Celebrations was very fun imo
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I have a huge dislike towards Evolutions. 
I seriously do not like that set whatsoever even CP6. The designs aren’t something I like tbh.
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2016 is such a good and bad year for a Promo collector. Besides the lists you mentioned, there are also the basic energy replica promos, which have the cosmo holo pattern. They also belong to the 20th Anniversary Festa list. Almost all of the promos associated with the Festa event are not only bank breaking but just so hard to even find.
Besides this we also had
- Cosplay Poncho Pikachu promos.
- Kamex Mega battle event leading to the World Championships, which has some really cool stamped promos.
- Pokekyun (possibly one of the most innovative mini sets)
- Pokemon card game Art Collection supplement which also had possibly the best depictions of the Venusaur vs Charizard cards
Cheers!
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I think this is timely so…
Paying $1K for a van gogh pika is not insane. Paying 1.5K is not insane…
IFF, (If and Only If) you consider that to get there, it would cost you a round trip plane ticket, food, board, time away from work, admission to the museum, yet the card is free… still, it might be reasonably worth it to some people. It’s not scalping, it’s just opportunity cost. 
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Because the only other way to obtain an promo is to personally attend the event, we don’t have a global network of goods and services that can optimize this kind of transaction? Thats a weird vacuum you live in 
.
Take an avocado for instance, you don’t pay $1000 because of the opportunity cost to fly to some place in south america, to retrieve an avocado for yourself do you?
It’s merely the unoptimized nature of the early market that allows sellers to ask outrageous prices.
10 Likes
TPCi needs to revamp/retire ETBs.
Booster boxes have finally got seeded pulls like Japan after 6 years (or more?) of ridiculous set sizes and non-existent minimums, but ETBs are still the wild west. Adding a promo card that is mass produced with tic tac toe printlines to be worth $1 or less isn’t good enough. An ETB can actually have 0 hits and that is unacceptable given the price.
The designs are tacky and unoriginal compared to at least booster packs/build & battle stadiums and they have too much waste. How many energy bricks, damage counters, set booklets and dice do people need?
They are lying to themselves if they think that most consumers are players. Those items are thrown into the trash or recycled without ever seeing use. Just putting them in there does not change a collector into a player.
What’s the solution? Those items should be distributed in 2 ways that would actually help reduce waste and encourage playing.
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Provide them free to LGS to disperse for players/kids. That’s where playing happens - not big box stores.
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Add them as a free option to people ordering from the Pokemon Center website. If they have no LGS in their area, then if they actually want to play, it can be provided FOC if you add it to your cart upon checkout.
Donating these items or giving them to children is not the answer. They are useless items that children don’t even want or need. Especially not in the quantities that are acquired.
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There is no difference between most print errors of the past and of today.
Criticizing TPCi for the print quality yet valuing errors is hypocritical.
Sunfaded cards should be automatically rejected from grading if they aren’t already done.
What other industry or market values poor quality control of the product?
And if the interest group is niche, they certainly have an outsized influence considering how now casuals are pointing to every dot on a modern bulk card in hope of making an extra buck.
4 Likes
My 3rd post in a row in this thread lol.
Next up: modern chase cards shouldn’t be graded
I don’t know why there is such a high demand for slabs but I don’t think that the market for them is sustainable. My prediction for the future is that raw card prices will go up (if you’ve noticed most of the ‘valuable’ ones have crashed) and the current PSA10 will continue to decline until both are around a similar price.
It’s annoying wanting to purchase modern JP cards raw and not finding them because everyone is sending them in to grade for that markup - but I just wonder where all the money is coming from (at least non-USA) to buy them. It feels like it’s still the pandemic boom influence and similar to the “keeping one box/case of product sealed” for investment strategy where old card slabs go for high prices, so let’s collect them all slabbed for the same return.
Of course non-JP produced cards have a much more variable card quality, but even then, the amount of people/comments hyperfocused on centering is insane. It’s really not that bad and certainly not worth the difference in price.
1 Like
mostly agree but at the end of the day people will grade what they like, even if it’s modern. but overall, i would agree there’s just way too much grading for modern
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There hasn’t been a time where graded prices have been more competitive than raw. The benefit for buyers of everyone trying to be a poke investor is they are oversupplying the market with graded cards. Cracking for binders is such a great value right now!
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But everyone grading modern knows the risks. You lose on 9s and make marginal profits on 10s. It’s not so bad. Nobody is getting rich on modern so grade as you please
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when weeklies regularly have 50+ pages of slabs it’s so easy to catch em slippin
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The smpratte tab removes the junk slabs! 
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Lol sadly true. But you still might miss out on some other legit cards 
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Its just the side effect of everyone in social media pushing grading so hard and never showing the actual amount of work required to be systematically efficient and a lot of creators never really show their losses and only highlight their wins.
It gives a false sense of security that grading is always worth it.
6 Likes
S&V era is a flop, even to non-waifu collectors like me.
Only bought the gold Mew ex and that’s it. The artworks are mediocre at best.
*Looks at the people reaping profits from JPN waifu cards * 
I think most agree with this.
However the main reason is not because the cards and sets are worse compared to sw/sh imo.
The cards are produced more and cards dont stonk anymore is the main reason that most people dislike scarlet / violet era.
For collectors this is still a great era, for stonkers not so great era.
12 Likes
100% agree, 151 is the first set I’ve collected since evolutions, and I’m thrilled that I can buy singles to fill in the gaps at reasonable prices. The ease of access will definitely put off those just looking for a quick flip.
Everyone has their own method and prerogative in their approach to Pokémon tcg, for which different sets will have their appeal. First and foremost I’m a collector and I want to be able to buy cards from new releases without it costing the Earth, which seems to be more achievable right now. Nobody that has ever bought singles for the pure enjoyment of it has ever made a bad purchase
5 Likes