Over the last few months (especially October/November), it appears that there’s been six figures of Pokemon PSA submissions. The margin between raw and graded cards in Pokemon is quite high so it seems everyone is trying to do the same thing. UK Graded Gem said on a video that they were getting up to 5k cards per day, and that’s just one middleman company. However they mentioned that most submissions are modern, and that there isn’t that many mint vintage submissions except for base unlimited.
What is your opinion on what will happen to the market in 6-12 months time when most of these cards come back?
Mine is that most collectors and investors will hold onto the majority of their returns, but some people are going to be dumping a lot of cards onto the market because their intention was to flip for a profit. So I predict that:
High grade vintage cards will hold value short-term and increase long term
Low grade vintage cards will struggle short-term but become more desirable in the future when high grades become too expensive (yes I believe people are going to be desperate for that PSA 3 Fossil Dragonite further down the line)
All graded vintage commons/uncommons will dip short-term
PSA 9 and 10 modern cards will dip/hold value but increase in the long-term
NM+ raw cards will increase slightly to narrow the gap between graded and ungraded
Sealed vintage will hold value and increase in the long-term
Personally I don’t think the 25th anniversary is going to have as much impact as the October boom, unless there is more mainstream attention and something groundbreaking like more evolutions style reprints of other WOTC sets which bring more vintage collectors back. I think the true peak will be around the 50th anniversary when WOTC kids retire, but there could be slow growth from now until then. I can’t wait for my 179 card return to come back in 2021 and I certainly won’t be in any rush to sell them.
One thing I’ve learned is that never underestimate the demand, even if PSA populations double or triple this is still nothing to the audience who hoover up modern products so fast that even 2-3 year old mass printed products are getting harder to find anywhere near the original RRP
There are definitely gonna be hundreds of thousands of cards hitting the market from bulk submissions next year. I think TCA Gaming said in one of this videos that he submitted 10,000 just by himself.
This is a super interesting event to consider. I expect that most of these cards sent to the PSA are modern and ultra-modern cards since access to these cards is so easy. Based on this, I expect the largest drops to be in sets like hidden fates - although this drops will most likely be temporary. Due to the difficulty of finding mint ungraded early EX and WOTC cards these days, I don’t think a lot of these PSA orders will hold market moving amounts of vintage, so my guess is pre-2008 cards won’t see any downward price action.
I think the ability for people to crack modern sets, like HF, and then make large amount of gains just by grading will continue in large numbers until the sealed product rises or the graded price falls (or both).
Here’s one of the most helpful frameworks I can think of to explain this crazy year in the Pokemon TCG. This hobby was on its own solid trajectory to start the year. Growing base of collectors with a growing base of income. COVID hit, bringing new collectors (returning or first time collectors). Then the hype cycle hit with Gary Vee, Logan Paul etc which brought in even more new collectors.
The direct manifestation of this influx has been TONS of money injected into the hobby this year. The “market cap” of the TCG hobby has probably expanded by a staggering amount in 2020. Where has all of that money gone? Most directly, right the pockets of people who sold cards to these new collectors. Next, where did it go? Some people surely took some profits and used it to treat themselves or towards practical things like home or car purchases. So some of the money that poured into Pokemon spilled back out. But my hypothesis is that lots of this money has stayed in the hobby and will. Because I think people who have taken profits have traded up. That card that someone always wanted, once their pockets were stuffed full of cash from selling their unlimited base cards for a 1000x profit, they used to get that chase card they always wanted. They had to pay a bit more for it, sure, but they are playing with house money. I bet a lot of collectors have traded up to rarer, more vintage, more scarce cards with their profits from the great Pokemon TCG explosion of 2020. But the buck stops with something like trophy cards or PSA 10 first edition base holos. If you want to invest, or re-invest, in the hobby, there’s nowhere else you’re going to go. So at the end of the money trail that’s why you have those cards still reaching record levels. Basically fixed supply of cards, more demand (people), and WAY more money in the hobby. Much of which has come from profit taking on lesser cards. Just a theory, would welcome thoughts.
Cards are coming back constantly and the volume of sales is only increasing.
It really depends on the card. People underestimate how hard it is to pull modern secrets and full arts.
To generalise and say that these cards are going to be cheap or drop just because they’re new dismisses the interest in modern.
I have more faith in hyper rares than I do for PSA 10 1st Jungle Eevee and Pikachu. I know people with mountains of non-holo wotc bulk but I don’t know people with mountains of hypers.
My prediction (and that’s all it is) is that we will see some oversaturation and subsequent price corrections of WOTC commons/uncommons, since they are plentiful in ungraded bulk. I also expect we will see the same trend with WOTC PSA 8 (and lower) holos and some PSA 9 holos.
On the other hand, WOTC PSA 10 holos and PSA 9 holos of most popular cards (which were always profitable to grade) will probably remain steady at their prices (maybe dip a little, since market confidence will react negatively to other cards retracing). Most of these cards have been gone from the ungraded market for years already, so I feel that they are likely to increase in the long-term.
Frankly, I think we are seeing this exact scenario already playing out after the first major round of grading back in May/June. The second round will probably trigger a more significant retrace than the first. The best thing you can do is educate yourself on the market, buy what you like, and just enjoy the journey. We’ve all made money and lost money on deals, but at the end of the day, it’s the thrill of the chase and the collecting experience that matters.
The price on everything across the board will drop with demand. It is so obvious there is a speculative mania occurring with every pokemon TCG product. The biggest declines will be in the stuff that is simply not rare. If there is any market imperfection between a raw card and PSA card prices then it will eventually be equalized through people grading the raw cards. Right now the price differential is out of whack due to the PSA backlog. Only the people holding the existing PSA cards can benefit. Maybe sell the card now and acquire a raw card that will grade for what you think it will. I know a lot of people are buying raw cards to grade and then immediately resell. There is going to be a lot of bag holders doing that at a certain point.
The old adage of older, rarer, minter, better will prove itself out and will help to shelter the blow to a certain extent.
Personally, I see big problems coming down the pipe when the COVID demand spike subsides. Modern sealed will be crushed simply because Pokémon company will have increased production into a market where the demand has left and it will take time for Pokémon company to decrease production. During that time, you’ll have a glut of sealed product. High prices for modern raw and PSA cards will plummet since people will simply rip packs to arbitrate the price difference. It is well understood what the pull rates are for modern sealed. At current prices the expected value for the hot modern sets is above the cost of the packs at MSRP. That will not last over time. The expected value for modern packs will eventually be negative which is what you would typically expect with booster due to gambler’s premium.
I’d recommend everyone to set aside cash now to take advantage of this when it comes as you will probably get one hell of a deal on whatever you’re buying.
One thing is for sure. After PSA gets through the backlog of cards we are really going to see which cards and sets are truly rare/hard to grade. Be interesting to see what the Pop report on wotc cards will be this time next year.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned: as more and more cards are graded, there’s a simultaneous increase in the amount of graded cards and a decrease in the amount of raw cards. But I don’t see any reason to believe that an increasing proportion of people are collecting graded cards. So, relative to collecting demand, there will be a glut of graded cards and a dearth of raw cards. What will happen as a result of this? I’m not sure.
But this is something that WILL happen unless a disproportionate amount of new Pokemon card collectors collect graded cards. Personally, I believe this will result in a decrease in the prices of PSA 7s and 8s relative to 9s and 10s.