Yes I agree. But the prices still don’t make sense.
Heavy 1st Ed neo packs are 1k+, but you can buy both meganiums, feraligatrs, and T18 in PSA 9 for the same price. Makes no sense
2 Likes
The expected value of a box will almost always be much lower than the sealed product for vintage sets.
Yes, the shift in popularity will push box prices higher/lower, but the price of sealed boxes/packs will always eclipse the EV.
I agree that it is goofy. This is characteristic of all vintage sealed product. Nobody is buying an EX Deoxys pack because it is good value, they want the minuscule chance of pulling a gem mint gold star. They will almost assuredly lose money.
In 2019 a base 1st edition booster box sold for 78.000.
2019 psa 10 1st edition Charizard around 30 / 40k.
2019 psa 10 1st edition blastoise around 4k.
Data shows that the cards appreciate quite a bit faster compared to sealed product if we talk about 1st edition base.
This is definitely something i see accelerating in the future. More and more collectors want to see and appreciate the cards instead of a box.
Edit: maybe this is happening because people dont want to risk sealed vintage product anymore due to how many scammers and resealed boxes that go around these days.
1 Like
I think we are in agreement, that: 1) Cards in mint/gem mint condition will appreciate at a faster rate than sealed boxes on average (they are more liquid, more obtainable to the average consumer, and don’t require the same level of trust as with sealed product tampering), and 2) Fewer people want to open sealed boxes because the risk/reward is majorly off.
Wealthy people were blasting boxes in 2020 because they thought that the PSA 10 Gem Mint grade was easy. When they submitted their cards, they almost always lost value because they got PSA 9s and they paid overinflated prices for the sealed product.
3 Likes
How about lugia?
I agree, but I am mostly looking at the true valuable items such as Pikachu promo cards and other exclusive items. The wifu cards rose so much in value due to speculation that I don’t think they will ever hit their previous highes.
To the people who say that modern did the same thing that vintage did in 2020: I respectfully disagree. I was present during the entire 2020 craze and the 2023 craze, and the two are nothing alike.
The 2023 craze was a true bubble, with a quick rise (only few months) with zero fundamentals and only hype behind it, and the cards crashed so hard and quickly that many are back to their pre-bubble level. Meanwhile, vintage cards rose continuously for the entirety of 2020 and part of 2021, and the only moderate retrace I saw was in wotc cards towards the end (and they are still far away from pre-bubble level).
And then we have the rest of the vintage cards that never came down and instead only climbed further up even after the mania. I’m talking Shinings, Gold Stars, Crystals. Last time I had a legitimate chance to buy a psa 10 play promo Espeon was in December of 2020 for $16000. Now it’s at $90000. Similar price development (percentage-wise) for Crystal Charizard, Gold Star Ray and many others.
Turns out that genuine scarcity and rarity make a difference, and the pop report isn’t just for sh*ts and giggles.
4 Likes
I have personally notice alot of psa slabs flooding mercari (77 to 79 certs) of sun and moon pika promos and poncho eevees, i did buy a few “cheap ones relative to ebay prices” like 280/sm-p 281/sm-p in 10s. But will be interesting to see if the market is able to continue to absorb these newly graded slabs, that were sent in may june that are all coming back now.
I also bought a psa 10 vstar universe pikachu ar for basically raw + grading cost (basically a grading play without the 3 month wait). But ive moved it after seeing the humongous pop report. These modern chase cards in japanese scare me with the 6k to 8k pop psa 10s thats ever growing. Japanese modern alt arts are priced so high compared to english, i wonder if the market can truly sustain the explosion in pop, given how many are hitting the market,
1 Like
When did Play Espeon go for $90k? Definitely missed that one.
I love those cards! How much did you buy them for?
I use to buy the double pack of 280/281 for sealed at $300. It was a good time
I certainly wouldn’t say they were nothing alike. Go look at a chart of PSA 9, 10 first Ed and unlimited base squirtles, bulbas and charmanders, jungle evees, etc and many of those 5-10x in just months over the summer in 2020. Most are back to break even or if lucky, 2x.
5 Likes
This was back in late last month on mercari, at 40k and 42k yen respectively for psa 10s, they were 78xxxxxx certs so should be recently graded ones. It felt like capitulation to me, so figured it was time to buy some.
Only been in the hobby for 11 months, so loads of catching up to do.
People will pay for the chance to pull it themselves. Its emotional. Its true we often tend to have a stronger emotional attachment to rare cards we pull ourselves and send in ourselves for grading than ones we buy.
Also there was that window back in August where everything dropped and man I bought a lot but I wish I had bought even more. Most of the SAR/SR cards are back up pretty high. The AR’s and stuff like vstar universe which had a reprint recently are all down it seems to be. But a lot of the cards everyone wants I feel like I jumped back up. Granted I’m not really tracking cards over $1k so could be a different story for those.
I’m still finding deals but they aren’t as strong of deals and its taking a lot more effort to find them.
What? hahah
literally a chart here. 1st ed squirtle. btw that plot point i took in the 2nd is the lowest point on the graph since 2020 for a 9.
As for unlimited… 10’s were the only ones sellable prior to 2020, and yet they still came back down to 300% value what they were prior. Even still, 9’s you can still sell. For even up to $30+ for an unlimited starter. You couldn’t even give it away for $10 prior. Don’t you remember? I mean they didn’t even have any in the pop, cause obviously that would have been like grading a heavily played unlimited base koffing now. It was just a silly idea. I looked at 1st Eevee’s too. Yes, 10’s are still 3x what they were prior to 2020.
Oh and yeah btw we are talking about set commons right now. I’m no expert on the current modern chase card bubble, but I bet sure as shit that the price spikes weren’t for dozens to hundreds of set commons man. But I’m merely pointing out that what you said about the eng commons is off.
5 Likes
It’s the currently cheapest option on the market, as far as I’m aware of
Meh, I bought a psa 9 1st ed Squirtle for $110 in may 2020 and now it’s $125 today in September 2023. It sold for over $1500 in the bubble. You are absolutely correct that these cards are 3x from 2019. My mistake on that, down from 50x in the hype
Any time we’re talking about the craziness of 2020 and prices now vs in the past, the timeline in my mind is always what things were like pre 2020. I know there was an actual bubble starting in the summer and ending almost exactly a year later but yeah 2020 def permanently affected prices and we’ll seemingly never see that sort of pre 2020 market ever again. Yeah, if we’re talking more september 2020 for that year yeah the commons that were bubbled are back to summer 2020 prices. I thought for sure you were saying pre covid compared to now.
I gotcha! I felt like that when I got in the hobby many years ago. Good price on the 10’s. Those were the prices before the spike in value.