Asking Discord for help, oh dear…
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Has the Pokémon market in Japan experienced a dip in 2021? It seems like the prices are holding strong from what I’ve seen. Any thoughts on why this is the case?
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Honestly, collecting and buying (niche-ish) Japanese stuff I barely noticed the big boom. Maybe it has been different for other aspects of the Japanese market, but yeah, without the boom, there doesn’t need to be a retracement. Just slow and steady really. FunDameNtALs 
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Dream grail for me…damn…anyone want to buy my collection so I can bid lol
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Nice captain falcon shirt!
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Alas, my dream of this slipping under the radar and remaining the current sole bidder has been foiled!
The Mandarake bidding process can take more time to register than expected due to technical difficulties with the site and possibility of needing to talk with their staff. If you are interested in bidding on the Articuno I recommend you create an account ASAP since you will need to be credit verified to bid. You will have to register for both their regular auction service and then separately for the Big Web Auctions.
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Haha thanks! Was wondering if someone would comment on that here. Got it from shine tournament in like 2015. Got absolutely demolished in it though. 1500 person smash tournament is not small time.
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Certainly sounds like Japan in every way to me. They always make things 10x more complicated than necessary. Best of luck getting it, sorry to spoil your plan 
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Japan was behind for a lot of things in 2020, especially over the summer and at the beginning of the fall Japanese stuff was extremely affordable compared to English as there really had been no significant price increases. Things caught up towards the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 in Japan basically across the board. Older cards rose, newer out-of-print stuff like Tag All Stars/Waifus rose, newly released promos (Kanazawa etc) became a lot more expensive. I think the fact that they were “behind” for awhile and the rise has been more spread out has been important. Nothing really went out of control in Japan like 1st ed Base did here, so there’s been nothing that’s been too prone to correction. Some cards have gone down here and there, a lot has stabilized, but nothing has “crashed.”
Another reason I think prices have stayed steady is because the Japan prices are often the floor from which people are operating. Prices for a lot of Japanese cards have increased significantly–stuff like Japanese PSA 10 set cards are miles more valuable than they were a few years ago. I remember when most PSA 10 ultra rare Japanese set cards would go for $30. A lot of raw card prices still really aren’t in line with PSA 10 prices, which somewhat makes sense considering all the steps and time you have to go through to get a raw card from Japan into a PSA case. But right now there’s no downward pressure on card prices, and still a lot of opportunity if you know where to look.
Combine this with the fact that more people are getting into Japanese card collecting, a lot of Japanese stuff is still a very affordable alternative to English, and new Japanese sets continue to just hit it out of the park…it’s no surprise that the Japanese market has been more stable.
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Quite a lot of less talked about Japanese cards had fallen significantly between the January 2020 and January 2021 but have now bounced back. Cards like the 2010 Design Contest Chosen Entry Zorua/Zoroark saw quite an extreme fall from highs of 400,000 JPY for near mint copies at the beginning of 2020 to lows of to 85,000 JPY at the start of this year, but have since climbed back up again.
The Japanese cards which saw increases last year were mostly those being widely discussed (Topsun gum cards, McDonald’s promos and No Rarity cards to name a few). The majority flew under the radar.
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Well, quite a few less popular PSA 9-10 old back set cards had their prices cut down by about 30-50% from peak hype in recent months. That’s likely a result of the guaranteed holo pull + guaranteed 9+ grade rate + relatively affordable booster pack prices. Overall though, yes, it seems more like a reasonable stabilization than a retrace or crash.
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@muk , tbh I think that Japanese old back set cards are still super underrated despite all the things you listed. If modern has taught me anything it’s that rarity/pull rate/pop report are not nearly as important as demand and desirability. And just judging from the desirability perspective, it’s kinda bonkers that you can still get the entire OG base set (which is the most iconic set in existence) in PSA 10 for under $20k.
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Anyone else still have FOMO over the stamp promos? My wallet has been getting rather fat from actually holding out for a release
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From which highs…? You mean last year when everything went bonkers? because $2.3k for the psa10 (Mimikyu) is a lot, these cards just before pandemic hit were around $300-500 for a psa10.
The others Munch should go down tho since the rarest one is Mimikyu.
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Did they come out already? I thought there is more time until they are here?
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Pre-orders will go live on July 26
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For the stamp promos, has anyone had any success actually getting a proxy service to keep a pre-order prior to release? White Rabbit is saying that they can only order when the site goes live.
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The initial print run is expected to be 80k boxes. Those are … crazy numbers. I personally expect there to be 0 resell value on these and the cards to go for right at msrp. the FOMO simply is unnecessary here imo. Don’t fall for any traps early on!
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Is it still FOMO If the cards aren’t out yet? Or is it FOFOMO (Fear Of Fear Of Missing Out) rhymes with Kokomo by The Beach Boys
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