I completely agree. I collected Base set as a kid and then when I came back to the hobby a few years ago I started there. I wanted to get back my original collection. But soon after I had to get the CD promos because of the artwork…after that it was a very quick slip into the world of Japanese exclusives etc.
I think lots of people will be similar to me in that regard. New “investors” care about whats popular, but collectors generally enjoy the story, the chase, the artwork etc and will tend to, eventually, branch out to Japanese or other languages.
Great things to shed light onto there are many nuances that differ the two. I’d put font, layout, backing, color variations into a singular category of aesthetics. They all do hold weight, I’d say the primary focal point is the art.
As you said Japanese appeals to you, is there anything about the aesthetics that drew you? (besides boarder color that you mentioned)
Distribution/Pull Rate is a very interesting topic point, I’ve had a lot of mental back and forth. Be interested to hear others thoughts on that matter specifically.
For sealed product; I think it reduces a lot of risk when buying single packs. I also see the counter argument to singles and the holo market, but with no more sealed product coming into the world if there was still only a small margin in comparison how much impact does it have? how does that ultimately settle in terms of market availability?
I would say nostalgia play a vital role in collecting, I’d second the brining people back. While it may not be nostalgia per say, the emotional attachment/interest creates the path a collector is ultimately going to take no right or wrong.
If I do say so myself CD promos are A1 & Sugimori has an amazing style.
We can argue semantics all day, collectibles as a whole isn’t in a Market Equilibrium. Pokémon has been fast to correct itself, emotions make us do funny things try explaining love…
You can give examples to support both sides it’s all speculative. & what happens if there are millions of buyers?
The westernized part I’m curious for a further explanation?
Side note here, generally people in Japan care about graded cards a whole lot less than Americans or Europeans. There’s obviously many exceptions on both sides, but it’s a fairly easy explanation for the massive difference in graded populations
My Japanese journey has started very similarily. After finishing Base-Fossil I started the Black Star Promos. The Venusaur was love on first sight for me and I wanted to get all variants. That’s the main reason I snagged the CD promos, the VHS Intro Pack and the Game Boy promos so early on. From there I was already sold on Japanese and it only got more intense.
I agree with the first sentence. What is the easy explanation? From my perspective -
There will be product that never leaves Japan, there are pros/cons to that but I would say overall pro. The print runs is a big ? on exacts but I’d make an educated guess to say less Japanese base was printed than English base. Demand; isn’t the same as English, its there scaled but from sale activity it seems healthy in size comparison and market cap.
& Japan, Americas & Europe isn’t the extent of the market.
Recently started purchasing some Japanese cards. Started with some graded 1997 Carddass stuff and I figured out how to use Buyee the other day so I’ve already spent a ton on there. Excited for some cards to arrive in a few weeks!
I have noticed that on Mercari Japan, there are a few items that are listed with the following notice: “Sorry! This item is currently only available in Japan.” I’m usying Buyee as a middleman to purchase these items but I’m curious about this restriction. My understanding is that Buyee is purchasing these items from a seller in Japan and storing them at a centralized warehouse. Knowing this, why is it that some items are restricted? Is this a setting on Mercari where sellers wish to only deal with local buyers?
Does anyone have any advice on how to search for an Alakazam Communication Evolution (Masaki) promo? I’ve been searching on Mercari and Yahoo Japan for Alakazam using: フーディン. Is there a better search term?
according to what I‘ve heard, the reason for that lies in the fact that the seller only gets his money if the buyer marks the item as „received“. As some big middleman like buyee seem often to forget that, some sellers have decided to not cooperate with proxys. Therefore you have to look out for other alternatives to get the really interesting stuff which is often sold within a few minutes or hours. In that aspect buyee is naturally way to slow.
Thank you for the information. I knew there was a reason for the restriction and this makes sense. I started using Buyee because ZenMarket did not want to work with Mercari. But no complaints, I’m just glad to get the cards I want
In my week of messing around with searches through Buyee I’ve been using the japanese text from the Bulbapedia page for cards. Not always exactly the text that sellers use, but once you find one listing you can use Chrome to translate the text and see what to copy from their listing as a better search result to use.
