Agreed, I think Pogo had a lot of knock-on effects. Pokémon is just more popular now - there’s more gifs and memes online, more people buying the video games etc and since the older WoTC/eReader cards are a collectible market and somewhat illiquid, you just need a few more interested people to start pushing prices up.
It’s unfair to compare Pokemon Go in past 3-4 months with the TCG. Pokemon Go spiked because of the 1 year anniversary events, people being outside again due to the weather and the release of all the legendary birds and dogs in to the wild. Also the raid system and the release of Mewtwo get people back into it. Niantic is doing a good job keeping people connected to Pokemon Go.
That said, Skyridge is a limited printed set. Eeveelutions became more and more popular and I think that’s the main reason for a card like Vaporeon to skyrocket. Other holo rares, like Poliwrath are not at the $100 price point at all.
It’s worth noting that e-reader product was printed super briefly. If half as many people fell in love with the e-reader sets, they’d still deplete twice as fast. Unlike unlimited Base/Jungle/Fossil/Rocket, late-WotC sets actually don’t have enough product for everyone today to get a set.
Also, take note of the size of these sets. It takes more total product opened to get the specific cards you’re looking for. That boosts single prices.
I think the sets are pretty reasonably priced. Some of the cards, like Eeveelutions, have really shot up but a lot of the cards are the same prices they were five years ago. NM/M+ reverse holos are the same price, all C/UC, and unpopular holos barely went up.
The only other factor driving growth is the incredible popularity of vintage formats right now. Playable cards from everything pre-2006 have dried up. I know of three collections of over 100 complete staple decks from these early formats and they have all talked about having to pay more and more as they continued to hunt the cards they needed. That’s three people. Imagine 30. Or 300. Vintage staples could become pretty insane. If you’re finishing these sets, I’d buy the mint copies now.
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Seeing the prices of Skyridge/Aquapolis PSA 10s today makes me feel lucky that these cards never appealed to me…though I wish I had held on to what I had a few years ago. I don’t see a timeline where pretty much all WOTC product doesn’t continue to increase in price barring a collapse of the economy.
Does anyone remember when regular crystal Ho-oh started climbing up in price?
I must’ve bought my PSA 10 in 2014 and back then it was probably only 4th most wanted out of 6 crystals in this set, now when I check ebay sold listings one Ho-oh has exchanged owner for $1000+ and I noticed yesterday someone has $2500 offer at WTB section. 
I have thought about POGO and it’s effect.
As stated, it was a massive fad. Definitely brought people into collecting.
However, I would bet these collectors from POGO are not the ones spending $10k plus on purchases. The average joe just doesn’t have that kind of money.
I see the expensive purchases being made by businesses / ‘investors’ who have seen the popularity growth of Pokémon the last year and wanted to capitalize on the opportunity.
I have seen numerous posts/videos talking about investors from other markets now looking at Pokémon due to its growth in the past year. ie. sports, magic, etc.
I believe these are the people bidding each other up at $10k +.
POGO has been on a steady decline since release.
So I see the question as being will these new investors stay in the Pokémon market as it’s popularity with the overall public continues to decline?
There is no reason to leave now as prices are continuing to rise. But if there is a dip, and they notice Pokémon is not as popular as it was a year ago, then what will they do ??
Idk. Just my 2 cents. But I believe that is where the risk is.
I think only the ever increasing fandom of Eeveelutions is the cause of those cards to spike in a set like Skyridge. Pokemon Go has nothing to do with it, if it did, why aren’t fan favourite Pokémon like Gengar, Moltres, Gyrados and Alakazam all in the 15-40$ range and some even PSA graded below 100?
To couple these two thoughts together: A lot of investor’s probably started paying attention to pokemon because of PoGo. I don’t think that necessarily people who played PoGo are the main people who are now in the collecting hobby. But EVERYONE was aware of pokemon go. Stores, parents, restaurants, politicians. It was a sweeping phenomenon. Naturally, there were probably people who were looking to invest in pokemon/ nintendo to get a piece of the PoGo cake. That likely led them to the biggest numbers in pokemon which are in the TCG…
…And voila, suddenly big time investors started investing in pokemon, using PoGo as a reference of pokemon’s modern popularity.
Po Go is what got me back into collecting after like 16 years, totally regret it LOL
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