Let me start this post by mentioning I do not own any Base 1st Ed. Holos in any grade, having sold them last year, besides Chanseys (and have no PSA 10 Chansey) and have no ulterior motives here besides offering my hopefully helpful perspective to people who may have purchased these cards at a higher price and are not very happy looking at these sales.
These are obviously drops from peak price points, and nearly 50% or so at that. But to me, these cards are not whatsoever in the same class as Base Unlimited or other cards that have retracted. They have much more going for them long term.
The prices of cards like Nidoking and Zapdos reminds me a lot of my experience with Crystal Charizard. In January 2018 I arranged a trade with a lovely e4 member that included a Crystal Charizard PSA 10 on his end with a trade valuation of $4,500. At the time, this Charizard had rapidly climbed in the past few months and this was the fair market value agreed by both of us. I was going after a complete PSA 10 Crystal set and had a lot of FOMO that Charizard would slip out of my price range and render the set impossible to complete. I also had a PSA 9 Crystal Charizard which I’d graded myself and sold for $1.5k, so viewed that as funds towards the PSA 10.
As it happened, Crystal Charizards were getting graded en masse. We started to see two and then three PSA 10s in the same PWCC block. I cringed watching them dip to $2.5k and then sales below $2k. Supply overtook demand and sellers undercut each other to cash out. It seemed like the supply was never ending, the market was over saturated, and people were sick of Crystal Charizard. No one wants to buy a card that’s declining in price when they think they can get in for the same price or cheaper down the road.
But rather than panic sell, I was still happy to have gotten closer to my complete set. Will I pretend to have been thrilled a card of mine lost so much value? Of course not. But I knew it was a highly coveted, ultra rare, beautiful Charizard card. Nothing had changed about that despite the price drop. And so in August 2019, my gut instinct told me this card had frankly reached undervalued status, even though all signs pointed towards the price being stagnant and no one wanting. I made a buy thread on e4: www.elitefourum.com/t/wtb-skyridge-crystal-charizard-psa-10-base-unlimited-stuff/24021/1 and purchased a second one privately for roughly HALF of the January 2018 value.
Obviously, Crystal Charizard quickly blew past $4,500 last year. I was very glad to have purchased a duplicate copy.
It would not surprise me to see a similar trajectory for many of these Base Holo 1st Ed PSA 10s – more and seemingly endless supply in the coming few months, further chip aways at the price and then stagnation. I urge people to remember why they bought these cards in the first place. They are beautiful pieces of history over two decades old. The pop is barely growing in PSA 10 compared to commons. They have historically had high demand every year of Pokémon’s existence, not fleeting and ephemeral hype only during last year.
If you purchased for your collection and are chagrined to see the price drop, I think in a few years you will be very happy with your card. Ignore the noise. If you are an investor, forget about short term flips and consider holding. For me personally if some of these popular Holos like Zapdos, Gyarados, Mewtwo drop a bit more and stay there long enough for me to save up, they will look like promising purchases even as everyone preaches doom and gloom. Like a Zapdos at $3.5-$4k for example. The kind of cards that maybe I could sell in a few years to fund a big Chansey purchase – selling my Venusaur last year helped cover much of the cost of my No. 1 Trainer with Chansey. Or if they never rise, I will be proud regardless to have a PSA 10 1st Ed Base holo in my collection, especially one with art I love like Alakazam. Basically consider why you love the card and do not panic.
BTW I do not at all agree with people saying “buy the dip” on cards that are tremendously speculative and have retraced as such. Some cards will never re-reach peak prices. This post is not about every card in the market it is specifically for PSA 10 Base 1st Ed holos.
Feel free to disagree and I am aware this reads like a typical shill post but I do not own any of these cards and would not make this type of post about other cards declining in price.