@zorloth, I love ex series cards and think plenty are a good deal, but they’ve been graded in very low quantities compared to WOTC 1st Edition until extremely recently, hence a lack of graded on eBay. And as for ungraded NM+, people with these cards realize they can make much more money selling them graded, so there is little incentive to list raw on eBay.
What do you think is more likely to experience an influx of copies - something that percentage wise, has had almost no cards sent in for grading over the past decade because they weren’t worth the costs of grading unless gem mint, or something with a decade of pop growth like Base?
Yes, I realize that. But the quantity of, for instance, a given EX Emerald ex (graded or ungraded) is orders of magnitude smaller than pretty much any WotC holo. How many, say, Medicham exs do you think are currently at PSA, waiting to be graded? 5? 10? 15? It’s not a large amount. I realize that the incentive to grade these has been low until recently, but the general supply is also much, much lower. These are just much rarer cards. They’re set cards, yes, but not in the vein of a 1st Edition Team Rocket holo – the supply is incredibly limited. Of course, the demand is also lower. But the supply is correspondingly lower, and has been absorbed much more thoroughly than anything WotC (besides the e-Series and maybe 1st. Ed. Base).
Re; your second paragraph: it depends. Are we talking about 1st Ed. Base or Base Unlimited? Because Base Unlimited has, just like the EX-series, only recently had a large incentive to grade. For 1st Ed. Base, the PSA pop is more fleshed out than any other set. But the population of Unlimited Base or even of 1st Edition Jungle/Fossil/Rocket is not even close to being fully-fleshed out.
@zorloth , I believe well more than 15, and plenty more waiting to be graded if those 15 sell well. The general supply is low, but the pop report is a terrible current representation.
For example, you state the pop report of 1st Ed. Rocket is not even close to being fully-fleshed out, which I agree with. But by that standard, the pop report of EX Emerald ex cards is hilariously low at the moment compared to supply.
Let’s take the card cited (Medicham ex). A comparison I always do to see which cards have been optimized in the pop report is juxtaposing them with the highest graded card in the set, usually a Charizard. Unfortunately there’s no equivalent in EX Emerald, but we can use the previous set with a similar-ish print run, EX Deoxys.
Medicham ex = 57
11 ex, 2.5 ex per box = 4.4 boxes per Medicham ex = 246 boxes worth in the pop report
Rayquaza Gold Star = 373
3 gold star, 0.5 gold star per box = 6 boxes per Rayquaza = 2,238 boxes boxes worth in the pop report
Ratio: 246/2238 = 11%
A Medicham ex is almost 10x less likely to be graded than a Rayquaza Gold Star, despite it being more widely distributed. Another thing to look at – there is only a single graded Medicham ex lower than an 8, a PSA 6. In all likelihood a sentimentally graded copy. No one has bothered to send in any of this card not mint for the past fifteen years. There are hundreds of lower graded Rayquazas.
Now we can compare to 1st Ed. Rocket pop report:
Dark Weezing 1st Ed Holo (using this because it is one of the cheapest/least desirable) = 937
18 holos, 12 holos per box = 1.5 boxes per Weezing = 1,405 boxes
worth in the pop report
Dark Charizard 1st Ed Holo = 2,215
18 holos, 12 holos per box = 1.5 boxes per Weezing = 3,322 boxes
worth in the pop report
Ratio:
1,405/3,322 = 42%
One of the least desired holos is graded at almost half the rate of the most popualar card in the set. This is a more optimized set pop report.
The supply of ex-era cards has been absorbed quickly because so few have been graded or made available. But these cards didn’t disappear. They simply aren’t in the pop report yet. The scenario may change when there are four times as many available.
For some of the most iconic and scarce cards in PSA9 and 10 there will likely never be a retrace, there are buyers sitting on the sidewalk waiting with hundreds of thousands who will just clear the market if that happens.
I agree with your pull rate math, though I don’t accept the premise that Emerald had nearly as high of a print run as Deoxys. If you compare the PSA populations of the less popular exs from both sets, and account for the difference in pull rate on a by-card basis, EX Emerald has more than ~20% fewer copies that have been submitted. This might be due, of course, to the fact that a higher proportion of all sealed EX Deoxys product has been opened (due to the presence of gold stars, and highly desirable ones at that). But the fact remains that EX Emerald cards of equivalent pull rate are almost certainly rarer than EX Deoxys cards.
But let’s say that, on the high side, that there are 50 Medicham exs waiting to be graded. I think it’s, in all likelihood, less than half of that, but I’m assuming that you’d take 50 to be a safe (if not generous) estimate? First of all, how many of those copies were graded with the intent of selling? Assumedly, some are for personal collections. Let’s say 40 of those 50 will hit the market upon returning from PSA to their owners. How long will it take for those 40 copies to return? They’ll trickle back over the course of the next 6-7 months. So we’re talking about somewhere in the vicinity of 7 PSA copies going onto the market every month. And I think this is a pretty significant overestimation, given that there is a grand total of 1 PSA-graded Medicham ex that is currently on eBay and a grand total of 1 that has sold over the past 3 months on eBay. But let’s assume that 7 a month hit the market, for the sake of argument. I don’t think that’s remotely enough supply to tank the market. You have to remember that the market for EX Emerald exs has been very nearly 100% dry over the course of the past 6 months. These are significantly scarcer than EX Deoxys exs – I know this from having started and completed both sets within the past 7 months. I don’t see any retrace potential for a card like that.
But some EX-series cards? Sure, I think there’s potential for retraces – for some of the less rare cards from the era. But if we’re talking about EX Emerald exs or the like, then I think the retrace potential is incredibly small. You clearly have much more collecting experience and knowledge than me (and I’ve learned a ton from your posts, and highly admire your dedication/knowledge), but I’m not sure that you understand quite how dry the market for these rarer EX-series cards is. And it’s not because there are truckloads of them waiting at PSA.
Yeah that’s what I thought as well. I don’t play EDH, but I can see what you mean. Interesting to see how collecting in MTG has not expanded beyond Alpha Beta really. I’m going to shoot you a PM so we don’t derail this thread. Cheers
@zorloth, I will be fully transparent and say I have been aiming to complete my ex complete mint binder, which is about 2/3 full, and made the calculation that I would save money by waiting until some of the huge lots of ex cards I’ve personally seen being sent in for grading end up on the market as 8s and 9s. If I am wrong about this I will pay the price, literally. The market right now is unnaturely dry due to people buying up with the intent to grade and sell.
For the eventually-mint-to-be-graded pop, I am expecting hundreds, not 50, once people see PSA 9/10 ex cards consistently selling well for more than the past six months. It makes perfect sense that 1 is listed when you consider that alone is almost 2% of the graded pop. The same is true % wise for the majority of cards. Having 5-10% of the pop listed at once would be a warning sign of over-saturation.
As for pull rates, there is no evidence EX Emerald has a 20% lower print run. On my own personal experience, I would guess it was higher printed. For example, EX Emerald booster packs were given out at promotional events at Yankee Stadium. It’s actually where I opened my first EX Emerald pack. The packs given out at such events are usually over-printed ones. However, I also understand my experience is ANECDOTAL, and I have literally zero actual information on print run numbers, which is why it is very risky territory to try to rank ex series print runs. To use opened sealed product as an estimation of print run when 99%+ of ex sealed product was opened around release date also makes no sense.
There’s plenty of evidence that EX Emerald had a much lower print run. First, one just has to look at the market volume of reverse holos and bulk. EX Deoxys has orders of magnitude more reverse holos and bulk listed. If you’d like specific numbers, I’d be happy to give you them.
Second, if you do the pop report analysis of the less desirable exs from both sets, this lower print run is also reflected. Here’s some specific math so that you know I’m not pulling the 20% number out of my ass:
Each EX Deoxys ex appears, on average, .28x per box. The pull rate is 2.5 per box and there are 9 different ones. So it takes 3.5 boxes, on average, to pull a given ex.
Let’s take three of the exs from EX Deoxys that are of Pokemon that aren’t particularly popular, and look at the pop report. I think you would agree that a Hariyama ex from EX Deoxys and a Medicham ex from EX Emerald, for instance, have historically had a roughly equivalent chance of being submitted to PSA. That is, per every 100 copies in existence of either, both have had similar amounts submitted to PSA. I think you’d agree that this is a reasonable assumption?
Hariyama ex - 80 copies submitted to PSA
Crobat ex - 94 copies submitted to PSA
Sharpedo ex - 76 copies submitted to PSA
In total, that is 250 copies that have been submitted to PSA. And, because it takes 3.5 boxes to pull a given ex, those 250 copies represent roughly 875 boxes.
Now, let’s do the same with EX Emerald:
I’ve used a pull rate of 3 per box (because there aren’t gold stars in the set to replace ex pulls, as I believe they do), but you used 2.5 in one of your earlier posts, so I will do the math for both.
Medicham ex - 56 copies submitted to PSA
Dusclops ex - 56 copies submitted to PSA
Cacturne ex - 53 copies submitted to PSA
In total, this is 165 copies that have been submitted to PSA. If you pull 3 exs per box, then you pull .27 of a given ex, on average, per box (3/11). This would indicate that you need to open, on average, 3.7 boxes to pull a given ex. That would indicate that the 165 copies in the pop represent roughly 610 boxes. If we take the 2.5 figure that you quoted, then you pull .23 of a given ex, on average, per box (2.5/11). This would indicate that you need to open 4.5 boxes to pull a given ex, on average. That would mean that the 165 copies in the pop represent 742 boxes.
With either the 742 box figure or the 610 box figure, EX Emerald appears to have had much less product opened. And, since, as you stated, 99%+ of product printed of both sets has already been opened, these figures should fairly represent the print runs of the sets. So, based on the numbers I’ve run, EX Emerald appears to have had anywhere from a 15% to 30% lower print run than EX Deoxys.
Of course, this is just one method. There are several other metrics I’ve used to estimate relative print runs of sets. And all of them point to EX Emerald having had a substantially lower print run than EX Deoxys. So, yes, I would say that there is evidence – not conclusive, but evidence nonetheless – that EX Emerald had a lower print run.
Ultimately, only time will tell what happens with the prices of these. For what it’s worth, I do NOT expect the prices on EX Emerald exs, for instance, to substantially increase over the next several months or a year. But I also do NOT expect retraces of any significant degree, or any degree at all, to be honest. Time will tell which one of us is correct on this – I very well could be wrong, and maybe EX Emerald exs are worth 50% less in a year. But I really don’t think that will be the case.
@zorloth, I think we simply have different personal methods of analyzing data. Foe example, when I look at your use of 875 boxes worth of ex for Deoxys vs 610 boxes worth for Emerald, I don’t think to myself “15 to 30% lower print run”. I just showed above that there are 2,238 boxes worth of Rayquaza gold stars in the pop report, minus regrades, so that data is insignificant to me, since the pop report is so far from optimized.
Likewise, when I see 50 copies vs 80 copies of a random unpopular ex, it’s not enough evidence for me to make a conclusive estimate on print runs. If in five years’ time there are 200 graded per ex emerald ex and 300 graded per Deoxys ex than I may come around.
I agree. And I understand your concern about the sample sizes being too small. But, even with the small sample size, the difference is statistically significant (if we accept that these unpopular exs from EX Emerald and EX Deoxys are equally likely to be submitted to PSA, as a proportion of the total number of copies of each). It’s not as though there are 250 of these exs in the pop of EX Emerald and 275 in the pop of EX Deoxys, and on that basis I’m claiming that the print run of EX Emerald was lower. The disparity is not within the margin of error – even with the margin of error being as large as it is due to the small sample size.
Additionally, as I’ve mentioned, there are a variety of other metrics I’ve used. If the print runs were comparable, then I can’t imagine why the market volume (both in terms of the amounts listed and sold) of EX Emerald reverse holos is 40%+ lower than EX Deoxys reverse holos. That, along with the pop report analysis and several other metrics, makes it highly unlikely, in my mind, that EX Emerald had nearly as large as a print run as EX Deoxys. I don’t know what confounding variable could possibly lead to such large disparities that can be seen through using any relevant metric. I understand that I’m likely not going to personally convince you of the print run disparity – but all I can say is that I’m personally convinced, and I have no stake in the relative print run sizes being one way or another: I’ve already (very nearly) completed both sets.
But I understand and respect your skepticism. And I agree that there is no such thing as conclusive evidence outside of official numbers from Cartamundi, Nintendo, TCPi, or some other credible insider source.
The disparity is not within the margin of error, but the entire sample size pretty much is.
Here’s an example to elaborate on why I don’t think there is nearly enough market data yet for ex series print runs.
Target sold EX-era sealed product throughout the mid-late 2000s. All those tins, blisters with promos, 2 packs/40 sleeves, assortments with a random theme deck thrown in, were designed to move off shelves.
If they were on shelves, they were worth stocking. A massive retail chain like Target does not decide what to stock on a whim. Even if they are paying pennies on the dollar for sealed product, they are still covering shipping, assembly, employees, rent and electricity, and the opportunity cost of having something sitting on shelves that doesn’t sell. Does Target buy more Pokemon product today? Of course, hence why half the trading card shelf at your local Target is probably premium collection Pokemon boxes, vs. 10% in 2006. But these items were still worth buying in the 2000s, or Target wouldn’t have purchased them.
If you take an extraordinarily conservative lens that:
• Of the 1400+ Targets in America in 2005, only half (700) carried Pokemon product
• Each Target was only able to sell one blister pack or equivalent of a given set like EX Emerald per day
• Each Target was only able to reach that one pack per day number for the six months following a set’s release [180 packs], or 180 packs stretched over a year or two thanks to tins, 2 packs/40 sleeves etc.
That alone is 700 Targets x 180 packs = 126,000 packs = 3,500 boxes worth.
So while comparing 50 vs 80 of the most likely to be submitted cards **from the set (ex)**in a pop report is technically not within the margin of error, those 610 boxes are less than one-fifth of product sold simply at Target, to say nothing of local game stores, international English, and other retail outlets.
Frankly I’d have a hard time trying to compare print runs of ANY similar set, especially an EX one, based off the pop report, and only use it for something with a massive, years long established difference, like Base Unlimited vs Aquapolis. As grading becomes more commonplace, cards increase in value and are worth grading, and the pop report grows optimized, it will be easier to take a stab at comparing ex print runs, but IMO we have a ways to go.
“The disparity is not within the margin of error, but the entire sample size is.” The entire sample size is in the margin of error of what? I take it that you mean that, say, 800 booster boxes is only a tiny fraction of the overall amount printed. Which I agree with – but this actually helps my argument. With all due respect, you’re not thinking about this in the correct way. The larger the total sample size, the more likely the PSA pop figures (regardless of how small they are) provide representative samples of the total amount of cards distributed.
Nintendo almost certainly distributed millions of booster packs of each set. And because they were released within a few months of each other, we can assume that consumer base and their habits wasn’t vastly different between the sets. For example, I’d imagine that the mean/median age, household income, etc. of consumers of EX Deoxys and EX Emerald was nearly identical – if nothing else than for the reason that there was gigantic overlap of the consumers of both sets. So I think it’s reasonable to assume that the collecting and storage habits were nearly identical for consumers of both sets. The significance of this is that I think it’s fair to assume that the a comparable proportion of the total number of cards distributed for both sets have hit the market – when, of course, we account for certain confounding variables such as the price point of a card’s impact on consumer desire to put that card on the market.
I could go on and on, but I think you know where I’m going with this: the fact that EX Emerald exs (when accounting for pull rate) have, across the board, substantially lower amounts that have been submitted to PSA than EX Deoxys exs, is (in my view) convincing evidence of there being a significant difference in the print run sizes of the two sets.
And I just want to really emphasize something: the fact that the PSA pops of these cards are low is of little relevance to the statistical significance of the population difference between the two sets. I could explain this more in depth if you’d like, but by far the most relevant factors in terms of the statistical significance of the population difference are:
The size of the total amount of product distributed and subsequently opened
The likelihood of a given card being submitted to PSA – which, as I think I’ve established, should be nearly identical for the exs that I featured in my comparison. There is good reason to believe that the demographics and habits of the consumers of EX Deoxys and EX Emerald were highly similar. And I can think of no reason why nearly 35% fewer of the exs from Emerald (when accounting for the difference in pull rates on a card-by-card basis) have been submitted to PSA. The total amount of packs printed for each set likely being in the 7 or 8 figures makes it less likely that the pop reports don’t reflect the total print runs. In other words, it’s highly statistically significant, that out of tens of thousands of Medicham exs printed and tens of thousands of Hariyama exs printed, that 40% more Hariyama exs have been submitted to PSA. The total amount submitted to PSA is small, but when we’re looking at sample size, the far more relevant fact is that there are tens of thousands of each of these cards in existence. And when you see these differences in PSA submission numbers remain highly consistent among several different cards in each set, the odds that this happened by chance are incredibly low. Rather, the most likely explanation is that EX Emerald had a lower print run.
When you are talking these low numbers, comparing 50 to 80 or even 500 to 800 of the most popular cards from the set, the difference can literally be a dozen random collectors who decide to grade their ex cards, or someone thinking to grade their tournament decks, or a game store sending in old bulk that happens to be mostly Emerald instead of Deoxys, or someone with a complete set of Deoxys who realized gold stars were expensive deciding to grade their ex cards along with gold stars in the same submission.
As for TCG set consumer overlap, I agree and enjoy the premise, but will add EX Emerald was directly conceived and marketed to tie in with the Emerald video game.
The pop report trend also shows the disparity narrowing.
Hariyama ex: 80 present, 50 Oct. 2018, 42 May 2018
Crobat ex: 94 present, 57 Oct. 2018, 45 May 2018
Sharpedo ex: 76 present, 49 Oct. 2018, 38 May 2018
Present: 250 x 3.5 = 875 boxes
October 2018: 156 x 3.5 = 546 boxes
May 2018: 125 x 3.5 = 437 boxes
Medicham ex: 56 present, 33 Oct. 2018, 25 May 2018
Dusclops ex: 56 present, 29 Oct. 2018, 21 May 2018
Cacturne ex: 53 present, 23 Oct. 2018, 21 May 2018
Present: 165 x 3.7 = 610 boxes
October 2018: 85 x 3.7 = 314 boxes
May 2018: 67 x 3.7 = 248 boxes
Alternate pull rate:
Present: 165 x 4.5 = 742 boxes
October 2018: 85 x 4.5= 382 boxes
May 2018: 67 x 4.5 = 301 boxes
Present Box Comparison:
265 difference / 875 = supposed 30% lower print run
133 difference / 875 = supposed 15% lower print run
Between 15-30% lower(I’m using this particular calculation because I’m assuming it’s what you used to get the 15% and 30% numbers, correct me if otherwise)
October 2018:
232 difference / 546 = supposed 42% lower print run
164 difference / 546 = supposed 30% lower print run
Between 30-42% lower
May 2018:
189 difference / 437 = supposed 43% lower print run
136 difference / 437 = supposed 31% lower print run
Just as I would say the numbers in the pop report were way too small to claim a 30 - 42% lower print run in 2018, I will also say they are way too small to claim 15 - 30% lower today.
I expect the difference between these sets’ total pop report to gradually decrease. I wouldn’t even be surprised if there’s a temporary boom of Deoxys that leads to a higher %, and then it eventually flips to EX Emerald having a “higher” supposed print.
The historical pop data is an interesting angle, and one that I honestly hadn’t considered. You’re correct that the pops are narrowing, which I didn’t realize. Still, I think this narrowing in the pop numbers could plausibly be attributed to the following: (if I had to guess) way more EX Emerald packs have been opened over the past 3 years than EX Deoxys packs. And exs that were pulled straight from packs within the last few years almost certainly have a 50%+ likelihood of having been submitted to PSA. So it’s highly plausible, in my view, that the narrowing of the gap could be attributed to a larger influx of pack-fresh exs from EX Emerald than pack-fresh exs from EX Deoxys.
I believe that more packs of EX Emerald have been opened because of the lower price point and the greater availability. I can’t speak for the current market, but I have quite a few loose packs of each set that I acquired in January/February. Not only were the EX Emerald packs in the $40-$50 range vs. the $150-$200 range for the EX Deoxys packs, I had a much easier time finding EX Emerald packs for sale. So I think it’s very likely that the gap has been narrowing recently for that reason.
You mean as opposed to PSA 10 ones? If so, we happen to agree. I wasn’t even talking about PSA 10 prices – I think there’s a very good chance some PSA 10s retrace in price as the pops increase. I was talking about raw, PSA 8-9 quality, NM exs – which I probably should’ve clarified haha.
@zorloth, EX Emerald pack openings is a stretch. Loose packs are almost always weighed, so to pull ex you would usually need to purchase a sealed box. Even in 2018 that was an expensive box when you factor in expected value vs almost any set, it’s one of the worst including vs. Deoxys in 2018. $50 for a pack in January was more than any of the PSA 9 ex in that set at the time except Milotic. You’d basically be opening a box in hopes of Milotic ex PSA 10, and I don’t think there were anywhere near 300 boxes worth of EX Emerald product opened in the past 2 years.
If people were opening ex sealed product to grade their pulls, Deoxys would arguably have a higher % increase than Emerald in the pop instead of the gap narrowing. A sealed Deoxys box was still $2.5k in 2017 and not much worse early-mid 2018 when the Gold Star Ray 10 was $6k and the other gold stars $2k+. Emerald IIRC was around $1k at the time but the odds of Milotic are much lower than a gold star.
Also, if you are arguing a pop gap could be narrowed almost in half solely because people happened to open more sealed product of a specific ex set almost fifteen years after its release in 2018-19, it’s hard to also conclude pop report is currently a useful metric for ex set print runs.
I don’t agree that it’s that tough to find loose unweighed packs. I’ve opened 5 EX-series packs just over the past few weeks (for fun, obviously, since the EV is terribad) that were among my heaviest, and all had holos, and all were purchased loose on eBay/Reddit just 6-7 months ago. This is anecdotal, obviously, but I don’t think it’s that unlikely to get heavy loose ‘unweighed’ packs.
And yes, I am arguing that, and I don’t think it’s nearly as far-fetched as you think it is. I don’t think it’s implausible that, say, 5 of each EX Emerald ex have been opened in the past 2 years? People tend to weigh packs before opening them, and the odds of getting an EX out of a heavy pack aren’t too bad – 21% to 25%, depending on the 2.5 or 3 exs per box figure. And there have been at least 3 EX Emerald box breaks that I’m aware of over just the past half a year. I really don’t think it’s that crazy to imagine that, for instance, 5 Medicham exs have been pulled over the past 2 years.
And if 5 Medicham exs have been pulled and submitted to PSA over the past 2 years, that would be highly significant as far as narrowing the PSA pop. Let’s look at the historical pop figures you cited:
Total of the three PSA pops of the EX Emerald exs in May 2018: 67
Total of the three PSA pops of the EX Deoxys exs in May 2018: 125
A 60% difference
Now, let’s look at the current difference:
250 for EX Deoxys vs 165 for EX Emerald – a 41% difference.
But imagine if, instead of the current pop for EX Emerald being 165, it was instead 150 (because 5 fewer copies of each of the three exs were submitted:
250 for EX Deoxys vs. 150 for EX Emerald – a 50% difference.
So literally just the 5 copies my theory mentioned could explain half of the narrowing in difference. As, without those 5 extra copies per ex, the difference is 50% compared to 2018’s 60%, instead of 41% compared to 2018’s 60%. So I really don’t think my explanation is nearly as whacky as you think.
