Agreed. Buying shares of a card isn’t collecting. I don’t see any appeal in owning a fraction of a card.
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@cman, All of the strategies I mentioned are completely legal.
I don’t buy the buyout argument. Its bargaining entitlement for non-essential goods. The previous thread with this topic I think turned into buyout discussion.
Even if people want to entertain the idea, prices are already “absurd” by definition. Paying over cost for a piece of cardboard is “absurd”. Also, prices aren’t as relevant for high end. Take any high end collectible: Honus Wager, Mantle, Pikachu Illustrator, Black Lotus, etc. Paying $100, $1000, 10k, 100k, 1M is all the same. For the most historical pieces its all about acquisition, the literal price isn’t as relevant.
Overall the buyout argument boil down to: “someone bought cards I wanted and now I am upset they are more expensive”. People try and insert ethics into items that don’t matter. No one is suffering because they couldn’t buy an illustrator. These are pieces of cardboard.
You’re using a “more unethical” situation as a way to justify a “less unethical” situation. I don’t think this is a good strategy for defending buyouts.
My reason for being okay with buyouts is because the cards aren’t necessary for any person’s well-being.
@charizandrew, That isn’t what I was doing at all. The claim that “buyouts” are unethical is unproven. I used general references from publicly traded companies to emphasize the reality of business.
People like to say “unethical” when they emotionally disagree. Even in those off the cuff company examples I mentioned, they are prioritizing share holders. Its an opportunity cost scenario. That was my point.
A lot of people in Pokemon think markets and market perception should be binary. My position is that making strong claims about “unethical” behavior is typically unproven internet drama banter. There is no discernible loss in collectibles.
That’s fine - buyouts are only a small fraction of the problem and we don’t have to see eye-to-eye with that because I understand where you’re coming from, although I don’t think high-end cards are completely insulated from market manipulation - maybe Illustrator is more insulated because there were only 4 of those cards, but I’m also talking about all high-end cards (including 1st edition charizard).
I do want to say that I fundamentally believe that intentional buyouts are unethical because it’s a clear attempt at underhandedly raising prices - which is my problem because ethicality about doing what’s principled(which is inherently subjective, but there are social norms that help reinforce what’s considered right vs. wrong).
Edit:
What is the binary aspect that you are referring to?
@cman, The buyout argument is a degree argument. My position is, Charizard is already absurd at $1,000. If a “buyout” increases that price to $1,500, it is already past the point of absurdity. Moreover, the individual complaining who doesn’t own the card and chose not to buy at 1k experiences no loss. Its entirely conflated emotional entitlement.
The binary aspect are basically people who are allergic to the word “investing”. We invest in everything we do. For some reason when its tangible money people lose their minds. The internet loves to gate keep on what and how people should spend their money. I have experienced every “type” of collector, and most are not binary. Even people who have strategic elements to their purchases still enjoy the cards. Ultimately it’s a very binary emotional argument from ignorance.
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What is the moral device that makes a buyout “underhanded?”
The only reason you’ve given for a buyout being immoral is that it’s immoral. Which is obviously logically fallacious.
Can you identify the immoral element in a buyout?
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To be fair, I think it’s blatantly obvious that anyone who buys a share of a card isn’t doing it for collecting. It would be akin to someone playing the stock market, of which there is nothing tangible.
Not sure if I’ve made up my mind on this. It’s success is entirely based on whether the people running this can be trusted which is just a massive question mark at the moment.
I’m just going to wait for a few years to see if it will fail or be a huge success. Then I’ll slyly suggest that I knew this outcome was going to happen, right from the beginning! 
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Most recent example was in Yugioh (this was posted on eFour a few days ago) - big LOD 1st Edition Booster Box Buyout from a (private?) FB group. Will find the link to the post. Either way most ppl wouldn’t have known. Immoral because of greed - intention to buyout in order to increase the price.
Edit: I can’t find the source after a cursory attempt, but can whoever posted something about the FB group “yu-gi-og” or something along the lines of that verify?
Got it - if it helps to clarify what I mean by investing in this case, it means a purely monetary aspect. Collecting is investing, but not the other way around, if you get what I mean (as in investing is a part of collecting, but collecting is not necessarily a part of investing) And that makes sense - buyout is not entirely emotional for me - I use the term when a single person or group of people have decided collectively to drive something up in price.
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Can you elaborate on why participating in a buyout is always an act of greed and therefore inherently immoral?
It would seem that greed is a condition of the intentions of the participant, which you don’t intrinsically have access to.
Fair - but then we toss principles right out the door because we never really have access to the intentions of anyone else but ourselves. I fundamentally do not believe that that is the way to approach things, but I understand where you are coming from.
And again, buyouts are one aspect to the greater problem of being able to sustain a collectibles stock market. I think they are important and will influence behavior, but that is my own opinion, and I have presented the thoughts/opinions I have pertaining to this topic which I hope people will use to either reinforce or detract their own stance.
I really don’t mean to be a derisive ass, but I think it’s worth exploring further. Because I don’t think this is just something fundamental that we are overlooking.
The implication you’re making is that there are moral and immoral ways to derive profit. I would agree with you. What I’m not seeing is any sort of explanation of the standard by which you’re making the judgment of what is moral and what is immoral. In the thread, both sides seem to agree that in an instance where basic human rights are infringed upon, that is exploitation and an immoral means of generating profit. Both sides also seem to agree that Pokemon trading cards are not a basic human right in any way. So what is it about making a card’s value increase through a buyout that is immoral?
To me, a buyout seems like an incredibly standard business move. The actor purchases a group of cards because of a belief that the market is underoptimized. If I’m performing a buyout, I am making a bet that the market will pay a higher price under a stricter supply limit. I am incurring a risk (the cards could not go up in price, my supply could get damaged/lost/stolen, I might not be able to remove enough stock with my available cash to meaningfully deplete total market supply, or I could overestimate the scaling demand) in exchange for the opportunity to profit through my position in the card at a lower supply level.
Not only do I not see how this is greedy, but I also don’t see how this is even in question. Buyouts are higher risk/lower reward than plenty of other investment methods and the benefits are spread throughout the community to all card owners while the risk is shouldered just by the actor.
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The stock market is tangible though. People just see the stock markets constantly moving prices and think it’s just some random lottery based on luck. Yeah the prices move constantly as shares are constantly being bought and sold, but it isn’t just randomly happening. Market price of a stock reflects the supply/demand of the market for that given company at that given time and reflects actual most recent prices that the stock transacted at in real time. Prices of a stock reflect a whole host of things including the health, profit and future prospects of the underlying business, the interest rates of the broader and competing markets etc.
A share of stock is an actual piece of ownership of that company. Real claims to real profit producing assets. Every share of Coca Cola I own is 1/4.306Billionth of the company entitled to that portion of the companies profits that it shares through dividends. One can gain proportional voting interest in the companies future based on their ownership.
@smpratte I do indeed own some cryptocurrency. I don’t understand what this has to do with anything regarding this conversation at all. But to explain my position, I bought into it a bit because it is novel and interesting. I didn’t buy into it as an investment or with money that I can’t afford to lose. I wouldn’t ever recommend anyone buy into any of it as a primary investment or with money they can’t afford to lose. I don’t have unrealistic thoughts on what it is nor what it could be. The underlying blockchain technology at its core is extremely fascinating to me and the future applications are promising so that is what interested me.
FWIW it isn’t surprising to me either. Neither are most things designed to separate lower to middle class folks from their money.
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Let me clarify: I mean “tangible” as in something you can’t physically own or touch. My point was that it’s obvious no one deciding to buy shares in cards is doing it to collect them.
This is illegal plan and simple. The SEC will not approve it, they exist to thwart detritus like this. If the company moves forward after denial they will likely be sued.
EDIT: This thread should be removed to prevent anyone from falling victim to this snake oil…
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@mjs61290 but Coca-Cola literally is tangible. Their employees, their products, their buildings, their assets, their pile of cash, their brand. You own a portion of all that underlying profit engine with every share that you own.
Sure the share certificates aren’t regularly printed out on paper anymore so that you can physically hold them, they are though digital representations of a very real underlying business.
It is silly IMO say about the stock market “of which there is nothing tangible” when nearly every tangible object you see and use in day to day life can be tracked back to some company that created of which, many of which are publicly traded on some exchange.
It is ironic to type that statement out on your HP computer running a MSFT suite while drinking a KO beverage that you drove your GM vehicle to go get on lunch from MCD. (obviously an off the cuff made up story)
Not being an ass at all - I wasn’t sure if you wanted to delve into this further/if anyone wanted to entertain this further (because this discussion is veering slightly from the OP).
I get what you’re saying now, and I actually agree here with you and @smpratte in the sense that buyouts aren’t necessarily unethical in and of themselves.
HOWEVER, that is not to say that my original point about market manipulation that led to me mentioning buyouts doesn’t stand. The existence of a separate market in which you can freely trade stocks without ever owning the actual card can influence behavior that is unethical. Buyouts can be unethical if they’re done to temporarily increase the price of the stock (i.e. a group buys out $40k charizards → stock price jumps as a reaction → I sell my shares and then list the charizards back @ market price → profit). I also predict unethical behavior appearing in other forms through acts like selling a card to your friend in order to temporarily bump up stock values or, the way ebay currently functions in which you can’t tell if something was sold or not, someone jacking up an auction in a way that doesn’t make it look shilled – I just don’t have any concrete proof of that, so it’s all speculation. My overall point was to demonstrate how volatile prices are in the collectables market by using examples of unethical market manipulation (since they are the most clear demonstration of volatility).
TL;DR buyouts in and of themselves are not unethical; the presence of a stock market can facilitate unethical behavior if not regulated and is an example of market volatility
Only time will tell what happens.
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It’ll be a ponzi scheme in a few years.