So I was looking at my spreadsheet peeping some of the prices I paid for some of my cards (I kept a record of every ‘significant’ purchase since I returned to the hobby back in 2014) and enough time has passed to be quite shocked at the prices paid.
It’s a bit pointless all in all but a bit of fun to see how much of a bargain something became with time. I invite you to share some of your best hindsight bargains…
Some of my highlights are:
PSA 10 1st Ed Shining Raichu (£100)
PSA 9 1st Ed Base Charizard (£1100)
Base Booster Box (£584)
Japanese Neo 4 Box (£670)
PSA 10 1st Ed Shining Charizard (£500) *remember there was a period of a year or two where every single one sold for the same amount?
Since I’ve only collected as a kid by buying booster packs, and only came back fully about three years ago, there aren’t that many bargains thus far. Usually it’s the other way around, since I tend to overpay for Pikachus I don’t have yet when they pop up.
Some notable bargains in my opinion:
Pikachu Gold Stars. I bought the Japanese one (which isn’t as expensive or rare as the others) for 25 USD at the time. The English one I bought for 35 USD, and the German, French, and Italian each for 40-60 USD. Although they aren’t in the best quality, they are definitely going for more now.
Bought the 016/DPt-P promo on YJ for 15k Japanese Yen. Including middleman service, shipping, and import fees it was about 175 USD or so. Considering I’ve only seen one other for sale for 750+ USD, I’d say that’s a very reasonable price.
Got some autographed cards that were pretty cheap. 090/XY-P Pikachu Promo autographed by Imakuni? which was only like 20 USD, Jumbo Pikachu with six or seven autographs of old players, judges, and Mitsuhiro Arita, which I bought for 55 USD. Beckett Graded EX Sandstorm Pikachu for 55 USD through PWC. Due to quite a few events afterwards, Mitsuhiro Arita’s autograph is worth less now, but at the time it was a pretty good bargain (especially considering it was auctioned through PWC).
Even though I already had the Natte Wake Birthday Pikachu at the time, I bought the full set of Natte Wake cards for just 90 USD. Considering the Pikachu already goes for 125+ USD alone, that was a pretty good deal as well.
That’s about it, so nothing too good tbh. Unless you include all the Base, Jungle, Fossil, etc. booster packs I bought for 5 Gulden (roughly 3 USD) when I was 7-10 years old.
My oldest deals for boxes going back about 4-5 years ago:
410 1st Ed Rocket Box
~500 First Ed Fossil Box
450 Base Box (First one I bought getting back into hobby)
800 Base Box
450 First Ed Jungle Box
700 Neo Gen Box
550 and then 600 two more times for neo destiny “resealed” boxes. They have since checked out as being unweighed.
I also got a sealed Southern islands binder for 110 and a shining charizard unlimited for 24 (It graded a 7).
Sealed e3 pikachu for 150 (graded an 8)
3 prerelease clefables for 15 bucks (gave one away and sold another. The one I kept graded a 7)
2 japanese starter decks for 75 each (sold one for 300)
5 Bulbasaur and squirtle decks that I gabbed for 60 each
Gotta Mew (Mint) for 10 bucks
Grand Party For 50 x 2 (One has graded 10)
Also this one giant lot of uncommon and common first edition cards all mint with a stack of rocket, jungle and neo genesis holos for about 150. The dark charizard holo I got from that graded a 10.
I snagged a Shining Charizard for $17 that was in really rough condition and sold it for $80 within 24 hours. This thing was in heavily played POS condition, it was that bad.
In 2016 I picked up 6 base set blisters packs (2 of each artwork) for $45 each! That year I also picked up a ex team magma vs team aqua blister, ex dragon blister, ex sandstorm blister, and a ex ruby sapphire blister for $15 each!!
2 -3 years ago i picked up a played 1st edition Zard for 35$, and 4 years ago i picked up a 1st edition raichu for 30$! Those are the 2 that come to mind!
$175 for first ed team rocket booster box in April 2017
$200 for first ed fossil booster box in April 2017
-yes, this was an incredible deal
$80 for blastoise and venusaur Base blisters in May 2017
$500 for NM shadowless set in September 2017
Also, as of yesterday: Purchased 49 base set unlimited mint/pack fresh holos for $500
-included 4 charizards, 1 Blastoise and 5 venusaur. Hoping this ends up being a solid deal on my end!
1st edition base blister packs for $100 each. Bought several. Still have them. Some are heavy packs.
No HP Dark Persion for $3. Got it graded and came back as strong PSA 9.
Best one was Base 1st edition booster box that I was trying to sell for a friend. The bidding went as high as $1200. Then all the bidders backed out and it didn’t sell.
I’m a newbie still around here so my gains haven’t been anything to write home about, but I’d say my best purchase was a PSA 6 1st base Charizard a little over a year ago for $550, probably weeks before it shot past $1000
I remember buying those Chimchar/Turtwig/Piplup promo tins back in 2014 for $20-25, they came with 2 packs of EX Power Keepers, 1 EX Delta Species, and 1 EX Dragon Frontiers. All guaranteed unweighed. I never pulled anything good but I still had a blast opening them.
Surprisingly this isn’t even that historical
Psa 10 expedition poliwrath Holo 40usd. 2017. It was even up for Weeks on eBay.
Would of loved to hold onto a psa 10 wotc Holo card that not many people own but had to let it go for other collection goals unfortunately.
All Thanks to gottacatchemall for that psa google doc spreadsheet, data showed it wasn’t the easiest to grade.
Complete mint EX Deoxys set – $305, Rayquaza gold star got PSA 10, Latias 9, Latios 8
Complete mint Skyridge set – $550, Crobat, Celebi and Ho-oh got PSA 10, Charizard, Kabutops and Golem got 9
Complete mint master Legendary Collection set – $450, Charizard reverse holo got PSA 10, haven’t bothered to grade the rest yet
Complete mint 1st Ed. Team Rocket, Gym Challenge, and Gym Heroes sets – $50 each
1st Ed Base Charizard – $15, got PSA 5
Bulk 1st Ed. Fossil packs for $2.65 each
I miss the days when you could get PSA 9-10 worthy sets on eBay
I just started getting some skin in the game so my bargains are few but I feel good about the following:
Won a decent lot of promos that worked out to around $0.88 a card. Priced everything out based on condition and I should get 3-4x my money back after fees & shipping.
Recently won an auction for the following, all PSA 9, for less than $70 shipped:
Rocket’s Mewtwo 1st edition Holo
Magby Expedition Holo
Entei Neo Revelation Holo
Butterfree EX Fire Red Leaf Green Holo
Vaporeon EX Unseen Forces Holo
Right now I’m buying cards that I could see becoming valuable in the future and tracking them on my spreadsheet. Should be fun to look back at it all in a few years.
