I think this whole conversation has become a little silly but to counter your point here the more expensive Charmander was at $127.50 over an hour before the listing ended whereas the other one went from $27 to $58 in the closing minutes.
The buyer very obviously wanted to win the card and that’s great. I never said it was a bad thing, just that I’m surprised a modern common card is capable of achieving such a high value - especially considering a much older and much scarcer PSA 10 Korean Unlimited Charmander in the same block sold for the same amount.
The 25th percentile for hourly wage in the US is ~$15/hr. That Charmander went for more than the gross pay of a day’s (8 hours) labor for tens of millions of Americans and likely billions of people worldwide. I’m not saying if that’s a lot or a little I’m just saying what it is. Maybe whomever bought it that’s just 0.1% of their monthly dividend check or some other passive income stream. Maybe they bought it with plans to sell if it goes to a thousand.
In any case I hope they want more. I do have a handful of those at PSA myself and some already back from CGC. I’m just sat here wondering what service level it was submitted through because the only cards that I have back from November 2020 or more recently I paid $50-$500+ each.
Ok so someone paid $127.50 an hour before the second data point was established, making the second data point irrelevant at the time the first listing ended
With a 54xx cert it would have been at least express. Bulk submissions are still coming back with 49xx certs. It’s a shame PSA doesn’t include the date a card was graded on their certificate lookup.
Bid, not paid. Both auctions ended seconds apart. The buyer either chose to ignore the other copy or was unaware that the other copy was up for sale at the same time. Neither of the winning bids were automatic based on their timestamps, so the the winning bid on the cheaper copy was placed over an hour after the much higher winning bid on the more expensive copy. I don’t think either of these cards were decided by split-second decisions as you put it.
Sleeping on the ground is a bit different than collecting Pokemon cards. If you believe it wasn’t a fiscally intelligent purchase, then we agree. I somewhat understand why someone would buy it, but just because someone can do something doesn’t mean they should. And before you say I can’t decide what someone does with their money, you’re right, I can’t - but I sure can question their decision. I didn’t see a single person defend the purchase of the Topsun Charizard at $190k, and the buyer who paid $500k was ridiculed. Why is this card any different? If we can critique one purchase we can critique any purchase, simple as that.
This debate have been on here for ages, you probably know about it. A tyranitar V alt art, fetching more than the “rookie” tyranitar from neo discovery (psa), umbreon from HIF fetching more than other scarcer umbreons, etc.
I wouldn’t know if its “lack of market optimization”, lack of information, people just wanting to pay for x card or a combination of everything.
I just don’t want people to lose sight of the fact that collecting is an emotional endeavor. While some people find satisfaction from optimizing every dollar, there are many people especially outside of e4 that just value the impulsivity and instant gratification. There’s no right or wrong way to collect. But I think we can all agree that if this charmander was bought as a speculative “investment” then the winner might be disappointed LOL
Are we arguing for pages that a 100$ purchase is stupid? Next time on the show: people pay 180$ for a bottle of water.
Not everything has to be justified, just let the people enjoy themselves.
it obviously doesn’t make sense to the audience of these forums who often understand the market, know how to get cards graded, and have some sense of what value means in the market.
this forum is a niche, just the tiniest slice of the market. This could have been a gift, a commemorative thing for a friend… or someone that genuinely believes it’s a great long term investment. Who has little pokemon knowledge or depth
arguing about the price seems like tilting at windmills
There was a YouTuber who made a large portion of his video about a ~$100 card and he went into an entire maybe 3 minutes about how the market is uninformed or irrational because this card was maybe $5 mint raw with thousands and thousands of copies out there.
The guy who bought the card ended up posting a comment on the video saying he doesn’t care, he just wanted the card. Not everything has to make sense. At the end of the day, to some it’s a hobby, not an investment. Which makes them tRu CoLlEcToRs.
I believe that was a modern Lugia holo card from Sun and Moon era. The buyer was Randolph Pokemon. Personally I would probably pay $50 to $150 for various regular modern holos and reverse holos in PSA 10. Somebody simply paying a premium for a person that was willing to take a Gamble and send a very invaluable and highly produced card to get graded. Yes there are thousands of these cards out there but not all are going to get PSA 10. I used to do this in the past and I would make three to $50 per card flipping the current sets hollows in PSA 10. Obviously I only went with very popular Pokemon and I was even more scrutiness with the condition. I visited a seller that I know who opens cases of modern. I went through his back stock looking for cards such as the Lugia above the grade and I found very few out of thousands that I would have sent with a high certainty of PSA 10.
was super surprised to see lots of BW shiny cards this go round, they ended up going for pretty cheap imo. Especially considering how hard the yare to find in good condition raw. Can’t wait to see how this part of the market opens up - or doesn’t.
I wonder what the average price movement for PSA 10 WOTC compared to PSA 9 or less. Lots of my PSA 10 ex cards have stayed around the same with quite a few going up even more due to scarcity.
My BW Full Arts are also in that category. I imagine trophy, promos and other rare set cards have not been affected negatively.
I’ve learned a lot about optimizing and making smart purchases from lurking around e4 and the discord, but at the end of the day, I’ve still overpaid for cards. Probably will again. Maybe they will come, back up, but at the end of the day they are going to stay in my collection. However, if this was someone “speculating” on this particular card, they have another thing coming lol.
If they love this art and have $127 bucks to throw at this card, who are we to tell people how to spend their money.
They say they ban them from bidding in future auctions but it doesnt matter since it is the same as ebay where you can just make a thousand new accounts with no issue. I’ve been having an increasing amount of non-payers on pwcc (especially in the vault) and it’s a real shame