For the PSA 10 Japanese Gyarados set -
The 1st ed and unlimited Gold Star Gyarados. I almost bought both of them last year but had a fairly large expense with the house so like a few others here I decided to be âresponsibleâ and not pull the trigger.
Also the Gyarados and Magikarp ponchos. Theyâre cool cards but even when they were like 2K each I thought they were overpriced for what they are. Boy was I wrong 
Oh man, this hit hard as well. Had some golden opportunities to buy the Ponchoâs in 2022/2023 after they pulled back some, but then that short-lived Japanese/waifu boom happened, and the ship sailed on me 
. I was even just wanting to settle for a NM copy and not a PSA 10 if I could. Mainly wanted the Magikarp one myself. Iâd say my main lesson from a lot of these things is it seems to be always keen to buy the most expensive cards sooner than later, as painful as it can be on the wallet.. it really does seem to pay off sooner than later in a lot of cases.
English SAR from Prismatic. If they stay high, I will just leave that binder slot empty. Umbreon is not worth over $1k
The prismatic themed cards are the ones that will drop the hardest. It will be a bloodbath when everybody realize prismatics sucks balls. Itâs actually going to be a traumatic event for those newcomers heavily invested in Prismatic evolution
Iâve learned that lesson too. Held off on so many gold stars to work on neo shinings and of course a year later theyâve all doubled and tripled.
Certainty is never good.
Making a list of cards youâll buy âwhen the price goes downâ indicates that youâre more interested in perfectly timing the market than you are the card. If youâre not a brand-new collector, chances are you had a good chance to buy the card at âpre-boomâ pricing 6 months ago but didnât do so for whatever reason. This line of thinking also presupposes that things will go down (they likely will), but we donât know when theyâll stop going up and start going down. If someone in 2020 saw PSA 10 1st edition Base Charizard at 100k and said âI love this card but Iâm going to wait until the boom is over and itâs cheaper,â it has never gotten down to 100k again. Sure it went to 375-400 and then dropped to 200-225, but by holding out on buying you cost yourself 100k.
On the flipside, paying any price for a card also isnât good. You need to evaluate the card against the wider market and your own personal finances. Cards do not go up in value forever. If it doesnât work for you, so be it. Nobody can own everything they want.
This post comes to mind
I am glad someone else was the buzzkillington, as this is what I was thinking while reading the thread! Out of all the growth cycles weâve experienced, this is the most widespread. There will definitely be cards that retrace, but the idea of âbuying after the bubbleâ might be more of a bubble than the actual market.
The silver lining, if some of these new prices hold, like in Ethanâs example of charizard, it at least provides consumer confidence. Everyone who was trepidatious at 150k in 2020, would snap buy today. Your target price might change due to consumer confidence.
Wasnât trying to time the market, more like my air conditioner crapped out in the summer in Florida right before I was going to buy them.
I get what youâre saying though.
I donât think anyone is expecting us to go right back to 2024 prices, but itâs a fairly safe bet that paying peak bubble prices for set cards isnât the best strategy
COVID seems to be a pretty good example of what to expect imo. Some people will stay some will leave
I donât want to be too mean, but I feel like money has taken over so much of collecting in the past 5 years. The casual collector no longer buys cards because they enjoy the cards, but instead because they enjoy the money they expect the card will be worth in the future. With many cards people only want them once they become worth large sums of money, or start going up in value. This thread has a bit of a different vibe because E4 is dominated by long-term people who likely were actually planning on buying cards but got hit with bad timing like @codytcas, but social media is full of stuff where the most important thing is prices and line go up.
The flipside of this money-focused mentality which you touch on in this post is that many established collectors only feel âsafeâ buying cards once market values become established, because they canât deal with the risk of overpaying. We can only speculate as to where that is, so people end up with decision paralysis.
It sounds simple and dumb, but if you want a card and are comfortable and financially secure when paying a certain price, do it. If not, donât. Timing the market never works out well.
But thanks to the boom, I now have the money to purchase the things I wanted last year, at last yearâs pricesâŠ
The injustice of it all
Iâve been overpaying for cards I collect for years, and have been ridiculed for it more than I could count on my hands. But overall, Iâd say itâs been paying off pretty good so far.
My motto when collecting has also always been: âYouâd only have to spend the money once, and then you can enjoy the item in your possession foreverâą.â
(To anyone reading this, donât take this as advice, since itâs not a good motto to live by. I may have been lucky with one life-changing sale, but my bank account is currently at an all-time low in this market tbch. 
)
As to answer the question of this thread: none. There are only a handful of cards I currently want for my collection goals, and theyâre either:
For all three, the âboomâ of whatever âbubbleâ we are in isnât going to change anything for me, since for: 1) Going from 200k to 100k in value is still way above any price Iâm willing to or can spend on a single card; 2) The price isnât the issue and I can most likely afford it easily, it simply doesnât pop up for sale at all and Iâve only seen pictures of the cards maybe 2-3 times over the course of 10 years..; 3) Although there is some fluctuation in value over the course of a few months, certain newly released cards are just very expensive rn in my experience, and I donât think thatâs gonna change anytime soon if at all. Demand is simply way above supply these days, and people - me included 
- are paying them (to some extend).
Greetz,
Quuador
This should be the golden answer to all these types of questions. I have been in this situation many times and have always been happy with the outcome.
Nice! How long ago did you pick up the Gyarados? $500 for a PSA 8 1st ed is a heck of a deal!
I bought my PSA 9 1st ed in July 2024 for $1,750. The 9 was holding steady around $1,500 from 2022- mid 2024 so at the time I wasnât very happy paying the premium but I couldnât get anyone to move on it. Now Iâm glad I did because I secured it before it went REALLY crazy.
Mewtwo is pretty much the exact same story so Iâm kicking myself for not getting it at the same time but hindsight is always 2020. I just realized both are now more expensive than they were during the pandemic boom which is crazy.
Charizard has seen some significant growth but not as much as the other two. With how things have been going, I wouldnât be surprised if it also surpasses itâs previous all time high in the near future. I think itâs just moving a little slower because itâs roughly double the price of the other two so less buyers can afford it to begin with.
Gyarados
Mewtwo
Charizard
There is a price that I have in mind for almost every card on my want list. If itâs more than what I would be comfortable/willing to pay, I donât buy it. Simple as that.
The only exception to this rule is that sometimes I will overpay if itâs being financed by selling other cards in my collection. This is akin to trading in my head and feels more reasonable to me (though the cash required and outcome are identical).
Regarding the market, there are some types of cards that I think are on very precarious grounds and others that I think were undervalued and will continue to hold strong prices. Globally, I do expect some type of Pokemon TCG downturn in the next few years.
I do not expect this dip to be as absolute as the Japanese Waifu boom where prices fell to pre-boom levels. Those are âtrueâ bubbles where the demand is inflated due to FOMO or manipulation and the latent supply of ungraded PSA 10 candidate cards is huge. There has been too much genuine growth from Pokemon Pocket, the release of Scarlet/Violet, excitement around Z-A, Worlds, etc. for things to fall from the sky.
But as always, each boom will bring only a portion of long-term collectors.
As I mention elsewhereâŠ
Something that I havenât seen a lot of on this thread or on e4 is the âcollector cycle.â Most people enter a hobby for - on average - 12-24 months. Very few people leave a hobby the same year that they pick it up and most do not stay longer than two years. This is especially true in the TCG/CCG world.
Every boom and bust cycle is accompanied by an inflation in the collector base and a shedding of the excess when prices go back down. I believe that we are entering the âsheddingâ period where the prices will soften, the number of serious collectors will shrink, the amount of money spent on a given month/year will lessen, and some sellers - maybe even most - will begin to feel financial stress from their once-healthy hobby income.
1-2 years is a long time. Children grow up, teens graduate high school, college students change majors and eventually leave for the workforce, and adults change jobs, have families, and move around the country/world. Sticking with a hobby through major life events - including financially demanding life events (e.g., paying for college, a new baby, a home, etc.) - is extremely difficult. We may not feel this way because e4 is comprised of very serious collectors who would rather die than to leave their hobby, but this isnât really the case among most people who enjoy shiny cardboard.
I believe I got Gyarados late summer of 2022 during the high inflation & interest rate shake up that happened. Crypto, stocks, all of it was collapsing pretty bad that year and it was a serious buyers market across the board at times. I got some pretty crazy deals during this time, even a NM Base Set 1st Ed Zapdos for like $200ish at one point that I recall.
Sounds like your analysis lines up with what Iâve been observing as well, more % growth on Gyarados & Mewtwo overall, but as you said Charizard still holds a high valuation for sure. I almost bought Charizard for $2500ish in PSA 8 back then that I remember seeing, kind of wish I would have bit the bullet at the time. I find he just doesnât come up for sale as often in general, but I see Mewtwo & Gyarados and other Neo Shiningâs trading hands a lot more often overall.
Anyway, no doubt the valuation on Charizard and the others will climb higher over time still. I also find this Charizard is one of the few cards that doesnât climb like 10x in value in a PSA 10 compared to 9, it seems to be more linear overall which is nice to me as it seems more organic pricing/growth and not just all hype or a fad compared to many others out there.
I cant think of any card in particular, though i hope that the scarlet violet chases and promos at large dip some. They arent exactly out of reach, but when theres so many id like to buy, even a few dollars can be huge savings.
Gold stars to 0 when?
I honestly donât think this is the case for most people (at least on this forum). Many (myself included) arenât banking on prices going down, more-so waiting for prices to stabilize. Once the dust settles things could be more expensive or less expensive than they are today which is fine. Iâm just more comfortable making purchases when prices remain relatively consistent for a decent amount of time.
Dope !!!
