I don’t want any trophy cards.
Give me any PSA 10 WotC all day long!
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From an investment pov, I’m actually building a second psa 10 1st ed base set, rather than chasing trophy cards. The fact that they are distributed widely is both good and bad - good because many people naturally want it, bad because well it’s widely distributed.
Maybe I have a smooth brain, but to me I like that psa 10 1st base set feels more like a rolex type commodity - pretty common, but the demand is so deep that I have reasonable confidence that it’ll rise over time as the collector base gets richer. Supply is also pretty fleshed out for base set 1st in psa 10 so I’m not too worried. It’s almost like buying a high yield zero coupon bond.
To me trophy cards are more like richard mille watches, more unique but I’m never quite sure if it’s the best use of my capital, because transactions are just so few. I also feel nothing for most of them. I don’t really care about masters scroll for example; I would far far prefer a psa 9 1st zard or a few psa 10 1st base holos or psa 10 no rarity holos too. If the chase is the goal well there are a bunch of wotc psa 10 1st cards with pop below 10 that are just as hard to acquire as trophies (try finding one of those for sale at a reasonable price and let me know? If anything they’re held tighter by set collectors than many trophy cards - when was the last time you saw a slowking?). They may not be unique, but they do have a pool of set collectors that are pretty desperate to finish their set driving prices up, and pretty much disappear once sold.
Can you finish a psa 10 1st neo genesis set or ssb set quicker? Honestly I don’t think it’s so obvious that ssb is harder. What about no psa 10 rarity holo set vs 97 pika set? For base 1st, I think the recent supply is sort of a transient thing too - look at the latest pwcc auction when ebulb and jonandek has sold theirs - it’s a desert.
There’s a few trophies however that seem to achieve both to me, such as the 97 pikas and illustrator. Everyone knows about them, and they’re rare. Those are the Paul Newman Daytonas and the best of the best.
From a returns pov my highest returns have been in yugioh where I made 50x - 80x my money in 2-3 years for a few marquee set cards. I’m happy to take that return instead. You can keep your 10x return.
Tldr - I don’t think trophies are made equal. The pinnacle of the hobby, price wise, is a coin flip between the illustrator and bgs 10 1st base zard. And there are many more coin flips on the way down.
P.S. Also there was a period after base price increase in October where I felt trophies were a screaming buy in a relative sense. Now that victory orb mew is the same price as 2x psa 10 1st blastoise, it’s not so clear anymore whether a mid tier trophy should be worth twice as much as arguably the second best set card for pokemon?
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As someone who sold both a PSA 10 1st edition Charizard for $350k and a PSA 7 LMB No. 1 Trophy Pikachu for $200k this year, I personally feel the Charizard was much more of a no-brainer for me to sell. I think the Trophy Pikachu has less of a chance of decreasing in value while simultaneously having more room for both short-term and long-term growth compared to the Charizard. Just one man’s opinion.
At the end of the day, I could easily buy another Charizard that feels like solid replacement for the Charizard. I could get super close to it by buying a strong PSA 9 1st edition Charizard for 1/8th the price. Or I could spend almost nothing (by comparison anyway) and just buy a Near Mint Shadowless Charizard for my binder.
But there is no replacing a Trophy Pikachu. I owned the PSA 10 1st edition Charizard for 11 years and the Trophy Pikachu for 5 months, but I miss the Trophy Pika far more.
At the end of the day, my gut tells me that having an item that is incredibly scarce is a far better value proposition than an item that is only scarce due to a somewhat arbitrary label. And here’s the thing. Even if *most* people disagree with that statement, that doesn’t mean the Charizard is going to have better long-term value. Cards like this are so scarce that it will only take a few people with money to make a Trophy Pikachu in any condition more expensive than a PSA 10 1st edition Charizard. In my opinion, the only thing that doesn’t make this a no-brainer is pkonno.
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Before I go to sleep, I did not know about trophy cards a few months ago. When I first decided to start collecting cards again, I was able to get the base set, fossil and jungle in a condition I felt was acceptable. I also picked up a few charizards I could find on the lower end but still excellent quality, (CGC6, PSA). Now that those are complete, I’ve thought about buying some trophy cards. Not the ones I can’t afford, but I’ve still thought it would be cool to own one of the ones from 2005-9. I like the fact that someone had to win a tournament to earn a gold medal. So I think there’s a desire to complete nostalgia first, but there’s so much more depending on where you left off. A first edition リザードン would be amazing to have though lol.
Keep paying for plastic cases to feel special and artificial pop reports in the grades. Makes trophies more available for me haha
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That is very interesting. Thank you for sharing!
It seems as though trophy cards are a niche item within pokemon collecting. The average fan never gets to the point of collecting graded cards. Then only a dedicated subset of those collectors learn about and are interested in trophy cards.
This has no impact on prices of trophy cards however as it was pointed out that it only takes a few people with large pockets to bid up the prices on trophy cards. (I have seen this play out first hand in high end car auctions as well. There will usually only be 2-3 people bidding on the very expensive cars, but that is all it takes to keep driving the prices up.)
For me personally, I dont have any natural draw towards the cards, but I can see the appeal of the “chase” and having an item that other people dont have in their collection.
At the end of the day, if you like the cards in your collection, that is all that matters!
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Do we know which trophy cards pkonno potentially still has? Not down to the names, but for example, does he only have stuff from the golden era, or also ex era?
As for the original question, most has already been said. But personally, I only desire a card when there is a remote chance that I can afford it at some time in the future. Cards like the Illustrator or the original Pika trophies are so far out of reach already that I don’t have a desire to collect them because I can’t. If I had the financial resources to get them eventually, I might feel differently about them.
An interesting subject when you get down to the nitty gritty. Lots of very interesting points have been made, so I can only offer my experience on the matter.
For me, trophies are just as nostalgic as the base set big-hitters. One of the very first Pokémon magazines I bought back in the day had a base set checklist, with a large picture of 1st ed Charizard used as a diagram for breaking down the features on the cards…on the following page (or might have been previous; don’t hold me to it), was a double spread of “the rarest EVER” cards, with TMB and Super Secret Battle shown off in all their glory.
I must’ve spent twice the length of time staring at those enigmatic (to my 9 year old brain) trophies, and wondering where they were in the world, than I did fawning over Charizard; though I did still desperately want one of those too.
It was a combination of the mystery of the cards’ language, the stories behind them, their scarcity and the sheer uniqueness of the artwork that made me fall in love with that niche of prize cards from such a young age.
I still love trophies (as long as they’re “proper” trophies, with exclusive art), but wouldn’t purchase more of them or high tier 1st ed base than I already have (outside of a bargain), due to the insane prices they command now. I try to stay in a position where the hobby is simple fun for me, and I don’t have to worry about investment potentials and market trends.
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I think that for me set cards are something to look at that makes me happy and feels me with joy, seeing all the cards I once had or wanted to have in 1 nice binder is what I aimed to do when I started. Than I started collecting graded cards to display my favorite art works and cards even better. I think that trophy cards are in item that is hard to get and the chase can be thrilling but the same can be said about some psa 10 set cards. What sets trophy cards above that is there is little to no chance of the population of said cards rising and with more and more people trying to acquire them they will only become more rare and valuable. The idea of owning something that most people dont have can set you apart from the normal collectors. I think that’s why I like error cards so much bc it’s a card that not every collector has. It’s something special! Prize cards are like that but 1000 times harder to acquire lol.
Nostalgia to ME is linked to a few specific moments with a handful of cards, after those specific cards it’s simply Pokemon. What brings me “happiness” within Pokemon now has evolved from what brought me joy as a child.
The biggest attraction to me with Pokemon is the Global Market & Community attached to that market pool, the emotional attachment others around the world vastly differ from mine.
Trophy cards have become a much bigger interest to me, learning about the historical significance.
Desirability vs Demand ; Trophy Cards are more desirable while Base Set has more demand.
Scarce vs Rare ; Trophy cards are both scarce and rare while Base Set is neither.
Base Set is not rare or scarce, if you want to argue there is rarity or scarcity in specific variants within Base Set. I’d say there is “scarcity” in the number 10. The scarcity is tied to the quality of the card not the card itself. The rarity would be tied to the specific variant within Base Set.
Hypothetically 1 of the major grading companies takes over and scan cards, financial guarantees and market demand. To get premiums you want this slab regardless of grade. They use a 1-100 scale and top tier grades are (9.2,9.3,9.4,9.5,9.6,9.7,9.8) with majority of current 10’s not keeping the grade. What does that do to the scarcity of your grade?
I’m not debating which one is a better collection piece or investment as they both have vastly different entry levels, emotional value, knowledge levels & strategies. They are both important for the growth of the hobby.
& Japanese 151 > English 150
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I think it has more to do with the way communication is possible today.
25 years ago you had to “pay per minute phonecalls” to connect to the internet. There were a few fora/forum and webshops started.
To get information it was way and way more time/cost consuming and most things were simply not “global” knowledge.
As for the Trophy cards I always look if a topic is started about them, but it’s always about Japanese cards.
There are also English ones, rare ones. Will it take another 10 years for those to raise in attention?
You could just flip that and say not enough people are interested in Trophies to justify 123 pages
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Nah it would just be impossible as most trophy cards don’t decrease often, if ever.
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That thread would be boring. The cards don’t change hands often enough for constant updates and more sales are private than set cards. People already complained about bias in the Base thread; it would be a million times worse with people who have no personal stake complaining (see for reference: the Kangaskan trade thread earlier last year).
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We don’t need more people interested in them to rise, cuz there’s so few that myself and other trophy hunters will just buy them out for a ton of money since it’s so hard to find them.
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