Oh for sure most of them are. Still a 4x increase between two consecutive sales only 1-2 months apart is not normal market dynamics.
You only see that in times like we are currently in, where enough people are overconfident and/or afraid of missing out that they ignore any inner voice that might have otherwise held them back.
I’m not complaining, I’ve been selling some of these 10s. It’s still alarming to see.
ah I didn’t see the earlier discussion and thought ‘pas 10 bubble’ was a standalone unpopular opinion. 
. Let’s not forget the good ole black label though
Quite a few Gen 3 era ex cards are simultaneously insanely ugly and somehow also really cool.
I know exactly which ones you’re talking about. A lot of Ryo Ueda does this for me
Ryo Ueda is so polarizing but one of my favorites since he has done a vast range of promo cards. He has done some very iconic work like Mex Ex PLAY promo and also Burned Tower promo but then I look at some of his other cards and can’t believe it is the same artist.
Cheers!
Homeboy had a whole journey
From this, it would seem that there are a handful of mid-era PSA 10’s that appear to be in a bubble, I give you that. However, I’d still argue that the vast majority of vintage slabs are still lower than they were after the covid bubble popped. It’s still very possible to pick up vintage holos in PSA 9 (with a pop count less than 200) for approx the same amount that it costs to grade a card. Just check the recently sold neo cards, it’s amazing how cheap they are.
Several weeks ago, I bought the Pokepark Lugia holo in PSA 9 for just $70. It’s a 20-year-old Lugia card with a combined PSA 9 and 10 population of just 170. Meanwhile, the most recent sale of a “Pikachu in a grey felt hat” in a PSA 9 sold for $340. This card has a PSA 9 pop of 33314 and it sold for 5 x what I paid for my 20-year-old Lugia promo.
So when people say that Pokemon is in a bubble, it makes me laugh. If you’re chasing the exactly the same cards as everyone else, it would indeed look like Pokemon is in a bubble. However, stop listening to the noise and you’ll quickly find thousands of cards that are flying well under the radar. Unlike the covid bubble, where it was near impossible to pick up any PSA slab for under $50.
Ken drew the 1997 carddass set which is my personal favorite, would these also be considered soulless to you?
We can point to PSA 9s as well. Look at PSA 9s for crystals and gold stars, even the less desirable ones. They’re shooting to the moon as well. Desirable Pokemon like Charizard, Gengar, Umbreon, etc. have PSA 9 vintage holos increasing substantially as well.
It’s not just a PSA 10 boom. It’s a mixture of PSA 10 boom + popular Pokemon boom + vintage chase card boom. Naturally, many of these categories overlap.
Ken Sugimori art is just straight stock art. Sure there’s soul and nostalgia regarding Sugimori’s artwork, but it’s just very plain.
How many people use AI art for their products now and aren’t belittled over it? Sugimori was essentially doing the same thing given the technology of the times, AS WELL AS producing hundreds of other peak designs by hand. I don’t think discrediting him is fair given the workload and production he has had.
Sugimori didn’t actually illustrate the “stock art” cards. Yes, he did the original stock art, but I guarantee some TCG intern on a pirated photoshop was the one copying and pasting Sugimori stock art and iStock.com backgrounds together to make a random EX era common/uncommon card. Importantly, his Pokemon stock art is intended to be just that–a basic, prototypical illustration of a Pokemon.
I don’t think it’s fair to call Sugimori TCG art “plain” if you’re basing your view on art that is (a) intended to be basic and (b) not meant for TCG art. If you look at the cards Sugimori illustrated which were actually intended as TCG cards, many of them are incredible and unique (e.g. Shining Gyarados, Fieldworker, Carddass 000, Sabrina’s Gengar).
As fourthstartcg said, Sugimori wasn’t finding stock backgrounds himself. They just used his stock artwork to start off the TCG and then sprinkled it in during later eras for whatever reason- lack of budget, time etc
And nobody wants AI art on their trading cards.
When people complain about Sugimori stock art cards, I think there are usually two separate issues being raised against them and which of the two is sometimes hard to tell.
They’re either taking issue with the Pokémon artwork itself, which is considered stock art since it was used for promotional materials, pack art, guidebooks, etc., or are they criticizing the generic stock images used as backgrounds on the cards? I always know which cards they’re referring to when they say “Sugimori stock art,” but it’s unclear to me which part of the design they’re unhappy with.
Personally, I think Sugimori’s cards (yes, even the “stock art”) transcend typical art critique. The use of stock backgrounds is a fair complaint nowadays, especially if you’re younger and just seeing them for the first time, but it worked well for the time. They’re iconic and nostalgic, and were the foundation for all that is Pokémon artwork today. That makes them incredibly special in my opinion, even if they aren’t technically impressive.
In some ways it makes sense for the introduction to Pokemon (those original cards, 1996) to be focused solely on the Pokemon themselves.
I see the more basic art as fitting for an introduction: This is a Chansey. This is a Charizard.
Once you’ve seen the prototypical example of a Pokemon, then it’s easier to appreciate them when they are in unique poses or scenes.
I won’t deny that modern alt arts look objectively more interesting than those early arts, but I don’t think “Charizard taking a nap” would be as appreciated if it was our first ever introduction to Charizard as a character.
Indeed. Imagine if this was the first card for Machamp.
But he also did lysandre’s FA, so he’s certainly NOT basic.
I personally don’t mind the Sugimori cards in the early sets. Of course I won’t criticize the art because that in of itself is great. It is a shame that they are just isolated Pokemon slapped on top of a slightly photoshopped stock background, but when the TCG was just starting out, that sort of thing is very forgiveable.
However, in D&P when we started seeing more of that, you’d think that the brand had proven itself enough for them to afford to have artists to create bespoke backgrounds for the cards too.
I have a couple guess why that was the case though. 1. Maybe since that era was relatively sparse in terms of interest, they pulled back on the art effort. 2. Or maybe that was simply tradition, that when new pokemon were introduced, some of them had to get that stock background Sugimori treatment.
