Pokemon is only going to continue to grow. Because of that, there will be a point in the future that is a better time than now to sell. Take your wins and convert it back into more Pokemon!
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I got a championship arena black star promo on Troll and Toad for 125$ and they had 2. Posted here and someone picked up the other one. I then proceeded to sell that Championship Arena not too much longer later for 200$ to another member. Like 6 years later I reached out to them because I thought it would be interesting and sentimental to get that card back, and I definitely regretted it. Ended up getting it back a few months ago
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2 regrets: grading my Umbreon SAR from Tera Fest (hit a 9)
and trading the gold fairy energy from BUS for a gold Black Belt from UNM. I was in the stage of wanting new cards, since I didn’t trade with people often, so a gold for a gold made sense. Now that energy is like $80 and the black belt is still $5 
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The only card I regret selling is this 1st edition Shining Charizard. Not because I sold it for $800, but because I pulled it myself from a loose $44 Neo Destiny booster pack I purchased from a random seller on ebay. I know I got extremely lucky and to top it off, I graded it myself and got a 10.
At the time, I used the $800 to buy two 1st Edition Neo Genesis booster boxes (1 to open, 1 to keep sealed).
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This is why I pretty much never sell sealed to buy singles. Sealed is just more steady, and if you have a good looking, real box indeed difficult to replace.
My biggest regret is not buying more between 2017 and 2019 haha.
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I bought the other copy! I probably still have it with stuff I bought then, feels like a lifetime ago!
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I’ve learned not to regret items I’ve sold in the past. There was a point to everything I sold from 2016 to now from my personal collection. Whether that was to pay bills or buy different collection items, it all served a purpose and helped me get to where I am in life, both with my collection and personal financial situation.
Now as for things I didn’t purchase….. lots of regrets. Back in 2013 I really wanted to buy a Base Set booster box, but I was incredibly stubborn and wanted one for $300, when market price was more like $400 at the time. I remember so many other WOTC boxes were selling for $200 and I just ignored all of them. Then I went away to college and got swept away from the hobby only to rejoin back in 2016 and have base set boxes already be out of college-me’s budget.
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Regret 1:
I had a large childhood collection of WOTC Pokémon cards (Gen 1 & 2), nearly complete, with lots of bulk and extra holos. I also owned all the Game Boy games from Red/Blue up to Emerald and several old Game Boys. During renovations in 2018, everything was thrown away. My family assumed it was worthless children’s stuff. I’m still deeply upset that I couldn’t save that collection.
Regret 2:
I restarted collecting in late 2021 / early 2022, focusing on PSA 9 cards. This was at a time when prices were still high from the COVID boom. I paused collecting in 2023 and 2024 and only resumed in 2025. It frustrates me that I seem to re-enter the hobby each time when prices are high. I’m especially annoyed that I didn’t buy the remaining cards in 2023–2024, when prices were often half (or less) of what they are today.
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Most recent regret was the Van Gogh Pikachu, still it went into the brand new grandsons binder (so I can still visit) 
. Its like every hobby, we collect as many regrets as we do achievements.
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It’s not even about how much money its worth today, its about not having this specific card. More of a sentimental value type of thing, you know? lol Who knows where this card is today. I tried searching for it a couple years ago, even reached out to the guy I sold it to but no luck.
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When I was 17 and had briefly gotten back into collecting I remember recommending to my parents that they should buy some sealed Pokemon boxes as investments because in my tiny undeveloped head they were ‘sure to go up in price’
Fast forward half a year (I had already gone back out of collecting for the time being) at university, I won around $10,000 playing poker and it genuinely never crossed my mind to follow my own advice and buy some boxes (I think base boxes were around 400 at the time). I do regret that, but also don’t regret how I ended up using that money.
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I try to not live with regret. Copium says that I made the best choices possible with the limited knowledge that I had at the time.
That said, most of my collecting regrets are from not buying cards (e.g., bidding too low, being too rigid on my collecting goals, prioritizing other collecting goals). Selling cards can feel awful, especially if they are hard to find in the future or have a personal connection to you. I recently sold one of my favorite cards, but I had trouble rationalizing to keep it with the enormous spike in price.
Continuity in collecting means that you can always revisit cards that you sold. Your next copy might not be the same one that you once owned, it might cost much more, and it may not be in the same condition, but that’s life for collectors on a budget.
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This tbh. I pre-ordered cards like the Mario/Luigi boxes at the time for 25-30 bucks each. Looking at prices of even the raw cards now, I should have bought hundreds of them, or at least two.
Then again, I also haven’t really learned despite that. I went to the Van Gogh Museum (a week too late, since they were already out of cards.. 
), so bought a copy for 80 euros when I got home. Nowadays it’s worth 1k+. I should have bought a couple of them for 80 each.
I must admit that the main reason is that 80 bucks imho already is pretty high for a single card in general. Don’t get me wrong, I buy cards for multiple hundreds USD on a pretty regular basis and my most expensive bought card thus far was 14k, but looking at it without that perspective, 80 bucks for a single card is expensive. 
Especially if it’s for a duplicate you intend to sell later on anyway.
I guess I’ll never have an investor’s, or even seller’s, mentality. 
I had a rather similar experience with the Queen of Hearts and Kabuki Art Academy cards. Both were available for sale at the same time for 3.5k and 4.5k respectively, but I only had money to buy one, so I bought the cheapest one (which I also like slightly more anyway personally). The other one was unsold for about five weeks and dropped to 4k iirc, and just when I decided to save for it to buy for 4k as well, it sold. That is the same card I paid 14k for 1.5 years ago.
The one I mostly regret, although I still don’t think I made the wrong decision at the time at all, is not buying the 20th anniversary solid golden Base Pikachu. As a sucker for all the Base Set Pikachu variants, I’d love to own it, but looking at its current price, it’s just not worth it to even save money for (I much rather save slightly more and buy one of the four missing Japanese Art Academy cards).
The retail price was 200,000 Japanese Yen, with added middleman fees, shipping fees, and import fees, it would likely have been around 2.7k USD for me at the time. Since I had just bought my first car, and my previously most expensive bought card was ; just’ 300 bucks, I simply couldn’t justify paying that much for a single card, even if it is a solid golden one.
2016 was a completely different time than now.
Nowadays I’d gladly pay 2.7k, or even double or triple that amount, for something like that (once I have that money I mean - currently a bit low ). Unfortunately, it’s worth 75-100k these days instead, last time I checked.
But as mentioned above, hindsight is always 20/20. We can’t predict the future.
Also, I was browsing through my responses for similar threads in the past, and it’s kinda funny to see something like this (which I posted in late 2018 for a thread called Have you ever significantly overpaid for an item? ):
Since I had two, I graded one of them which came back as PSA-10. Sold the other one to a friend in early 2019 or so for 1k.
So although I initially bought them for 800 USD each and it was annoying to see they dropped to 150 USD each at the time, I sold one raw copy (somewhat underpriced since it was to a friend) for 1k, and last year a PSA-10 sold for 12k.
I must admit I do kinda regret - to stay on topic - selling that copy to that friend, since he stopped collecting Pikachu cards a few years ago and I could have graded it a PSA-9 or 10 as well and sold it for thousands of USD now. But
Honestly, you can’t change it anymore anyway, so why have any regrets at all. You can’t change the past, you can only learn from it for the future.
Or to quote: “Life is the future, not the past.” - seventh Wizard Law from Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth book series.
Greetz,
Quuador
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I get it, I am always generous but I understand the setiment. I’m pretty sure I give away the Tag Team Latias/Latios GX (a few away) usually with stuff I was selling at the time as a bonus.
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It’s a struggle, especially for us Pika fans… I had sold all my Poncho 10 Pika’s a bunch that I really loved. I also sold the golden Pikachu statue. So many cards to keep up with X.X. Kind of sad that we haven’t seen really any Japanese exclusives lately.
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For me, it was just a general lack of discipline back in the day. I was really into collecting in 2011, but had no financial skills whatsoever. I remember looking at Snap cards, 1st edition Charizards, etc., but could never scrounge together enough money to get anything fancy. I bought a Base Set Charizard for $40 and remember being mad at myself because rent was due soon.
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Not buying a raw LP gold star rayquaza for $380 years ago. If I still had it if I did purchase it, I know exactly who I would gift it to.
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i think my only regret is setting my interest aside because it was embarassing or “weird” to like pokemon. but i don’t blame myself 
i can’t go back and change it, and i’m working to enjoy it now!!
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My opinion on the matter is like yours.
Things were sold to fund other things so no regrets there, profit was made things were taken care of or experienced because of those sales.
As for purchase regrets it’s not buying the JP VMAX eeveeloution 3 set campaign promos, e-reader singles (regular NM not reverse), Mcdonalds Umbreon (my 3rd fave of all time) and the Southern Islands collection set (opened but complete with binder and postacards) when all were reasonably priced.
I had the money for all of them when they were cheaper but was spending on more modern high end singles and a shitload of English packs from 2021 to 2022 (learned that singles are waaaay cheaper lesson the hard way)
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