We will top off at some point, and that will cause a cascade of sales from these temporary holders. I don’t expect to see a crash, but i expect to go back to a flow where we say “man that was crazy huh”
And people go back to normally buying and selling with nobody really talking about the market. Back to how it felt in 23/24.
Will corocoro mew go from 30k to 4k? Probably not
could it go to 10k? Definitely
So, tops somewhere, feels like it’s already a little less explosive, but still too high liquidity to go down much. And then settles higher than the last settled period in 23/24
I read that and think the complete opposite tbh. A market where over half the people involved have only ever known exponential gains on everything they buy seems to be a dangerous sign.
I suppose I read their comment as it’s a great sign that most people will probably not be in this for the long term since they just got into it and often people do not have long attention spans. And when the exponential gains stop, will they stay? I have my doubts.
The framing of this thread and most of the discussion is about supply. The supply is pretty much not going to change at this point for old back/wotc. It was different in 2020 when there was a decent amount of latent supply that got shaken out due to the price climbs. We might see that start to happen with old ex era singles now, same dynamic. But price awareness is completely different today. We can point to like “this one guy I know has a binder of every wotc card”. That’s not representative nor is it a meaningful change in supply given the demand.
Supply is not the main factor here, it will be demand. Specifically demand at a certain pricepoint. We can make assumptions about the buyers today and their intentions. The overall vibe the market gives me is not one of stability, however I’ve been wrong before. I image a lot of prices could collapse as fast as they rose. When people read that though, they may think I’m saying we’ll see 2019 gold star pricing or something. That’s not the implication. Typically the trend for a card that explodes in price is that it starts off relatively undervalued, increases in price beyond a stable equilibrium then settles back down at a new normal, higher than it used to be. You do need subsequent sales for this to happen though, which is why the extremely low pop cards are generally buffered from this effect
What is your definition of “genuine” interest? And why does “genuine” interest (which really is just interest that just doesn’t fit into your purity test) matter? Yes there are some hype beasts and crypto bros, but you seem to think that high earners who don’t have your definition of “genuine” interest will panic sell. If a lawyer doesn’t know the depths of bulbapedia but wants to spend $500k on a 1st ed base Charizard, what makes you think they won’t hold it? I can tell you that panic selling is not something they do, and as long as they keep holding the item, it’s one less high end item that’s off the market.
Here’s the issue with your scenario: high earners who procure a cool item, most of them don’t even keep track of the price. Crypto bros and hype beasts do, but high earners who buy an item view it less as an asset and more of an experience, part of their story. A partner at one of the top firms has a game worn Michael Jordan jersey hanging in his office. He just likes having it, and he has no idea what the price is anymore for the item. This sounds foreign to some people, but you are viewing this through the lens of someone where $30k dropping to $15k, dropping to $5k matters. It doesn’t for these people. They aren’t embarrassed because there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. They spent $30k and after that, it doesn’t matter what happens to the item, it’s part of their story now. It may as well have been a $30k bottle of wine that they drank.
So the real question is: what is the % of high earner holders vs paper hand crypto bros…I’m personally not sure of the %, but I think the supply is small enough such that when the market correction does happen, it won’t be as drastic as some people on this forum think it will be.
I understand in your posts you are describing some very wealthy individuals who wouldn’t bother to track the value of their 500k Charizard. People who just view it as a little part of their story.
Those people certainly exist, but I think we may be focusing too much on people at the top of the wealth pyramid.
For a market as large as this we need to also consider the aggregate behavior of all the people slightly further down the wealth ladder. Because as you climb down the wealth ladder the total number of people at each level increases (super linearly).
In other words, there are a lot more people with $5M net worth than $50M. Their habits are different, but as the $5M people constitute a larger group their collective actions will still shift the market.
So, consider the less wealthy person who still engages in 500k Charizards, but for whom that one card represents 10% or more of their entire net worth.
That person will be much more likely to keep an eye on things. For them the card may be both a collection piece and a speculative investment. They are also more likely to keep their prized card vaulted, where it’s only a few clicks away from being listed and sold at any time.
If we accept that there are more of these “less wealthy but still wealthy enough to engage” individuals, then their behavior still dominates (and can be a quick source of supply in a downturn).
Good distinction, and my example still addresses the $5M folks rather than the $50M folks. At $5M, they feel very little need to sell something at $500k because the basics (housing, food, security) are already well in hand. They will definitely engage more readily than the $50M folks, but there will still be a lot of stickiness here.
From 2020-2025 (and in the past few months especially), we saw a large shift of high end assets from folks who just had cool items (that went up 100-1000x in value) into the hands of wealthy collectors. The OG sellers happily moved on from their items because they were able to purchase life changing improvements with that money. I remember seeing Z&G’s video talking about how his sale of a $200k 1st ed Base booster box helped him tremendously, in his business and his personal life. As this process keeps going, more and more items will be in stickier and stickier hands. So I do agree with you that there will remain some market movement in high earner circles, but it’s the relative stickiness of these items in their hands vs the hands of the sellers that we saw in 2020.
Cards where you seriously have to ask “where the cheaper option is” are cards with low PSA 9/10 populations… low enough where the entire availability can be eventually kept by the “top of the wealth pyramid” as you described it.
This is an interesting topic and one I’ve been thinking about lately sorry for the brick of text.
I think we’re at a point where the amount of untapped vintage supply remaining is too low to affect the market in a significant way. I am however confident that the amount of latent vintage supply is higher than it appears. Meaning, I think there is a significant amount of people who would be comfortable selling at todays price, but are holding in hopes tomorrows price will be higher. When/if prices stabilize and/or drop, a majority of this supply will be recirculated into the market.
I’m confident it will have an impact but who knows how impactful it will be
Key words being “within less than a year”
I agree with your overall point that this boom is a completely different animal than 2020 but I think you’re overstating the supply aspect of things. I think it’s more likely that demand dropped off a cliff once people were allowed to leave their houses and go back to pre-2020 hobbies.
I’ve tried drawing parallels to the 2020 market to extrapolate where we go from here but data from a black swan event is mostly useless. It’s a promising sign that the market is much stronger today than it was in 2020 though which supports your overall point.
Where is The Cheaper Option?!
Lower condition.
I’ve been shouting this from the rooftop for years. Regardless of short term market fluctuations we will eventually end up the same as comic book, sports card. and coin collectors. Working our way down the condition ladder of desirable items and being content with a copy we can afford. Now is still a pretty good time to gobble those copies up.
Ultimately, you’re trying to sell a mythologized image of a “high earner” collector that has transcended monetary value and reached a zen state. If you truly believe that they don’t care about that what they’re showing off is worth at least “a lot” then we’re on different pages.
And then need to sell their collections, creating the next big boom. Well if there is a population that still drives demand .
This is an interesting topic. I think for vintage there is less and less hidden stock as others have mentioned. Vintage is hitting a new era . One where most of what is available out in the world and there are more people that desire it than is available. The # of buyers keeps growing and the modern market makes barriers to purchase low. There are more markets to sell to more buyers and information ( good and bad) is on overdrive.
Modern is the wild card. Demand is high, yet so much speculation happening, stashing sealed in large quantities. Eventually it will hit the market. When it does, I think will see some of what happened with vintage in 2020.
I would love this to happen, but I don’t think that it will. For each random millionaire or cryptobro or high-earner to dump their five or six figure card, there are hundreds or thousands of normal collectors who are participating. I think we will see a dip, but for most desirable cards, it will probably be higher than the prior floor.
well its already happened in 2021 so, and prices were fractions of these. also “normal collectors” are not paying five figures for ex era reverse holos
yes the floor may be higher, it wont be anywhere close to this tho. maybe expedition mew will be 10k instead of 6k which is still a far cry away from 150k
ppl said stuff like this during the last crash when u think u already got the best price and another one appears the next week on pwcc
should mention that if something like this happens its likely to start with something like munches/mario pikas/ponchus since those have extremely high pops for their prices and also have a history of being shilled and then something like lop pop wotc would get affected later down the line/towards the end
i think this can be another issue since these are essentially printed pieces of cardboard there can be tons of raw copies out there in mint condition. but i guess luckily (unluckily?) psa basically doesnt give 10s to any wotc holos and other low pop vintage anymore so even tons of copies in mint condition wont affect those pops much if at all
i would say this would more likely affect the semi-modern to modern stuff like the full art japanese promos, team up, evolving skies etc that are also much easier to grade
I should clarify that im not selling gold stars or really $$$ stuff.
Things like MP unlimited jungle holos, 1st edition commons and uncommons from gym heroes, rocket. They haven’t been terribly concerned with price (mine were reasonably below market). I just saw a lot of genuine joy from people getting back into their childhood hobby.
Also most of these people seemed unaware of the previous price highs and lows. They accepted that this was the market and they just wanted to participate in their own way.
how much % of “wealthy” ppl are buying at completely run up prices vs ppl just in debt did they get wealthy in the first place by paying 20x prices of just 2 years ago
did they get wealthy in the first place by paying 20x prices of just 2 years ago