What will you buy, when the prices start to correct

[teraz]

Highest unemployment rate in decades. Worst drop in gdp in history. Yet prices are still going up. If this massive economic contraction is having an inverse reaction in card prices, what conditions would it take for prices to drop? The only corrections that will happen are when enough people decide a price point looks good to sell and there’s a surge in supply, and that will be minor.

My point being, I was buying cards in January that have now tripled in price, and I’m actually buying more now at these new price points than I did in January.

[azulryu]

@teraz

Highest unemployment rate in decades. Worst drop in gdp in history. Yet prices are still going up. If this massive economic contraction is having an inverse reaction in card prices, what conditions would it take for prices to drop? The only corrections that will happen are when enough people decide a price point looks good to sell and there’s a surge in supply, and that will be minor.

My point being, I was buying cards in January that have now tripled in price, and I’m actually buying more now at these new price points than I did in January.

Some are dropping down. Only example I can give really is based on my observation of 1st Edition Shining Gyarados. Card sales EXPLODED during Covid. Used to be a $200-$300 card but then reached as high as $600~$900 for a few sales raw. Nowadays it’s trickled back down to between $400~$600.

[modestmudkip]

@azulryu

@teraz

Highest unemployment rate in decades. Worst drop in gdp in history. Yet prices are still going up. If this massive economic contraction is having an inverse reaction in card prices, what conditions would it take for prices to drop? The only corrections that will happen are when enough people decide a price point looks good to sell and there’s a surge in supply, and that will be minor.

My point being, I was buying cards in January that have now tripled in price, and I’m actually buying more now at these new price points than I did in January.

Some are dropping down. Only example I can give really is based on my observation of 1st Edition Shining Gyarados. Card sales EXPLODED during Covid. Used to be a $200-$300 card but then reached as high as $600~$900 for a few sales raw. Nowadays it’s trickled back down to between $400~$600.

yeah I was literally buying one right before this and missed out, still dont have one yet but it does deserve a high price

[cardguyjohn]

Well IMO what’s happened with the prices so far in the past 12 months is due to:

1. A specific large influencer pushing their followers to buy cards (sports and Pokemon) (influx of new investors)
2. Covid-19 sitting at home buying spree syndrome
3. Crash of the MTG collectibles (reserve list) cards during March 2020, causing people to take their money from MTG and put it into Pokemon
4. Our honorable president’s stimulus cheques for Americans, and other stimulus cheques around the world.
5. Under-valued cards and boxes in the market

No. 5 you can never really predict or understand IMO. You could think something is undervalued and the price doesn’t move for 5 years and then suddenly does on the 6th year.

#1-4 makes me weary because some of that money will leave the current market. Prices will drop to reflect that, but if the items are very rare, price memory will have an impact. The mid-tier to low-tier items will likely drop quite a bit though.

Also there are many government relief schemes going on that has artificially reduced the unemployment numbers. The governments can only do this for so long, and then we will see the true unemployment numbers. Once again, this should not really impact the high end collectors (thus high end collectibles).

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What will people buy? I think collectors will just keep buying what they love collecting

[lurker]

Prices are still too low and should double/triple again.

[zorloth]

@cardguyjohn

Well IMO what’s happened with the prices so far in the past 12 months is due to:

1. A specific large influencer pushing their followers to buy cards (sports and Pokemon) (influx of new investors)
2. Covid-19 sitting at home buying spree syndrome
3. Crash of the MTG collectibles (reserve list) cards during March 2020, causing people to take their money from MTG and put it into Pokemon
4. Our honorable president’s stimulus cheques for Americans, and other stimulus cheques around the world.
5. Under-valued cards and boxes in the market

No. 5 you can never really predict or understand IMO. You could think something is undervalued and the price doesn’t move for 5 years and then suddenly does on the 6th year.

#1-4 makes me weary because some of that money will leave the current market. Prices will drop to reflect that, but if the items are very rare, price memory will have an impact. The mid-tier to low-tier items will likely drop quite a bit though.

Also there are many government relief schemes going on that has artificially reduced the unemployment numbers. The governments can only do this for so long, and then we will see the true unemployment numbers. Once again, this should not really impact the high end collectors (thus high end collectibles).

---

What will people buy? I think collectors will just keep buying what they love collecting

Crash on MTG in March 2020? What you talking about? Reserved list cards are super hot right now; I know this because I’ve been selling off a ton . Most are at their all time highs. Some exceptions are a lot of the unplayable random old reserved list cards (I.e. Raging River, Singing Tree, etc). But even those are doing pretty well. But stuff like Grim Monolith, Gilded Drake, Gaea’s Cradle, and the like — any reserved list card that’s actually useful — those are so insanely high right now it’s stunning to me. If you had told me in 2010 that the measly $3 Gilded Drake would be a $250 card in 2020…well, let’s just say I wouldn’t believe it.

[cardguyjohn]

@zorloth

@cardguyjohn

Well IMO what’s happened with the prices so far in the past 12 months is due to:

1. A specific large influencer pushing their followers to buy cards (sports and Pokemon) (influx of new investors)
2. Covid-19 sitting at home buying spree syndrome
3. Crash of the MTG collectibles (reserve list) cards during March 2020, causing people to take their money from MTG and put it into Pokemon
4. Our honorable president’s stimulus cheques for Americans, and other stimulus cheques around the world.
5. Under-valued cards and boxes in the market

No. 5 you can never really predict or understand IMO. You could think something is undervalued and the price doesn’t move for 5 years and then suddenly does on the 6th year.

#1-4 makes me weary because some of that money will leave the current market. Prices will drop to reflect that, but if the items are very rare, price memory will have an impact. The mid-tier to low-tier items will likely drop quite a bit though.

Also there are many government relief schemes going on that has artificially reduced the unemployment numbers. The governments can only do this for so long, and then we will see the true unemployment numbers. Once again, this should not really impact the high end collectors (thus high end collectibles).

---

What will people buy? I think collectors will just keep buying what they love collecting

Crash on MTG in March 2020? What you talking about? Reserved list cards are super hot right now; I know this because I’ve been selling off a ton . Most are at their all time highs. Some exceptions are a lot of the unplayable random old reserved list cards (I.e. Raging River, Singing Tree, etc). But even those are doing pretty well. But stuff like Grim Monolith, Gilded Drake, Gaea’s Cradle, and the like — any reserved list card that’s actually useful — those are so insanely high right now it’s stunning to me. If you had told me in 2010 that the measly $3 Gilded Drake would be a $250 card in 2020…well, let’s just say I wouldn’t believe it.

There was a a massive correction, around 50%, when Starcity games, channel fireball and all the major retailers removed their buy list for high end reserve list cards. Prices plummeted and Rudy made a video on this at the time and told people he’s buying. It has since recovered but there was a short period where this happened, in the middle of the COVID-19 initial outbreak in the US.

[zorloth]

@cardguyjohn

@zorloth

Crash on MTG in March 2020? What you talking about? Reserved list cards are super hot right now; I know this because I’ve been selling off a ton . Most are at their all time highs. Some exceptions are a lot of the unplayable random old reserved list cards (I.e. Raging River, Singing Tree, etc). But even those are doing pretty well. But stuff like Grim Monolith, Gilded Drake, Gaea’s Cradle, and the like — any reserved list card that’s actually useful — those are so insanely high right now it’s stunning to me. If you had told me in 2010 that the measly $3 Gilded Drake would be a $250 card in 2020…well, let’s just say I wouldn’t believe it.

There was a a massive correction, around 50%, when Starcity games, channel fireball and all the major retailers removed their buy list for high end reserve list cards. Prices plummeted and Rudy made a video on this at the time and told people he’s buying. It has since recovered but there was a short period where this happened, in the middle of the COVID-19 initial outbreak in the US.

Yeah, no offense to Rudy, but he’s full of shit. Yes, vendors reduced (and removed, in some instances) their buylist prices for RL cards at the beginning of the pandemic. Because it was an uncertain time and businesses naturally have a limited appetite for risk. But if you actually look at what cards have been selling for on the market, there was never a correction, let alone a 50% one. Buylist prices are generally useful gauges of price – but not when you take a snapshot of buylist prices at the dawn of a worldwide pandemic where a great depression appeared to be looming. Those prices could not have been more irrelevant, and Rudy knows that. He’s highly opportunistic.

I’m saying this as someone who has sold probably $40k in MTG cards on eBay over the pandemic. The prices are exceptionally strong right now, and have been since like April.

[cardguyjohn]

@zorloth

@cardguyjohn

There was a a massive correction, around 50%, when Starcity games, channel fireball and all the major retailers removed their buy list for high end reserve list cards. Prices plummeted and Rudy made a video on this at the time and told people he’s buying. It has since recovered but there was a short period where this happened, in the middle of the COVID-19 initial outbreak in the US.

Yeah, no offense to Rudy, but he’s full of shit. Yes, vendors reduced (and removed, in some instances) their buylist prices for RL cards at the beginning of the pandemic. Because it was an uncertain time and businesses naturally have a limited appetite for risk. But if you actually look at what cards have been selling for on the market, there was never a correction, let alone a 50% one. Buylist prices are generally useful gauges of price – but not when you take a snapshot of buylist prices at the dawn of a worldwide pandemic where a great depression appeared to be looming. Those prices could not have been more irrelevant, and Rudy knows that. He’s highly opportunistic.

I’m saying this as someone who has sold probably $40k in MTG cards on eBay over the pandemic. The prices are exceptionally strong right now, and have been since like April.

Ah good to know! Yea Rudy is… Rudy haha.

Do you think there’s much point in grading older magic cards? Like Gaea’s cradle and Tolarian Academy (psa9-10 contenders)

[zorloth]

@cardguyjohn

@zorloth

Yeah, no offense to Rudy, but he’s full of shit. Yes, vendors reduced (and removed, in some instances) their buylist prices for RL cards at the beginning of the pandemic. Because it was an uncertain time and businesses naturally have a limited appetite for risk. But if you actually look at what cards have been selling for on the market, there was never a correction, let alone a 50% one. Buylist prices are generally useful gauges of price – but not when you take a snapshot of buylist prices at the dawn of a worldwide pandemic where a great depression appeared to be looming. Those prices could not have been more irrelevant, and Rudy knows that. He’s highly opportunistic.

I’m saying this as someone who has sold probably $40k in MTG cards on eBay over the pandemic. The prices are exceptionally strong right now, and have been since like April.

Ah good to know! Yea Rudy is… Rudy haha.

Do you think there’s much point in grading older magic cards? Like Gaea’s cradle and Tolarian Academy (psa9-10 contenders)

Depends what you mean by older Magic cards – if by older, we’re talking about PSA 10 quality or BGS 9.5 Alpha and Beta cards – then yes, definitely worth grading. Gaea’s Cradle and Tolarian Academy? Those are amazing cards, don’t get me wrong – but there’s almost no market for graded copies of those. There are three main issues with those:

1. it’s incredibly easy to find PSA 9/10 quality raw copies – this is well into the era when people starting taking good care of their cards. And Cradle and Academy have always been broken and highly desirable cards.

2. This one mostly just applies to Cradle because Academy is banned in EDH. But Cradle is, behind Timetwister, probably the hottest RL EDH card. It’s actually even more widely played than Twister, but it’s less rare obviously. I’m not sure if you play MTG or not, but let’s just say that people buying Cradles aren’t buying them for the pretty artwork or to collect – people are playing with those things.

3. No one really collects anything after Revised, so the market would be really small.

I’m sure you could get some premium over a raw copy if you have a PSA 10 Cradle/Academy. But I don’t bother with grading anything MTG – although I might if I had tons of mint Alpha/Beta cards. For example: I had a PSA 9 Unlimited Balance, which I had purchased to crack out for my set. But I ended up getting a better condition raw copy, so I no longer needed it. I ended up selling it on eBay, and for less than I bought my raw copy for. The demand is mostly just there for Alpha and Beta, and mostly only in PSA 10 and BGS 9.5-10. It’s very different than with Pokemon, where the grading premium is significant in PSA 9/10 for basically all cards.

[joakimstore]

Pokemon cards only go up in value

[pichufan]

@teraz

Highest unemployment rate in decades. Worst drop in gdp in history. Yet prices are still going up. If this massive economic contraction is having an inverse reaction in card prices, what conditions would it take for prices to drop?

If it wasn’t for the fact that lots of other things have had significant price rises I’d agree completely. In the UK people are still paying 3-4 times higher than RRP for toilet roll on eBay even after the government imposed rules which prevent shops from putting prices up - you can actually make a decent profit right now by having an online grocery delivery which includes toilet roll (at between £4-£9 per pack depending on size), then go to eBay and sell it on for 3 to 4 times more.

My own Pokémon sales are through the roof at the moment and it’s fantastic. It’s to the extent that in February I set out a budget which would allow me to buy a load of items for my new house by February 2021 and as of last week have now purchased the final item on that list 6 months sooner than expected. This is almost entirely because my average monthly Pokémon sales are between 4 and 5 times higher in the past 6 months than they were in the 6 months before that.

I personally do not believe however these current prices are sustainable. Don’t get me wrong though, I think it would be incredible if they are, both for the hobby in general and my own wallet. Prices will definitely be higher than they were in 2019, but I don’t believe they will remain as much as 20 times higher as they are in some cases. For most cards I feel like the demand will dry up long before the supply does.

[kingboo64]

If (and I think it’s a big if) prices go down I would love to be able to buy a Rayquaza gold star in a condition other than damaged and replace my creased GS latias with a nice clean copy

[teraz]

@pichufan

For most cards I feel like the demand will dry up long before the supply does.

Tl;dr at the end.

Some cards will retrace, some will continue to rise.

I don’t think anyone can really predict what most cards will do, other than through feelings, which isn’t data. The only thing I can compare this to is 2017, when I re-entered the hobby. At that time many cards peaked like for example some 1st edition base PSA 10 non-holos were up to $500-800, and by late 2017 early 2018 had can come back to as low as sub-$200 very quickly. Other WOTCs had similar retraces.

The differences I see are that back then you had a significantly larger number of sealed packs and boxes being opened because the expected value was still high enough to make it worth it. Especially before the prices dropped. You had people break boxes and send piles of cards through PSA to take advantage of the meteoric rise in prices. Mind you, many 1st edition WOTC boxes were around or under $1000 dollars at the time. The other supply factor was flipping. As prices were increasing, people were buying cards in hopes they could sell it a month later expecting the price to go up. When prices dropped, you had flippers dumping product to cut losses in addition to the extra product from burn and churn entities breaking sealed product.

From 2018 until the end of 2019, prices didn’t change much for a lot of cards. Over that time the purchases of that large supply was slowly done organically by interested collectors and flippers had mostly peaced out because there was no incentive as prices weren’t climbing. Along this timeline, box prices had continued to rise.

2020 hits, and even before quarantine we started to see a natural climb in prices because fewer boxes were being broken. Most of the excess supply that was hanging on the markets went to genuine collections. I think another factor is when you consider how closed in the hobby has been for so long. Within the last couple years especially, Pokémon has finally started to seep into other hobbies like sports, mtg, youtubers, and many other facets of our culture, increasing exposure and thereby demand. Put on top of this the continued increase in consumer income for people who like Pokémon through better paying jobs. When $100 used to seem like a lot for a card, suddenly for a lot of people $1000 isn’t such a big deal.

After considering all of this, then factor in 2020 with quarantine, stimulus checks etc. These 2020 factors are like a gust of wind under our sails, but this ship has already been sailing steady for awhile.

Tl;dr: Demand has continued to increase the past couple years, both from within the hobby and new interest from outside the hobby, while the sources of supply have dwindled since it’s more valuable to keep sealed product sealed. To say that demand will dry up well before supply does makes no sense to me.

[pichufan]

@teraz a big part of me hopes you’re right. With prices the way they are now though I can only imagine the market will be overwhelmed with supply before long, which is why I ended my previous post on that note.

Take the $4,000 Red Cheeks Pikachu sale post from today - that’s a common card with a PSA 10 pop over 200 which was $500 in January and $300 in January 2019 - as with a lot of cards right now anyone who picked this up before the prices started rising is in for a big profit, and it’s easy to imagine 10% or 20% of the 200 already graded hitting the market when owners realise what value they now have. Would they still be $4,000 if 20 of them appeared for sale in the next year or two? That assumes no more are graded in that time either.

Furthermore with cards like 1st Edition Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle selling for above $500 in PSA 9 I’m sure we’re going to see a lot of these appear on the pop report in the next 6 months. These are cards which up until February probably weren’t worth the hassle grading for a lot of people, but are now cards which probably make the thought of popping open a sealed booster box a lot more fruitful.

[teraz]

@pichufan I understand your points and you may be right. My consideration though is that maybe these cards have just been undervalued for awhile and the current prices are the correction, rather than that these prices are overvalued and a correction is due. The examples you give are the original starters after all and they are probably the most in-demand WOTC non-holos in the hobby.

[jawsh98]

@teraz

@pichufan

For most cards I feel like the demand will dry up long before the supply does.

Tl;dr at the end.

Some cards will retrace, some will continue to rise.

I don’t think anyone can really predict what most cards will do, other than through feelings, which isn’t data. The only thing I can compare this to is 2017, when I re-entered the hobby. At that time many cards peaked like for example some 1st edition base PSA 10 non-holos were up to $500-800, and by late 2017 early 2018 had can come back to as low as sub-$200 very quickly. Other WOTCs had similar retraces.

The differences I see are that back then you had a significantly larger number of sealed packs and boxes being opened because the expected value was still high enough to make it worth it. Especially before the prices dropped. You had people break boxes and send piles of cards through PSA to take advantage of the meteoric rise in prices. Mind you, many 1st edition WOTC boxes were around or under $1000 dollars at the time. The other supply factor was flipping. As prices were increasing, people were buying cards in hopes they could sell it a month later expecting the price to go up. When prices dropped, you had flippers dumping product to cut losses in addition to the extra product from burn and churn entities breaking sealed product.

From 2018 until the end of 2019, prices did change much for a lot of cards. Over that time the purchases of that large supply was slowly done organically by interested collectors and flippers had mostly peaced out because there was no incentive as prices weren’t climbing. Along this timeline, box prices had continued to rise.

2020 hits, and even before quarantine we started to see a natural climb in prices because fewer boxes were being broken. Most of the excess supply that was hanging on the markets went to genuine collections. I think another factor is when you consider how closed in the hobby has been for so long. Within the last couple years especially, Pokémon has finally started to seep into other hobbies like sports, mtg, youtubers, and many other facets of our culture, increasing exposure and thereby demand. Put on top of this the continued increase in consumer income for people who like Pokémon through better paying jobs. When $100 used to seem like a lot for a card, suddenly for a lot of people $1000 isn’t such a big deal.

After considering all of this, then factor in 2020 with quarantine, stimulus checks etc. These 2020 factors are like a gust of wind under our sails, but this ship has already been sailing steady for awhile.

Tl;dr: Demand has continued to increase the past couple years, both from within the hobby and new interest from outside the hobby, while the sources of supply have dwindled since it’s more valuable to keep sealed product sealed. To say that demand will dry up well before supply does makes no sense to me.

I appreciated this input! Many people state the previous fluctuations, but your post helped me understand previous adjustments much better as I was barely involved back then. Thank you!

[zorloth]

@pichufan

@teraz a big part of me hopes you’re right. With prices the way they are now though I can only imagine the market will be overwhelmed with supply before long, which is why I ended my previous post on that note.

Take the $4,000 Red Cheeks Pikachu sale post from today - that’s a common card with a PSA 10 pop over 200 which was $500 in January and $300 in January 2019 - as with a lot of cards right now anyone who picked this up before the prices started rising is in for a big profit, and it’s easy to imagine 10% or 20% of the 200 already graded hitting the market when owners realise what value they now have. Would they still be $4,000 if 20 of them appeared for sale in the next year or two? That assumes no more are graded in that time either.

Furthermore with cards like 1st Edition Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle selling for above $500 in PSA 9 I’m sure we’re going to see a lot of these appear on the pop report in the next 6 months. These are cards which up until February probably weren’t worth the hassle grading for a lot of people, but are now cards which probably make the thought of popping open a sealed booster box a lot more fruitful.

I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I’m curious why you think “the market will be overwhelmed with supply before long?” Why hasn’t this already happened? The prices aren’t climbing like they were in May/June, but they also haven’t declined (or at least very few cards have), so it would be seem like now is an ideal time for people to sell. You mention that people are going to “realize what value they now have” – but why haven’t they already? As I mentioned, the prices have been super high for several months now. This isn’t something that happened last week. The higher prices have already brought cards onto the market, and they’ve mostly been absorbed pretty well (or at least with the cards I collect they have been).

Is your perspective that there’s’ a large supply stuck at PSA, and that the floodgates will eventually empty, and release this giant supply of cards onto the market?

[pichufan]

@zorloth

I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I’m curious why you think “the market will be overwhelmed with supply before long?” Why hasn’t this already happened? The prices aren’t climbing like they were in May/June, but they also haven’t declined (or at least very few cards have), so it would be seem like now is an ideal time for people to sell. You mention that people are going to “realize what value they now have” – but why haven’t they already? As I mentioned, the prices have been super high for several months now. This isn’t something that happened last week. The higher prices have already brought cards onto the market, and they’ve mostly been absorbed pretty well (or at least with the cards I collect they have been).

Is your perspective that there’s’ a large supply stuck at PSA, and that the floodgates will eventually empty, and release this giant supply of cards onto the market?

You have to remember that these prices have only been this high for 6 months, PSA was closed for part of this time (2 months?). Anyone who did submit cards back in May will probably not get them back until next month at the earliest if they used the bulk option.

Just because you own certain cards as well does not mean you actively check the value of them. I actively follow Pokémon prices because I’m actively in the market to buy certain cards, but those who acquired their cards last year or several years ago may not have looked at anything Pokémon related this year at all and may be completely unaware of any price rises happening at all.

[zorloth]

@pichufan

@zorloth

I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I’m curious why you think “the market will be overwhelmed with supply before long?” Why hasn’t this already happened? The prices aren’t climbing like they were in May/June, but they also haven’t declined (or at least very few cards have), so it would be seem like now is an ideal time for people to sell. You mention that people are going to “realize what value they now have” – but why haven’t they already? As I mentioned, the prices have been super high for several months now. This isn’t something that happened last week. The higher prices have already brought cards onto the market, and they’ve mostly been absorbed pretty well (or at least with the cards I collect they have been).

Is your perspective that there’s’ a large supply stuck at PSA, and that the floodgates will eventually empty, and release this giant supply of cards onto the market?

You have to remember that these prices have only been this high for 6 months, PSA was closed for part of this time (2 months?). Anyone who did submit cards back in May will probably not get them back until next month at the earliest if they used the bulk option.

Just because you own certain cards as well does not mean you actively check the value of them. I actively follow Pokémon prices because I’m actively in the market to buy certain cards, but those who acquired their cards last year or several years ago may not have looked at anything Pokémon related this year at all and may be completely unaware of any price rises happening at all.

Yes, I understand that. But, except for high-volume cards (like some early WotC holos and modern cards), how much supply do you really think is going to hit the market? Are we suddenly going to see boat loads of EX Emerald exs hit the market? 0% chance. There will be a handful. But for lower-volume set cards (i.e., certain e-Series and early EX-series cards), they’re immediately absorbed. There is a waitlist of sorts to acquire some of these cards. For especially EX-series cards, there are quite a few cards that haven’t even had a single NM copy listed on eBay over the past 6 months. It’s not like 1st Edition WotC holos where if I want a specific one I can just go on eBay an buy one. There simply isn’t a significant supply of NM EX Emerald exs, let alone one that could even come close to satisfying the demand. If we’re talking about Base/Jungle/Fossil/Rocket holos or modern set cards, then yes, I agree, there could be a sudden influx of supply. There’s plenty of demand for those cards, but they’re also much more abundant and so more likely to retrace, in my view. That goes even more so for the PSA 10 non-holos that are going for hilariously inflated sums of money.