Respectable is every collection, no collection is not “respectable” because it contains lower grades.
Personally I only collect 10s, I just can´t stand the thought that there is a better card/grade out there than the one I have.
Investment grade would usually be the top 10% of your population, so depending on the card in question, 9s might also be considered “investment grade”
Historically, investment grade set cards in Pokémon tcg are 10s. 9s did not start offering much of a premium until the last year, and 8s sold at cost usually. The 9s have changed for this year and I believe for some sets they can now be considered investment grade (base set first ed for example). 8s will never be investment grade but offer nice bang for the buck for collectors. Trophies and other rare cards have their own rules. Any grade works.
Didnt mean to come off as mercenary when saying respectable — poor choice of words
The idea that there is some flat minimum grade for investing is just untrue. Sure, the sheer dollar growth is greater for higher grades but ROI is a ratio. When you’re buying things dirt cheap, even moderate price increases can generate massive returns. A $500 becoming a $1000 is the same as a $5 becoming a $10 card - the key here is that in general its easier for a $5 card to become $100 than a $500 card to become $10k. There have been periods of time where a PSA 6 or 7 1st ed base holo had more relative growth than all the grades >7.
A couple of important caveats though. It takes a lot of knowledge to really discern if some low value item is critically underpriced/has potential, and also tricky finding the optimal grade to buy. It’s a lot easier to blindly buy 10s and see a return whereas it’s not unusual that lower grades never move because the demand never changes. The second caveat is that when it’s time to sell, it’s easier to sell one high value item over 10+ cheaper ones even though you may see a higher ROI for the latter.
Anyway, my point is that there could be opportunity in any grade if you have the ability to recognize it and if you’re willing to put in the extra grind time when it comes to selling
You may be confusing investment grade, and grades for investment. Any card and any grade can make you money, but they are not investment grade. Same goes for currency, comics, sports etc. Logan Paul, Gary Vee, big pocket investment grade collectors etc are not going to buy 7s and 8s of set cards.
This, 1000%.
Investment grade = top 10% of the market
And another very important factor: anything that is produced after the commodity has already proven itself as an investible asset cannot be investment grade. Such items are hoarded en masse by investors at the point of production. Examples of this are sealed Nintendo Switch games, modern watches, modern concert posters, modern movie posters, and yes, modern Pokemon product.
An investment grade collectible must have organic collectability and be in the top 10% of its market. A couple obvious examples: PSA 10 1st Edition Base Set Charizard or PSA 10 Rayquaza gold star. An example of a not investment grade item: the raw, PSA 7 quality Rayquaza gold star I just purchased this week for $1600. The card is a cool as fuck, but it isn’t investment grade.
This doesn’t mean you can’t make money on PSA 8s or modern Pokemon cards. You absolutely can. But they aren’t investment grade. Shawn made a video on this exact topic, for those who want to learn more.
That presupposes that they have some sort of unique “investment knowledge” because they’re already wealthy–which they don’t. Especially because they have significantly less knowledge of Pokemon than the vast majority of people on this forum. To me, investment grade is exactly what PFM said–that each card has a range of grades that might be a smart “investment”. Like how a PSA 5 trophy Kang has more growth potential than a PSA 10 BW-era holo. “Minter” is only one element of the “older, rarer, minter, better” smpratte-ism, and since it’s the easiest to quantify (10 vs 9 vs 8, and so forth), it’s disproportionately discussed as a measure of value.
I see the point (regarding investment grade), but to me it feels like mostly semantics.
A couple months ago I picked up a PSA 8 1st Edition T17. The card is vintage, and it does have some level of scarcity going for it, owing to the fact that the Neo era was less printed. Of course it is also 1st edition.
No, it isn’t PSA 10 or even PSA 9, but it has strong fundamentals. I feel more confident about that investment than I do about almost anything else I’ve bought in the past year. Ultimately if that card nets me a healthy ROI, which I think it will in the long run, then I won’t care whether it was classified as “investment grade” or not.
An item can be investable without it being investment grade, but using this specific term implies something specific, at least in the overall collectibles market. There´s more to that term than only price appreciation/ROI, it´s also related to associated downside risk, price stability, liquidity etc etc in the long run.
The main point of the ‘investment grade’ (IG) distinction is that IG items have less risk. If 90% of the buyer pool of the Pokemon card market vanished tomorrow, then your PSA 8 T17 would fall in value much more than a PSA 10 T17. Even if there are only 20 people who want a PSA 10 1st Ed. T17, that may very well be enough to maintain a $20k+ price tag.
But in order for the market to be sustained for PSA 8 1st Ed. T17s, on the other hand, there needs hundreds of people who want it, all of whom are unable or unwilling to pay the PSA 9 or PSA 10 price. If the Pokemon card market experienced a 90% reduction in size, the supply of PSA 8 1st Ed. T17s could only be absorbed at signficantly less than its current price point. The same isn’t true for the PSA 10.
Will any of this happen? Almost assuredly not. It’s an extreme hypothetical. But it’s the sort of risk that something that’s IG insulates you from.
Fair points. Though, in the example of that same card, if such an event did occur and 90% of the market vanished, I’m pretty sure the people who own PSA 10 copies would get nervous about the health and longevity of the entire hobby. I don’t think they’d all continue to buy and sell within their own bubble at highly inflated prices, ignoring the rest of the market beneath them. If they did do so, then to me that would seem like a very fragile situation which could easily collapse at any time.
I don’t know, the idea of sticking to only PSA 10s for the best investment outcome just doesn’t resonate with me. What do I buy then, PSA 10 1st edition Machops? I mean, those ought to be investment grade. I’m priced out of all the “good” PSA 10 cards. That sounds incredibly boring, lol.
I’d rather just identify cards that I think have the best fundamentals at lower grades. That seems like a better investment strategy than buying something boring just because it is investment grade, which I’m more likely to hold for far shorter duration.
Actually for some neo sets, there might be less unlimited than 1st so the scarcity argument for that one is a bit iffy.
Yeah that could very well be true. I did consider buying a PSA 9 Unlimited T17 instead. I browsed the forums and searched for opinions on the topic beforehand. From what I read generally people seemed to prefer PSA 8 1st editions over PSA 9 Unlimited. Personally I’d rather have a mint card, so I almost went the unlimited route for this card. I may make that trade in the future.
@squirtle1000 PSA 10 is not always the best investment, but when you take all factors into consideration, it´s the best option you have. If you only want to maximize capital gains, 99% of all “investment grade” PSA 10s are not your best option, you have to find these hidden gems and not take the most obvious answer. When someone has very little capital, one can find those 1$ cards that will go to/are 20$ by scouring the markets, that´s an insane ROI. But you have to trade that capital gain with tons of your time whereas a PSA 10 purchase takes much less time to adequately research.
No, what you do is forget “investing” and just collect. Don’t worry about what’s ‘investment grade’ or not and just buy what you love. I’ve put a ton of money and effort into my binder sets, but not to ‘invest,’ but because I love the cards and want to be able to view them. Is paying $1600 for PSA 7 quality gold star Rayquaza the most sound financial decision in human history? Absolutely not. The value of it could be $200 in a year and it wouldn’t shock me. Of course, I also wouldn’t be shocked if the value was $3200 in a year. But that’s precisely the issue: low grade set cards are hyper-volatile assets. No one should invest in them. But if you love them like I do, then you absolutely should collect them.
If you’re buying low grade cards, buy the ones you actually want. Ignore any notion of ‘investing.’ Pokemon cards are popular enough that the value isn’t going to zero in our lifetime. When smpratte says that the best way to invest is to collect, he’s 100% right, IMO.
Yeah at the end is about preference. Plus with neo it is always hard to come by what you want.
@fresco, just one point about unlimited being scarcer than 1st edition in some sets. While true, it doesn’t necessarily mean that unlimited versions of cards are more valuable than 1st edition versions of these cases. The value of a 1st Edition does not come from the number of copies printed, it comes from the fact that they were the first ones printed (as opposed to a “Limited Edition”, which indeed emphasizes the limited number of copies printed). “Unlimited” is just another word for 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. printrun, and these subsequent printruns weren’t planned to have lesser numbers than the 1st edition, it just means that at some point the demand for the set stopped. Personally, I don’t see a good reason why a 2nd or 3rd printrun would ever be more valuable than the 1st printrun, even if the 1st printrun has more copies. If 15 people participated in a race and the first 10 people get a #1 medal and the last 5 people get a #2 medal, most people would argue that the #1 medal is more valuable despite being distributed in higher numbers.
I’ve never personally heard of the term “investment grade” with regard to this specific definition. Either way, the original question was about a specific grade cutoff. Even if we use the top 10% of the market definition, that threshold is still more about card than grade. For instance a PSA 1 Pikachu Illustrator is still in the top 10% of the market. A PSA 7 No. 1 trainer is publically being sold here for 200k. While a 10 is always the best of the best in a given category, at the highest end of the market rarity comes before condition.
So while it’s clear that if you want the best you go for 10s, I think people get blinded by this mentality and just refuse to see opportunity in anything else. That’s the main point I want to deliver in these last 2 posts
If I remember correctly gemmintpokemon had a video talking about how much harder it was collecting unlimited neo destiny 10s than 1st eds. Might have some truth to it
Cards with extremely limited distribution (i.e., trophy cards) are the exception and not the rule. I would 100% agree that any copy of Pikachu Illustrator, regardless of condition, is an investment grade collectible. But 99.99% of cards transacted in the Pokemon card marketplace aren’t limited distribution cards.
For the 99.99% of cards, condition is going to be the most important variable in whether or not something qualifies as investment grade. I doubt that any set card ever produced had less than a five-figure number distribution. So because set cards aren’t rare, condition becomes the important distinguishing factor.
This doesn’t necessarily mean PSA 10, though. For some vintage cards, both PSA 9s and 10s would qualify as investment grade. There are certain vintage cards that are fragile enough to where it seems likely that <10% are in PSA 9+ condition. So, assuming they meet the other criteria, such cards would be investment grade in either PSA 9 or 10.
Regardless, what’s important is that people should collect what they like to collect – unless someone is entering the market solely to invest, in which case whether or not something is investment grade does matter.