Had no idea that tyranitar was available cosmos. Hopping on that asap
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IDK, I think it was Quuador who already made the point of how much the average card costs has gone up. Boiling it down to price memory and keeping up with the Joneses’ is not reflective of the actual market.
It’s factual that wages have not increased at the same rate as the cost of products/packs/cards. If you’re collecting one-off cards, sure. If you’re talking about a collection, it gets worse by the day.
And now that there are stupid wars going on, it’s even more taxing on your budget since everything else is getting more expensive.
edit: and someone else in one of these disparate market threads also made the point that people collect what they like for a reason- you can’t just tell them to focus elsewhere and think that solves it.
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There’s a Venn diagram about what I think we’re talking about.
Being priced out of the hobby
Being priced out of goals
For some people, those may be the same thing. I would argue those people fall into the stubborn camp.
I do understand that prices continue to rise, and that’s frustrating. Especially when you’ve started a goal and have clearly defined how you wanted to finish it.
But I genuinely believe that if one actually wants to engage with the hobby, they can find a way to do that which would still be enjoyable, and affordable. Between languages, condition, grading companies, even different cards all together, there are so many options out there. It might just take breaking down now unaffordable goals into the basics of why you set that goal to begin with.
It might not be how someone wants to collect, but sorry Charlie, that’s how it goes sometimes.
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The more money you have, the less knowledge, skill, or luck you need to curate an incredible collection. This has always been the case to some extent, but it’s become shockingly clear during this boom.
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Thanks I hate this.
Really? I RKO’d a kid to get the last Shrouded Fable BB. Felt good.
Holy truth nuke
(In all seriousness, I find that people like that only seem to go chase and buy what’s popular/has the most hype currently. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it just becomes so boring to look at some collections. There’s almost little to no uniqueness in what they collect. Unique in the sense of being super expensive or having multiple of a new modern chase card, but I can bet that I see a ton of phantasmal Charizard, Bubble Mew, Fusion Strike Gengar, both SIR Umbreons, at any card show I go to within the next couple months. It all just seems very uninspired.)
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I feel the same when people show me a bunch of modern PSA 10 cards. Like congrats on the 10 but I could care less that its a 10. I would be way more excited if it was a 8 or 9 and you bought it for a bargain and just really want the card.
If you “just bought the card and not the grade” you’d have missed out on massive price appreciation on many cards.
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As somebody new to collecting, I can see why @Cardboardinsanity is upset, ‘cause it’s true that many people who started collecting years ago were able to get everything (mostly) they want at fairly reasonable prices. Cards and sealed packs have increased in price so much since it started booming again that now packs you used to get for $5-8 and sealed boxes are now 5 to 20x the price and it really does kick a lot of people away. I understand the value of what even a $1-5 dollar price increase for singles can do to actually destroy someone’s joy in a hobby. It sucks knowing you will never complete a species collection of your favorite pokémon because there’s cards you realistically can never afford or find to buy because they’re so rare- unless you sell a car or refinance the house (if you’re lucky enough to even own a home lol)
On the flip side, there are so many reasonable ways to save cash and collect. So I do agree that setting up budgets makes the hobby affordable, you just have to change HOW you collect cards.
This was ALWAYS the case. Pre 2020 even. So many popular species had out of reach cards forever.
Snap cards, PLAY promos (looking at you Umbreon). So a card went from 50k to 250k due to recent events, but it was always out of reach for a regular Joe.
Maybe a Gengar collector is now priced out compared to years ago.
There are 1,025 species and counting to collect.
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Now i want to know which Gengar has skyrocketed. Link!? 
Of course most people aren’t finding a $50k card affordable, but for some people a card jumping from $30 to 100 can price them out. People’s finances are different.
But yes, the amount of species choices and ways to collect cards people have is endless-but some people are stubborn and tunnel visioned on how collecting should look.
Imagine a Gengar fan after years of collecting and then priced out, to miraculously pivot toward Spinda. I don’t think collector choices will ever be as flexible as some like to give advice over until we speak for ourselves
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The pill so tough it has barbs on it.
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