I think this is a good topic to discuss about. Especially for beginner collectors like me.
I know/understand the partial answer to this question but, I want to hear the seasoned collector’s opinion/ answers.
There are lots of factors such as: Scarcity/ Rarity/ Nostalgic/ Old/ exclusives/ etc.
But what makes an expensive card have that high price tag?
For example:
What makes a Base Set Shadowless Charizard with a grade of PSA 8 $2000+?
Why is it more expensive than a PSA 10 Tapu Lele Hyper/Rainbow Rare (150 USD)?
Tapu Lele is a new card from a new set so it’s fairly easy to obtain. These new sets have been printed for crazy amounts so the supply isn’t limited.
That honestly can’t even be compared with 1st Edition Base or Shadowless Base. Remember those were the first ones to be printed in Pokemon TCG and the print runs were limited. It’s the history, limited availability, age, iconic card which was everyone’s favorite back in the day… It goes on the emotional side too. Also you just can’t get your hands on nm-mint copies of 1st Ed and Shadowless Charizards so easily anymore and most of them have probably been graded. Plus more and more sealed product are disappearing from the market on daily basis when you think about Base Set… It’s like two completely different worlds with these old and new cards
It’s truly as simple as supply and demand. That’s it. That’s what drives the price for everything that ever existed in this kind of an economy. You’re thinking too hard about. You mentioned a lot of the factors of why SUPPLY is low and DEMAND is high. That’s it.
Some of these could be placed under the same umbrella term but here are some words that come to mind:
Artwork
Availability
Condition
Demand
Emotion
History
Hype
Nostalgia
Rarity
Scarcity
In relation to your example of a 1st Edition Base Charizard PSA 8(assuming 1st Ed. not Shadowless based off price mentioned) versus a Tapu Lele Hyper/Rainbow Rare PSA 10 (a card I know little about) the former card has multiple attributes from the list above going for it whilst the latter card carries very few. Supply and demand is a simplified explanation.
I think it’s important to differ between cards being expensive because of their exclusiveness and rarity (like trophy cards). And cards being expensive because of their popularity, rather their rarity.
The BGS Charizard sold very high as it’s condition is rare rather than the card itself.
For trophy cards usually the grade is not the main price factor. If one of the rarest trophy cards pops up graded PSA 8 it will most likely sell for the same amount as if it was a PSA 10. Simply because if you want that card you have to buy it when the chance is here. Maybe the same card would never appear again for sale in several years so the condition is of less importance. If collectors know there is better quality examples of a card in existence and they expect them to appear at some point they might wait for another copy and hence not bid as high on a worse condition copy.
value = min(highest price someone is willing to pay, lowest price someone is willing to sell)
As mentioned a few times, all of this runs on supply and demand. Imagine if you could take every person that wanted a base charizard and sorted them by the maximum they are willing to pay. Then take every charizard card and sell it to people in sorted order. When you run out, whatever the next person was willing to pay is the theoretical value of the card since that is the equilibrium between supply and demand.
But to elaborate further… Pretty much everything people mentioned above (or will mention below) falls into part 1 or 2. That really is all it is about. Every aspect of why a card is worth what it is falls into being either a component of either supply or demand. Copying and pasting all examples from above and adding a few of my own in italics.
Supply
a. Availability
b. Condition
(applies to demand as well as some people demand a card solely due to its condition (BGS 10/black label anyone?)
c. Rarity
(as above, some people want cards solely due to their rarity)
d. Scarcity (" ")
I feel these are all broad enough depending on how you define them to take into account original print run, population, liquidity. There may be a few things you can add but it is just semantics really.
Demand
a. Artwork
b. Emotion
c. History
d. Hype
(also effects supply as the more boxes that are ordered leads to more printing)
e. Nostalgia
f. Playability (for newer cards this is an obvious one driving demand. Look at when Shaymix ex rotated out)
Again these probably cover everything if you take a broad enough definition. Artwork covers the species collectors/FA supporter collectors nostalgia covers loads of people and has overlap. Again, semantics but I think this about does it.
I was trying to think of things that make expensive cards expensive that don’t really fall into either basket above and they just don’t exist. I mean you can try to say “advertising” or something along those lines as unlistedleaf did with the battle festa cards, but all he did was drive up 2b and 2d causing the spike in demand and price. If anyone could come up with anything not falling under 1 or 2 above I would be really interested to hear it. Or even having any legitimate x,y,z to add as sub points that aren’t overlapping the ones above.
Great answer, covering everything to detail! The only one that comes to mind for me might be 2g. collectibility. As in needing a last item to complete a set, resulting in the buyer willing to pay more than it’s worth. And if there are more collectors doing this simultaneously it might up the price, making something more expensive for everyone.
This is closely related to 1a and 1d, but not sure what to put it under in the subcategories 2 you’ve mentioned.
Of course this still still part of the supply and demand, as is everything in the world that is available for sale.
More in general of the topic: with cards like the Trophy cards, scarcity and rarity is a huge factor in why they are so expensive. But being low in numbers doesn’t make it automatically valuable. To give another example: I also collect puzzles, and even designed and made some puzzles myself. They are truly one-of-a-kind, and no one else in the world has them. Does this automatically makes them valuable? No. I made them myself in a couple of hours, and others can easily do the same (and probably better).
Another example (again puzzles): Is when a puzzle was previously only available 3D printed. As soon as such a puzzle (which is only in a few people’s collections) gets mass-produced for a very affordable price, the value of these 3D printed puzzles drop quite a lot. Of course is the 3D printed puzzle still one of the originals, so it’s still worth more than the mass-produced puzzles, but the value has dropped regardless.
Same applies to reprints in TCGs. If a very TCG playable card that is reasonable hard to find get mass-produced in a cheap Deck, making it very easy to get, the price of the original ones will drop. If the artworks of the Pokémon SNAP cards or Pokémon Illustrator would be released in a set, the original cards would drop in value immensely. They would still be worth several thousand USD due to their rarity, but no where near their current value.
But all things aside, it all comes down to two main things: supply, and demand. Everything around it are just reasons / causes for the supply and demand.
Fun thing to think about. Back in my day Slowking was busted as hell. Every deck used to play it. Now its very hard to find a PSA 10 Slowking, that might have to do something with the card being played a lot.