I have my feelers out and actually have a few contacts with reasonable asking prices for most boxes but still they’re expensive. And at a certain point you ask yourself “should I just get the safer wotc box for the same price?” (unless its the big boy boxes of course)
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The interesting question is if rarity/scarcity of neos/ereaders will beat popularity of base in the long run. If the market stays strong I doubt it.
An interesting comparison here is ex deoxys where we can see that extreme scarcity/rarity already commands a very high price compared to the other ex boxes. EX being way more niche than 1st/2nd gen only helps that development.
The argument that there is a ton of base boxes out there is of course valid, but demand for base is also orders of magnitude higher than for neos and supply is only going to dwindle.
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Re: the thread I was meaning as a public reference point for prices. Because there’s almost zero sales data.
And I think EX Series and WotC boxes are both safe (within the context of Pokemon). Personally, I think e-Series boxes are a good compromise. Lower supply than earlier WotC boxes but more demand than EX Series boxes.
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Rarity, in my experience, often beats out popularity in the long run. There are so many examples of this in MTG, and it almost always turns out this way. Demand is a fickle thing. Supply, however, generally remains consistent over time. In my view, supply is a constant and demand is a variable. So I personally am more confident in rarity, since no one knows what the future will look like in terms of demand. But we know for a fact, for example, that Skyridge holos will always be much rarer than Base Set holos. That will never change. But demand easily could.
In other asset categories this is definitely true, but I´m not too sure about this in Pokémon. With MTG your highest priced items are all part of the “base set” - ABU. Popularity aside from truely rare stuff in MTG hugely stems from playability whereas we have other factors such as species popularity/set popularity in Pokemon at work. It would be like Legends being much scarcer than Alpha but Alpha has all the playables - I´d still bet on Alpha in the long run.
The difficulty in comparing MTG and Pokemon is that popularity in MTG is effectively the same thing as playability. Cards are popular and desirable because they are playable. And playability generally remains constant over time (by playability I mean actual gameplay utility rather than the number of formats that something is legal in). But in Pokemon, popularity is much more nebulous. In Magic, we know for a fact that Ancestral Recall will be a better card than Brainstorm in a decade. That can’t change. But in Pokemon, we can’t make judgments like that. Popularity isn’t based on something as concrete.
And this is why I personally would rather bet on rarity in Pokemon than popularity. We don’t know what the levels of popularity will be like in 10 years. Of course, Base Set will be more popular in a decade than Skyridge – that we can know for sure. But for the sake of argument, let’s say that Base Set is 100x more popular than Skyridge right now. But a decade from now, for all we know, Base Set could “only” be 50x more popular than Skyridge. Or it could be 150x more popular than Skyridge. No one knows. It’s entirely conceivable that the relative popularity of sets will change. But what we do know is that Unlimited Base Set will always be common and that Skyridge will always be rare (within the context of set cards – obviously it’s not rare in the way that trophy cards are). I believe that betting on popularity is introducing an additional speculative element into an already speculative asset. So I actually view Skyridge cards as less likely to retrace than Unlimited Base Set cards. If the hobby dropped off in popularity, there will be a saturated market for Unlimited Base Set. But there wouldn’t be a saturated market for Skyridge – any remotely sizable demand would be more than enough to absorb the supply. This is just my opinion, of course, and people are free to think I’m totally wrong.
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Totally valid perspective, I agree that popularity in Pokémon is dependent of so many factors that you can’t really nail it down at all. What I disagree is that the popularity for base set will differ widely from nowadays, as the introduction of more and more gens and Pokémon make the very first one only that much more remarkable and historic.
The very scarce boxes are mostly driven by their rarity whereas base set is a mixture of a bit of scarcity and mostly popularity. Base will only get scarcer from here if popularity stays more or less equal. We would have to go into specific set comparisons for a more precise argument but in general I’d definitely not trade a base box for neo disc or expedition even if they’re valued the same right now.
I’m not saying that the popularity of Base Set will change significantly – I’m saying that the popularity of less popular sets could very well change. It’s entirely conceivable that, within the next 10 years, Skyridge doubles in popularity (which would still make it a niche set relative to Base). And if that happened, then Base Set’s popularity ratio to Skyridge (let’s say it’s currently 100:1) would become 50:1.
And I think that another factor that you aren’t considering is that, over time, people upgrade the less desirable versions of something into the more desirable versions. And this has a huge impact on prices. I’ll give an example from MTG to illustrate my point:
2012: foil DIS Hallowed Fountain (the more desirable, rarer version) - $75
2012: foil RTR Hallowed Fountain (the less desirable, less rare version) - $30
2020: foil DIS Hallowed Fountain - $300
2020: foil RTR Hallowed Fountain - $25
DIS Hallowed Fountain is like 1st Edition Base and RTR Hallowed Fountain is like Unlimited Base. The DIS and RTR versions are both the inherently the same item and are desired for similar reasons. But, over time, people upgrade their foil RTR Hallowed Fountains into the foil DIS Hallowed Fountains. Do some people want to use foil RTR Hallowed Fountains long term? Yes; just like there are some people who will never want to upgrade Base Unlimited into 1st Edition Base. But a sizeable portion of people with RTR Hallowed Fountains did upgrade them. And look at the remarkable impact that had on prices. The RTR Hallowed Fountain declined slightly while the DIS Hallowed Fountain quadrupled in value.
Compare that to Skyridge. There’s no upgrade for Skyridge. Once you collect Skyridge, you collect it. But with Base Unlimited, people upgrade it into Shadowless or 1st Edition Base over time.
I have another example that illustrates why rarity wins out over time: foil Japanese ONS Polluted Delta vs. foil English ONS Polluted Delta. The foil Japanese version is highly, highly niche, but also rarer. Whereas the foil English version is desired by way more people, but is more common. And here’s the interesting thing: demand for foil Japanese cards declined between 2010 and 2020. And demand for foil English cards increased between 2010 and 2020. But despite that, this was the value trajectory:
2010: foil English Delta - $150
2010: foil Japanese Delta - $300
2020: foil English Delta - $500
2020: foil Japanese Delta - $1750
I think this says it all – the Japanese Delta is rarer but more niche and Japanese cards are less desirable in 2020 than in 2010. But, despite that, the Japanese version increased in price 6x since 2010 and the English version increased in price 3x since 2010. That’s what rarity does (and these were both mass-produced, so neither is rare in the way that trophy cards are – it’s pretty comparable to Unlimited Base vs Skyridge, IMO).
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Good points. Skyridge is an interesting comparison as it already maintains a way higher price point. Popularity in that sense is such a vague term that it’s not clear what specific correlation it has with prices of different sets - Right now the price of Skyridge boxes is scarcity driven, I’m not sure if a rise in popularity of the set will result in much higher box prices.
That people want to upgrade is certainly true, but it doesn’t really apply to boxes I think, but more to sets/cards themselves. Upgrading an unlimited to a first Ed box is nearly impossible for an average collector so the base box is actually the best thing they might ever get.
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almost all 90s babies have opened up a base set pack before, thats what we remember as nostalgic… i dont remember even seeing skyridge/aquap/neo growing up
Whats the estimated market value of a 1st edition booster box now that 1 Charizard could be worth $225,000? Extremely curious.
it’s starting to look like the 1st edition booster box may be the most valuable booster box of ANY cards across all markets in recent memory.
it has soared past 1986 Fleer basketball. Nothing in Soccer comes close, nothing recent in baseball comes close, nothing in hockey, nor football.
Alpha Magic comes to mind. I hear they are much much more scarce, but the demand for Pokemon also appears to be much greater.
Anyone have any guesses?
Re: boxes – I agree that upgrading doesn’t apply to Base Unlimited boxes at this point. People need to separate Base Unlimited cards from the box prices at this point, though. You don’t open that box for the EV; you open it for the experience.
And I agree with that in regards to Skyridge, to a point. If the EV of a Skyridge box got high enough, then the price could definitely be pushed above what it currently is. At this point, the Skyridge box is actually pretty decent EV. Every single card is worth grading and the quality of the cards is so high that most pack fresh cards (especially non-holos, but even holos and reverses) will get 10s. So we’re talking about 324 cards to grade per Skyridge box, of which probably 300+ will be PSA 10s. So if the box if $45k, you’re paying ~$150 per PSA 10 on average. That’s negative EV, but it’s honestly not terrible. So if the price of the cards increase further, it’s very possible that the box price will have to increase.
An Alpha box would be worth way, way more than a 1st Edition Base box (if we’re valuing the Base box at $200k). That is, if you could authenticate the Alpha box because they weren’t shrinkwrapped. But I’ve only ever seen one pop up over ~13 years of collecting. They are beyond rare. A Beta box would also be worth more than $200k. Beta starter decks regularly sell for $15k to $20k a piece and a starter deck is equivalent to roughly 2 unsearched packs, value-wise. So I think that a Beta box would be at least $270k. And likely a decent bit more than that.
Besides Alpha and Beta, though, a 1st Edition Base box is definitely worth more than any MTG box. I can’t speak for sports cards, though.
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With how big the jumps in prices currently are it’s hard to guess. It wouldn’t surprise me if the next box sells for $400k+.
There are no MTG Alpha sealed boxes. There never were. The only sealed product from Alpha is the starter deck, which is pretty rare by itself, and is valued at over $50k. People are paying that kind of money for just 2 rares. So you can value an unsearched Alpha pack at $20-25k.
Beta booster boxes did come sealed, but other than OpenBoosters’ box, I have not seen any boxes up for sale or at least in public for 2-3 years now. They exist for sure, people have them in their safes, but if one comes up for sale, I predict it will break all TCG records in an auction.
Pokemon demand is much greater, but as you said, 1st ed Pokemon boxes are definitely not more scarce than early Magic boxes.
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over 150k and less than 250k because theres one on collectorscache for $249,999 and hasn’t sold.
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Yeah If the charizard keeps soaring the pendulum will swing back to sealed to soar again but 400k (at this moment) isn’t happening.
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Oh wow. Thanks for the heads up.
I remember at some point there were $100,000 psa 10 zard private sales, and eBay still had a couple for 75. Might be a good buy for someone out there
Alpha starters are definitely sub-$50k. If you wanted to actually sell one today, you’d probably have to go to the the low 40s. For an ‘unsearched’ Alpha pack, if you can actually provide sufficient providence to show that, then $20k might be reasonable. But good luck convincing people that any loose Alpha pack is unsearched. For a typical condition Alpha pack, it’s going to be closer to $10k to $15k.
Other than that, I agree with everything you said.
EDIT: although I’d say that 1st Edition Base booster boxes are rarer than all (English) Magic boxes except for ABU and Arabian Nights/Legends/Antiquities. So there are tons of early Magic sets that are much, much more common than 1st Edition Base boxes. It’s really only a handful of the earliest sets that are rarer. And a few random ones like Starter 1999 or English P3K booster boxes. But besides those, 1st Edition Base boxes are definitely rarer than boxes of most early MTG sets (Revised, Fallen Empires, Homelands, Ice Age, etc.).
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It’s interesting ~
If these said individuals who have base boxes do plan on then wishing to delve into the Neo and e-Series - but then finding it rather a nuisance to procure them - will they let sleeping dogs lie; or simply increase the price they’re willing to pay?