yauc_search
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Interesting that this was listed after the 901k yen sale for 666k yen but attracted no bids, and now dropped the price to 555k yen.
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@vic,
It’s a strange dialog to have when speaking about nostalgia, the emotional value does hold a LOT of weight. You cant logically argue the way someone FEELS, this is evident in relationships.
My train of thought goes into WHY did English release add “1st” edition print runs and to later remove it? & Japanese later adopted what English let go. There are multiple reasons for limited production but the curiosity comes from the intention behind it.
From a Historical perspective there is much to say about both Japanese and English, I personally am more fascinated by the Early Japanese History partially due to the mystery still there. (& there seems to be a lot of public unknown)
The lack of exposure I agree with to an extent; I’m going to assume most people know about the Japanese set counter-parts when diving into Trophy cards/Exclusives I would agree completely.
The Japanese market when talking about the original 151, you’re looking at a fraction of the cost to hold a position and with less demand makes it feasible. In regards to exposure, the cost of a historical documentary on Pokémon I could budget for mid six figures to low seven figures that COULD impact the market showcased recently in the sports the world. There is much more influence I believe to be had on the Japanese market > English Market.
Example; MC on 1999 base trio 8,9,10s would be ~$25M and the counter part 1996 base trio 8,9,10s ~$6M
1999 Charizard ~17k Total Graded
1996 Charizard ~2k TG
1999 Blastoise ~6k TG
1996 Blastoise ~1k TG
1999 Venusaur ~5K TG
1996 Venusaur ~1k TG
With my buy strategy I’d be looking to pay 5-10X more to obtain the same position in English compared to Japanese. Japanese Base and English Base Unlimited have been relative in price all the way back to BGS catalogs. You have PSA 10s being outliers but in a whole they are marginal both in long/short trends.
10s English being 2-5% where Japanese is 18-25%, quantity of cards are quite similar in 10s despite.
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Japanese cards have more differences than just the language. Different back, different layout on the front, sometimes even small differences in the artwork itself (shifted, cut). There’s also the difference in distribution. Holos were easier to pull from japanese packs, packs were cheaper in general. Lot of stuff to keep in mind.
On the other hand japanese pokemon cards are still appealing to me. They’re older, they are of better quality most of the time and they look aesthetically more pleasing (never could stand the yellow borders on western cards).
There are also a lot of different incentives to collect. I don’t think it has to be nolstalgia. Maybe nostalgia brings people back or makes people buy certain cards. Nostalgia can also vary for different items. For example I got struck by nostalgia when I saw the CD Promo cards for the first time. Not because I collected them as a kid but rather because they have the classic Sugimori artworks I knew from the video games and other toys.
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