Can only speculate, but I think there will be a long slow process of people realizing that owning cards doesn’t bring them more joy, fulfillment, or financial freedom than some other way to allocate $X0,000, and will decide to make that exchange. (At least in part.)
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Honestly, this is a good point for people on this forum to keep in mind (myself included). E4 has a lot of long-time collectors who are extremely deep into the rabbit hole of collecting. They’ve seen everything there is to see and learned everything there is to learn. To a lot of users, the PSA 10 premium does not make sense when they can get a 9 or raw card that is visually identical for a fraction of the price.
But what you’re talking about is very interesting, since there’s a whole generation of high net worth (HNW) individuals entering who have a shallower understanding of the hobby, but are still equally passionate. To them, a PSA 10 is a 10, irrespective of the fact that there are 9s which look the same or better for 1/50th of the price.
All of this is to say, collect what you feel is worth buying, but don’t discount outside perspectives. E4 is a wonderful place (easily the best), but it can also be disconnected from the wider Pokemon collector community out there. It’s important to consider outside perspectives and not get too locked into one way of thinking, as that can cause one to miss good opportunities for buying or selling.
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This is an excellent point. The demographics for Pokemon are all pointing in a positive direction in the medium to long term. 2016 was a demographic boom when kids who were 8-10 when Base Set came out hit 30 and had some disposable income. 10 years later those people are hitting 40 and getting actual real money. In another 10 years they’ll be 50, leading major businesses, and having midlife crises when their kids leave the house and their wives divorce them. It’s a pretty good bet the next Bezos/Musk/Gates will have been a nerdy kid who grew up on Pokemon.
However, we can’t discount the fact that there are a lot of questionable actors doing their best to capitalize on the market right now. Crypto bros, vendors, IG “dealers,” you name it. I think we’ll increasingly see a feast-or-famine outcome where actual desirable cards continue to increase while some of the more hype-focused cards see significant drawdowns. Corocoro Mew, Base Charizard, Shinings, Gold Stars, S tier set cards and promos probably aren’t going to crash. “Low Pop” EX-DP reverse holos and regular holos? I’d be way more cautious on those.
@ddk also has an excellent point here, which I’ll paraphrase as: the market doesn’t care about your feelings. The way the “hardcore” collectorbase feels about a market is heavily informed by their past experience. Sometimes that’s good but sometimes you fall into the crutch of price memory and refuse to wake up to the fact that the world has passed you by, and certain segments of your hobby are now being dominated by people with an entirely different perspective and experience. For better or worse, we need to be cognizant of that bias.
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shiny cardboard has become a status symbol. spend 5 mins on instagram and you’ll see a bunch of people youre describing with expensive cards photographed alongside luxury watches. if the value goes down, the appeal goes down, and people will lose interest. if the car you bought for 1m drops to 0, would you still show that off to people, even if it looks cool? doubt it.
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You have completely misunderstood the question. It was always about vintage cards. It’s got nothing to do with modern cards. Modern will almost always have enough supply to satisfy demand. Especially with everyone hoarding modern product.
The question is asking where will the new supply of vintage, mint cards come from to satisfy the new demand of these cards. It’s a bit of a facetious question as Scott suggests there isn’t enough of a supply out there to create a significant retrace in prices which is contrary to what happened in similar years of 2020-2021. He wants to know if others feel similar or if they think there will be a large resupply of vintage, mint cards like the previous boom.
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You are correct that if a $1 million dollar card goes to $0, they will not be shown off. Because that means the hobby will have already died for decades and erased from all relevance. But what’s this trying to prove? If the card goes down to $500k, it will still be shown. At $200k, still desirable.
But you’re skipping a lot of steps here. What causes something to go from $1 mil to 0? It’s people selling, demand not being there, more and more imbalance and the death of a hobby. That’s not happening in the near future. For some of these high earners (crypto bros aside), it doesn’t matter if the value goes down, they’re not selling their cool PSA 10 corocoro mew. The rise of more high earners with genuine interest coming in will make sure the $1 million card never goes to 0.
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I have a much less informed opinion than others here, but one thing I wanted to note is I feel the current boom, which really hasn’t stopped since 2023, is coming from organic growth and engagement. My theory is the rise of card shows and vendor POV content, which adds an exciting mainstream appeal to the hobby.
I think quite of lot of these newcomers will be in it for the long haul because they love the interactions and the wheeling and dealing.
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Evolving Skies is out of print lol
Where did you get this? lol PSA 10 cards get added to vintage sets every year. It’s slow, but not zero.
Anyway, I surrender 
I don’t think people getting PSA 10 cards from decades out of print sets will have anything to do with me being able to get evolving skies, or SV base, or 151. Although if you interpret the question as specifically for the supply of graded cards, then yeah. But he didn’t specify and imma die on this hill because I’m a proud man and WON’T BE BESTED BY SOME SQUIRLY POKEXPLANATION THAT I AINT GOT NO RIGHT IDEA HOW IT STARTED TO GIN WIT
Don’t you think you’re extrapolating a little too much from your own anecdotal experiences with your social circles?
I really don’t think there is gonna be a huge demographic of people that suddenly wake up and say “You know what, I’m gonna spend $30,000 on a PSA10 Corocoro Mew today”. Is it even nostalgic when that’s the first time they are seeing it?
As for generation turning back to their childhood, that’s been happening for a decade now. It’s not a new thing.
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There doesn’t have to be a “huge” demographic of people wanting it, just enough to outweigh the supply. And for some of these low pop items in PSA 10, more high earners will want them compared to the low supply.
Is it even nostalgic when it’s the first time they’re seeing it? Of course, because they’re nostalgic for Pokemon. Most of these people aren’t specifically nostalgic for Corocoro Mew, just like most buyers of any card aren’t nostalgic for that specific card. A purchaser of a Pikachu Illustrator isn’t nostalgic for the specific card (what kid even knew it existed?), they buy it because they are generally nostalgic for Pokemon and they like the exclusivity as well. Since when was “nostalgia for that specific card” one of the criteria?
And yes, people turning back to their childhood has been happening for a decade now. You are correct that it’s not a new thing…but you are completely missing the point that there is a major difference in 2016 vs 2026, which is that people who care about Pokemon have more money now. Those doctors and lawyers still liked Pokemon 10 years ago, but they were grinding through law school or doing 24 hour shifts in residency. The “new” event isn’t nostalgia, it’s the demographic shift that fourthstar pointed out in his post.
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If we are talking about high-end graded cards, there are only two possibilities for an increase in supply:
- New copies enter the market
- Raw cards are graded including those housed in collections or from new openings
- Previously graded cards (same or different company) are re-graded
- Employee closet copies enter the market
- Old copies are made available to the market (i.e., owners sell).
For very rare cards, both #1 and #2 are going to be infrequent, so most of the downward pressure will come from a decrease in demand. If a decrease in demand does not occur in a bust cycle, the new prices hold or increase.
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my argument is that you’re conflating genuine interest with interest conditional on value. taking your example, if the 30k mew drops to 5k, will people who entered with the 30k card stick around? My guess is no. The 30k → 5k card represents a monetary loss, which is embarrassing, it’s not something you can show off anymore.
I agree with you this probably won’t happen with very limited low pop cards that swing like for example torchic/rayquaza/1st ed base zard.
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I’ve wondered about that, but after talking a little at a recent conference about psychology of young professionals, their risk-taking habits, society’s risk appetite… I’m wondering if we’ll see a large sell-off of all sorts of things in the near-long-term future (5-7 years). BUT, we also might see a large boom in buying again, as pay increases for experienced workers to fill or train lower level skill gaps created by AI… And the accidents caused by its carefree use. So many moving parts and variables right now.
To the main Q, I think I have a related Q in Scott’s MMR… Personally, I don’t think there’s ever been a better option than bird in hand. But, that’s often been my approach, as I like to minimize my risk.
I Wonder:
Will there ever be a drop-off of grading with PSA, motivating a better grading opportunity?
Or is PSA just too big to ever bother with the small stuff again?
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There will be a continued trend in wardrobe finds forever but obviously will reduce over time. I still see the occasional auction house regularly finding binder wotc collections though this has noticably reduced over the years ( and ramps up when the market goes crazy) - likely due to spotlight being on pokemon cards and someone remembering they had a Pokemon card collection back in the day.
The biggest re-supply shift i can see is only from a market downturn at this point and primarily not from everyday collectors, or even investors though investors will downsize their holdings if there was a downturn, the biggest gap i see for a re-supply will be from vendors liquidating/small businesses.
All you have to do is watch a few buyers/sellers POV videos to see just how many vendors are sitting on 50-200k of card values on the arbitrage of buying at 70-80% and selling at 90%, if the market goes south they will liquidate to avoid losses. Many of these people are not “Investors” so wont ride the downside at any cost and are not collectors, or their collections are obviously smaller then both their collector and business value. I could foresee a scenario where this provides near term supply but only if market calms down. If not theres no emphasis to dump value on a market that is hot if they believe the cards going up 10% next week.
But overall - i dont see where any new big supply will come from, i could see a grading change coming psycholigcally where we see shifts of people caring more about card then the grade, people will say this is whats been said for years, but many more people are switched onto looking at the card now rather then blindly following the grade. That to me means not more “supply” as such - but more money moving into PSA 8s and 9s satisfying demand.
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Yeah, I would agree that’s not happening overnight. Some of those people will have the means and eventually gain the knowledge and commitment to go for top tier grails, though.
There’s obviously tons of variables so who really knows what’s going to happen at the end of the day, but here are my thoughts.
If their is a resupply of vintage, it will come from people who weren’t that interested to begin with. But, who knows the timeline on that and how much will end up back in the seller pool. There’s a lot of people speculating on Pokemon, including vintage. While speculating on cards is not new, I think lots of people are panic buying. There is not as much organic collecting going on, which is ultimately the basis of collecting is people actually wanting the item right?
I also think eventually, interest will simply wane at some point. Pokemon being as hot as it is can’t last forever. “But this is different! Pokemon is the biggest IP in the world!” Thinking that things will never change will certainly backfire at some point. Not saying the bottom is going to fall out necessarily, but I think it is almost inevitable. I also don’t think a massive loss of interest in Pokemon is going to happen anytime soon, but at some point, it will not be in the limelight anymore which will mean less attention, less people caring about the flex, which leads to less people flexing, less people buying, etc.
I agree with the sentiment that as people who like Pokemon get older, they generally have more purchasing power and will buy more collectibles like Pokemon cards. Modern demand will catch up, but vintage has a finite supply. There are also more people being born every day who might have an interest in vintage, further putting pressure on the supply.
So yeah, who knows!
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They do, and the rate is inversely exponential, whereas demand grows exponential. Supply going from 170 to 190, if anything, serves only to cement the price
SuperDuperDani is the textbook collector that has kept her old cards sleeved and protected with utmost care. She’s sponsored by PSA. Look at how she got wrecked on her sub. Basically every video i watch about old binder collection going to grading is the same story : vintage cards mint booster fresh whatever are very likely not PSA10
i dont mean to piss off binder collectors, i also collect binders 
but since I’m new I built them fully aware of not expecting to extract much value from them
There is a movie called L’amour dure trois ans which translates the idea that when you fall in love, the feeling of being enamored to the other person has an expiration date, that is on average three years. I don’t know where I read also that on average people picking up a new passion or a hobby do so for a duration that last around 2 years, before moving on to something else.
If we date the current boom starting with TCG pocket, it would mean we are in it until approximately 2027/2028 
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I for one look forward to the 2028/2029 boom. Itll make the 2025-2026 boom look like nothing, just like how the 2025-2026 boom made the 2020-2021 boom look like nothing, just like how the 2020-2021 boom made the 2016 boom look like nothing, just like how…
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Ive been selling my MP/LP vintage recently after buying up graded copies of the same cards last year. I always ask the buyers when they got back into pokemon cards. A shocking amount, maybe 60%, have told me they’ve gotten back into it in the past 3-6 months. That, my friends, is a great sign and one of the reasons I am not too worried/fearful of this market.
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