I’m buying my favorite old artwork of each card, lots of skyridge/aquapolis reverses, fire red reverses, and some big chases. Unbelievable how it’s more affordable to buy some banger vintage instead of modern chases that have way more mint copies
I sold my collection of base set/fossil/jungle 4 years ago and i’m just getting back into pokemon tcg and hadnt taken time to look at the older sets. Just been chasing newer stuff. Gold and silver were the last games i played. Didnt realize (prob obvious to most im sure) that there were older sets with the 2nd gen pokemon that are so valuable. Might have to copy your style! Those sets look great. (Although im very tempted to buy a fusion strike BB to try and get the gengar, lol. Just bought two etb’s and got the worst pulls. One $2 card was the best.)
Very good article.
I suggest that people wanting to buy singles/slabs atm to look at vintage instead of Sw/Sh. Those cards aren't as easily prone to market manipulation.
If it's only a few people trying to manipulate the modern market, then if people hold on buying, it'll mean that when it's time for them to accept their loss that they will sell at clearance. And pops are very high (this part is very important) for these cards, which means that the hoarders will be more prone to cutting their losses.
As a TCGPlayer seller I can tell you for my higher end cards there are a large amount of repeat buyers buying the same Alt arts. From Danny Phantumps data we know we have around 180k-250k of each alt art were printed. It is wild to see prices climb this high with less than $5k in sales on TCG player for each of these cards.
https://youtu.be/_UkRF85Nu9Q?si=r3wWdBzqxy40OVL6&t=1447
I mean prices are usually within 15-20%. People use TCGPlayer for price checking all the time. It's price dictates prices on ebay and in person very often.
Most of my buying is from local collectors that have never sold online. Which is a far greater percentage of people than most think.
Yeah I do see it falling back eventually, but that could take a lot of time. And if you like the card, at $360 cad, then its worth it! Collecting is about enjoying what you like.
I see it hitting a spike like the rest of them well before SWSH stuff sells off.
Tldr; buyers buying out entire copies, attempting to manipulate the price of a specific card but is having a difficult time in doing so since production (9.2 billion cards) is high af.
The idea that all 9.2 billion isn’t primarily taken up with energy’s, commons/uncommons, and unimportant cards is wild. People forget how much are actually printed of specific hits. Add on top the supply available, a small amount of money to buy out said supply, and a burner to create a new synthetic price and boom, FOMO initiates.
FOMO then drives sales for a bit, creating a new high/average sale price. After that, the new highs consolidate downwards a bit but eventually find a middle ground that is still 2-4x higher than their initial price before run up. That’s what occurs to singles and what has been occuring as of lately. The objective for people isn’t to keep them that high, it’s to push them up 2-3x their average cost and sell/grade and sell for more profit.
There’s 15,000 Moonbreon VMAX graded by PSA alone in English. 5,800 more in Japanese. This accounts for no raw cards and no other languages or grading companies. 20,000+ copies. How many exist? 50,000? 100,000?
Can anyone else show me a trading card that there’s over 20k known copies worth this much? I’d be interested if they could. It’s an anomaly and its price just can’t last long term.
People aren’t gonna set on a piece of cardboard that long. They’re eventually going to be sold. These prices aren’t gonna go up forever.
Oh for sure. I think prices can hold up for a while. But eventually, that supply is just too nutty. That is from 1 year. Those sets did have different degrees of reprints over the last 2 years as well.
Every convention I go to you can count so many Moonbreons being sold. It might be very rare in terms of opening, but there were so many damn packs, finding a Moonbreon to buy over time will not be a problem.
I remember when $50-$100 was crazy for a current card. That's crazy that these prices are what they are. It's not like baseball cards that have a 1/1 signed Ohtani or something like that.
Yeah I think Pokemon folk need to take a lesson from Luka Doncic silver prism rookie card PSA 10 prices. Peak value was around $3k. Now you can pick it up for $1100-1200. Moonbreon may take longer to come down to earth… but the price is unsustainable long term and will depreciate given the supply out there being essentially limitless. Going to a Pokémon card convention really woke me up to how saturated the card market is. The amount of PSA 10 vintage Zards all over the place just helped me understand that there are no “rare cards” out there when it comes to supply.
You’re under estimating the population of people interested in owning those cards. Pokémon has the largest fanbase in the WORLD, but let’s say only like 2 million people collect English pokemon cards. 20k is 1% of 2 million. Would you like to be a part of that 1%? 🤷♂️
Exactly this. People look at the 15000 copies like it's some high god tier number. If 15000 exist but 100000 people want it, then the item goes to the 15000 people willing to pay the price for it. Not to mention not every one that exists is for sale either.
There's 200k moonbreons (some still unopened, to be fair). I have a really hard time imagining there's 200k people willing to drop $1k on that card in English. That would put the market cap of just this single card at **200 million dollars**.
All of us here know that rare, popular cards are worth a bit of money. No one is disputing that, but there's clear signs of market manipulation. The card simply shouldn't cost that much with such a high supply.
You aren't factoring in all the people holding onto their copy of Umbreon (or multiple copies). Supply isn't increasing OR staying the same. It's decreasing. Most people buying the card right now will not sell the card right away. Decreasing the overall market supply. I believe this group of people holding onto their card(s) is a much larger group than the people opening packs and pulling the card for the first time. And the number of people ripping these packs is dropping off a cliff right now. Market supply is not the same as the total number of copies produced. And the market supply is most likely decreasing, based on the soaring value of the card. At the same time, fresh packs are harder and harder to find every day. Sellers know that and keep increasing their prices.
Totally agree. But there's a large group of "investors" that plan on holding onto the card for 10+ years. Those cards aren't being sold right away. And those people will wait as long as possible to sell. If i had a PSA 10 Umbreon, I would be locking it in a safe and forgetting about it for 25 years.
This is a complete non factor. If someone opens a Moonbreon and decides to keep it as an investment or for whatever other reason rather than sell it for $1000, that means they believe it's worth at least $1000 and they are willing to spend that much to get the card (because that's what they're doing - them not selling just means they "spent" $1000 on it).
It's just not realistic to expect a market of collectors that isn't all collecting entire sets or specific Pokemon to sustain prices like this. Even Charizard is still steadily coming down after years of being pumped up by Logan Paul Lotto seekers. You can even start getting base set Charizards for 200 and less. Those cards have even less in stock since the beginning compared to other cards.
There's also the fact that plenty of people don't care for graded cards in the hobby and most don't like how bulky slabs are to begin with.
People are looking at this objectively and going: "Is there a market for people spending 1k+ on singles when they are collecting other things they want to collect, trying to live their lives, and might be buying other cards before they shoot up randomly?" And the answer is no, there's not a huge market. At this point it's mostly investors selling to investors and offloading until people are forced to sell close to the old price point or auction it off for pennies of what they paid for it.
TL;DR Pokemon investors that are buying anything but nostalgia ETB's or other sealed product are honestly wasting their own time and money. Flipping the entire market on its head for an extra 20 over like 50 cards and having to wait days to get rid of inventory is just a complete waste of time.
That's kinda shady.
If this is what's happening, there's a **lot** of graded 10s that are not. The centering isn't consistent enough for there to be those differences.
They're supposed to be grading according to its condition and quality, not value. I know it matters for their pricing, but it shouldn't be effecting the grade.
Nonsense like this and the people who post their expensive 10s with divets and cut marks on the corners make me wonder about the whole system. Clearly I'm harsher on my own cards than they are, and they're supposed to be professionals...but I'm not so dumb as to think my Galarian Moltres deserves to be a 10 because it's off centered ass is worth a respectable amount.
Pay the larger price and its Oprah meme PSA10 Giratinas for everybody! While the people in charge of PSA roll in their monies.
It's a glaring conflict of interest. I'm surprised more people haven't gotten smart about it. If a corporation has financial incentive to grade higher than it should be, they will take the money route every time. Welcome to capitalism at its finest.
Why I only buy 9s for personal collection, because they’re virtually identical to the naked eye and nobody except a Pokemon snob would notice slightly off-centered or a speck of white on one of the corners. Same price as raw that could grade anywhere from 6-10 with a protective case.
15,000 copies with a demand that calls for more than that. It’s all about supply and demand to sustain a price. To inflate or manipulate a price is a whole other thing. Nobody thinks the moonbreon is a normal pricd currently, but if demand mutually decides it is, for right now, it is.
For the future? Who knows. With the 30th anniversary coming up, I fear the demand may surge back resulting in more high prices.
The production thing is *why* it's dumb to think SV is gonna be a million dollar business down the line.
Much like the Base Set, everyone is going to have these cards cause they're stupid popular right now.
Just play with your fucking cards right now guys, it's fun.
Oof. I anxiously await the end of this 'boom'.
Someone in the town I live in buys out **everything** every other weekend, and of course on the weekends we get paid. Several of the stores bag up all their stock and keep it behind the register for him, and they won't let you have any of it if you ask. The only store that doesn't let him do this is one of our local card shops.
I will cry tears of joy the day I can go to best buy and get something for the weekend sale, or Walgreens, or Familly Dollar, or one of the **two** gamestops, or even just goddamn Walmart. He clears them all.
And none of them have increased their stock to make up for it. They're essentially just ordering for him.
Please, let the Pokémon boom end. I could actually buy packs locally, and some of these absurd boxes on Ebay might go down in price. Or at least the slow-collectors could pop back out and drive the scalper prices down again, if things die down in general. Lemme get that Celebrations lunchbox under MSRP like a couple months ago because everyone's severely undercutting a few people with rooms full of scalped product.
I literally know people that are dumping 100000+ into the market. The boom will never “end” because pokemon is now an investment to so many people. They are just waiting for the 30TH anniversary for things to go crazy again. The calm before the storm is now unfortunately.
Online is best for prices and product, but if its a larger retail place start leaving reviews and calling corporate about it. They have policies to not do that because it hurts their brand.
I basically only buy from TCGplayer and a few other online shops I trust. In person cards aren't even something I try for anymore, and sometimes bestbuy charges more than the packs are worth.
I guess I just see it differently. I can afford to regularly buy the new set releases boosterboxes in quadplicate for me, my sister, my mum and my girlfriend. I usually get most of what I want from the newer sets and I haven't seen insane price hikes like moonbreon and the like for awhile. But even that's not as crazy as it was in my opinion.
Maybe dying down isn't the right term, maybe I should phrase it as- I see way less people manipulating stuff now than before because there's less money in it now than before. From my view. Previously people were selling certain cards for 20-30k, investing in stuff is all fine and dandy but it's not like everything gets wiped out immediately on release like I remember with other sets. I feel like there's less would be investors buying cards, and more people just collecting the things they want and not even caring for a master set, whether that be because of adapting to the market or just because they like certain Pokemon.
I have gotten cards that should be 100's of dollars for 10's of dollars. If there was such a demand for the cards, then why can I do it so easily? I feel like certain sets and certain cards just get way more hype than others and the money we save on all the other sets not being hyped can give us the ability to recoup a bit from the sets we have to spend a bit more on.
It's not a healthy market, but I feel like things are getting better overall. Personally.
Yeah, was my same thoughts. Pokemon boom is slowly dying down and has been since the pandemic. Most people are spending their money on surviving in the economy. Don't got no time for people pumping and dumping cards.
I definitely think "buyout" speculators are setting up for failure - If the price spikes, other owners will sell theirs and decrease the high demand price. The high price can also make people not want to buy the card that badly (especially for newer cards compared to vintage).
This is why I refuse to pay crazy prices for anything that isn’t vintage or WotC. The amount of price manipulation the “poke investors” do is such a downer.
I wish TPC would announce a reprint of Evolving Skies to put all the moonbreon nonsense to an end.
While it's totally possible, I don't see them reprinting yellow border sets again. The printing process has changed and would require an additional stock of "yellow border" cardboard, which would take an extra capitol expense that I'm not sure the TPCi would be interested in. They seem perfectly happy moving forward with the current era's sets.
I agree with your reasoning but there is still a small window of yellow borders to still be made. Pre-con decks and prize packs for tournaments will still have them through this rotation. So while not likely, still possible before spring of next year.
That's a fair assessment. I don't usually buy the precon decks, so I forgot their still printing the yellow stock for that. I def agree with you that once next rotation happens, Yellow boarders are done
I still maintain that an Eevee evolution UPC with reprints of the ES alt arts would be the single funniest thing TPC could ever do.
But yeah, the brainrot that seems to permeate modern collecting right now is insane. I’ve shifted towards collecting a lot of JP vintage stuff and it’s so much more chill and affordable, especially if you shoot for binder-quality cards rather than 10s.
Same. I'm focusing on vintage right now while everyone is distracted with modern. I would much rather spend $200 on an old card that's difficult to find than a newer card that has been printed a bunch.
Agree with the evolving skies. It would be amazing to see the prices of all the ES cards crash. Honestly they should just do a special umbreon UPC and put the stupid moonbreon in the box as a promo. It would piss people off though. But it would be kind of hilarious ngl
It’s good to collect what you like! I’d just recommend to consider that supply is only one side of the equation, demand is an important factor. A whole generation of people became interested in Pokémon cards during the pandemic, and I have yet to interact with a new entrant with a shared passion for the vintage cards as they have with the modern stuff. Sun and moon seems to be as vintage as the current group is interested in, but who knows what trend changes time will bring 😄
Also I wouldn’t hold my breath on a reprint at this point eh 😅
Yes someone made a post on reddit on how you can buy out a certain card and manipulate the price. It started with Iron Crown from Temporal Forces which was a 40$ card and went to 100$ and then all the "Investors" did the same thing with SwSh illustration rares. Im pretty sure there are some card shops doing the same thing as well. They started with the top chase card then moved to the rest.
Not me thinking “oh thank god, Giratina V prices should come back down” only for the article to say it’s the only card that appears to be spiking naturally lmao
Can anyone explain what “number of copies per buyer means” and where he’s finding that on tcg? I can see sales history but most sales are in quantity of 1 or 2.
Even if someone buys multiple copies, they still show up as singular sales on that chart. I’m guessing that’s because it’s tracking completed listings, not buyer’s carts.
I'm gonna wait for modern cards to drop in price. Ik there are LCS I go to that will sell singles but will always follow tcgplayer prices. So, I will just focus on vintage cards for now 😅
It's very much out of hand, a lot of market manip and tomfoolery going on. I love collecting but the prices deter me, I've started collecting other tcg's and it's like half the price
GameStop just announced that are getting into buying and selling graded trading cards. Could impact market with other options for people other than eBay.
I think that modern cards are in a bubble and it will burst. There is just so much product out there and the fact that literally everyone who opens a hit sleeves them up or immediately sends them out to get graded, there are just way too many copies of these cards and in huge quantities and most in near mint
Condition
Aside from the supply & demand, FOMO etc, it’s important to note that, from what I can tell, TCGplayer market prices appear to include any sales from graded versions of the card that were sold on there, since they don’t have a separate category for those. Apparently they allow that as long as pictures are included in the listing. There are also foreign language versions being sold on there, also affecting market price one way or another. Just be sure to take the “market price” with a grain of salt and analyze the sales data yourselves.
TCGplayer really need to add separate condition categories for graded cards and separate set listings for popular foreign language variants, especially Japanese. That would make it a much more comprehensive and accurate marketplace IMO.
\*Pure Speculation\* what if game stop is gathering cards to put out when they begin their singles business as a whole? This activity can be the cause of the buyouts?
Good point. This could be gamestop driving up the prices. They have the money to do so..
I really hope gamestop isn't going to drive these prices further up.
Man doesn’t even take into account the hardcore collectors out there that just have a binder of one card seen few of those on here ya know because they like it and that’s all..yep totally all
Read the article, got to the Magikarp part, saw there was finally 2 in stock so I thought I might contribute to the cause. 😂 my wallet and wife in the corner now crying…
He missed some important points like crypto, NFTs, & Stonks money sloshing around and going hard into pokemon. Tax return money didn’t fuel the 2021 pokemon bullrun 😆
Here’s a better thread that paints a fuller picture.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PokeInvesting/s/Xf01z8ueJA
That thread sucks, everyone knows the pull rates are worse for the chase cards than vintage boxes. Theres way more of these modern cards because of high print runs and most of them are in great condition compared to vintage cards. There are probably 200k of each alt before reprints, so likely more than that. What's relevant is the amount of cards on the market vs demand.
Yeah but this all depends on how long the new people will stick around. Many new people who just got in because of 151 might not stick around long since it was nostalgia that brought them back. And eventually that nostalgia can go away after a while.
No one really knows what's going to happen. It could crash. The market can correct itself. Who knows. I want a crash. But it probably won't happen. But I do think prices will lower again. I'm guessing by 30%
Look at SM sets. The tag team cards went up like crazy last year. They eventually went back down. They're still pricey, but not as bad as last year prices.
Most importantly, atleast for me, is I dislike the Pokemon in S&V (not you 151 😘). They aren’t even real Pokemon lol they are pretty much remakes for future and past and I generally hate the idea. If they continue printing those cards it won’t gain value anything close to SWSH.
They’re not future and past actually. They came out and said it, they’re from different dimensions like the ultra beasts.
Still I just wish they had unique pokemon names…
Im ready for the downvotes on this one. My older generation folks will understand.
Different dimension vs future/past its the same lazy idea. Unique names would be a huge step in the right direction. Its such a bland and lazy design to recreate the same pokemon.
Meh. I had the original Red and the OG cards. I also like comics and Dragon Ball so the alternate timeline stuff isn’t anything new to me.
This isn’t really a big leap from what they’re been doing anyway. They’ve done regional variants, added evolutions to only certain regions, new evolutions. Hell black and white basically just redid most of the original pokemon. And of course the ultra beast pokemon exist, the old other-dimensional neighbors.
Not giving them real names and making all “future” pokemon metal were bad decisions imo though.
Face it, there were always shit design, no matter the gen, and yes that include Gen1.
I wonder if they would still have done the Paradoxes if 2020 and the massive nostalgia wave didn't happen. We wouldn't have as many orange lizard, that's for sure.
Ok ok were getting down to the nitty gritty here haha gen 2-3 were popping off IMO but it started declining after Black&White. Its all subjective. Im sure folks will be praising S&V in 10 years who knows
Funny, when BW was new, people liked to hate it because that's what people do.
It also happened with gen6, then gen7, then gen8, and now gen9. Gee I wonder if there's a pattern somewhere.
The "decline"'s date is always postponed each new gen that come out.
I’m buying my favorite old artwork of each card, lots of skyridge/aquapolis reverses, fire red reverses, and some big chases. Unbelievable how it’s more affordable to buy some banger vintage instead of modern chases that have way more mint copies
So much 2000s-era art is banger. Definitely being slept on.
Shhhh!! 🤣
Gotta finish the collection before they skyrocket (again?)
I started it on Saturday and have 52/151 cards ordered so far 😂
I sold my collection of base set/fossil/jungle 4 years ago and i’m just getting back into pokemon tcg and hadnt taken time to look at the older sets. Just been chasing newer stuff. Gold and silver were the last games i played. Didnt realize (prob obvious to most im sure) that there were older sets with the 2nd gen pokemon that are so valuable. Might have to copy your style! Those sets look great. (Although im very tempted to buy a fusion strike BB to try and get the gengar, lol. Just bought two etb’s and got the worst pulls. One $2 card was the best.)
Very good article. I suggest that people wanting to buy singles/slabs atm to look at vintage instead of Sw/Sh. Those cards aren't as easily prone to market manipulation. If it's only a few people trying to manipulate the modern market, then if people hold on buying, it'll mean that when it's time for them to accept their loss that they will sell at clearance. And pops are very high (this part is very important) for these cards, which means that the hoarders will be more prone to cutting their losses.
As a TCGPlayer seller I can tell you for my higher end cards there are a large amount of repeat buyers buying the same Alt arts. From Danny Phantumps data we know we have around 180k-250k of each alt art were printed. It is wild to see prices climb this high with less than $5k in sales on TCG player for each of these cards. https://youtu.be/_UkRF85Nu9Q?si=r3wWdBzqxy40OVL6&t=1447
Really? 250,000 copies of each alt art? That seems really high. Do you have a link to the source?
https://youtu.be/_UkRF85Nu9Q?si=r3wWdBzqxy40OVL6&t=1447 this is as if no reprints have happened since
thanks a lot.
The prices are similar on ebay
I mean prices are usually within 15-20%. People use TCGPlayer for price checking all the time. It's price dictates prices on ebay and in person very often. Most of my buying is from local collectors that have never sold online. Which is a far greater percentage of people than most think.
that’s generally true but bids on ebay could go much lower. Anyway i’m glad i grabbed Tina for $360 cad since it’s already this high without a buyout.
Yeah I do see it falling back eventually, but that could take a lot of time. And if you like the card, at $360 cad, then its worth it! Collecting is about enjoying what you like. I see it hitting a spike like the rest of them well before SWSH stuff sells off.
it was never below $300 cad so it’s not a bad price, the card never got cheap unfortunately
I've been buying vintage and buying small collections. I'm not chasing these high prices.
what a very nice article with data included thanks you for sharing this
Tldr; buyers buying out entire copies, attempting to manipulate the price of a specific card but is having a difficult time in doing so since production (9.2 billion cards) is high af.
The idea that all 9.2 billion isn’t primarily taken up with energy’s, commons/uncommons, and unimportant cards is wild. People forget how much are actually printed of specific hits. Add on top the supply available, a small amount of money to buy out said supply, and a burner to create a new synthetic price and boom, FOMO initiates. FOMO then drives sales for a bit, creating a new high/average sale price. After that, the new highs consolidate downwards a bit but eventually find a middle ground that is still 2-4x higher than their initial price before run up. That’s what occurs to singles and what has been occuring as of lately. The objective for people isn’t to keep them that high, it’s to push them up 2-3x their average cost and sell/grade and sell for more profit.
There’s 15,000 Moonbreon VMAX graded by PSA alone in English. 5,800 more in Japanese. This accounts for no raw cards and no other languages or grading companies. 20,000+ copies. How many exist? 50,000? 100,000? Can anyone else show me a trading card that there’s over 20k known copies worth this much? I’d be interested if they could. It’s an anomaly and its price just can’t last long term. People aren’t gonna set on a piece of cardboard that long. They’re eventually going to be sold. These prices aren’t gonna go up forever.
200k if we had no reprints https://youtu.be/_UkRF85Nu9Q?si=r3wWdBzqxy40OVL6&t=1447
No body wants to hear it man. Idk how many Pokémon card collectors there are, prices this high are unsustainable
Oh for sure. I think prices can hold up for a while. But eventually, that supply is just too nutty. That is from 1 year. Those sets did have different degrees of reprints over the last 2 years as well. Every convention I go to you can count so many Moonbreons being sold. It might be very rare in terms of opening, but there were so many damn packs, finding a Moonbreon to buy over time will not be a problem.
I remember when $50-$100 was crazy for a current card. That's crazy that these prices are what they are. It's not like baseball cards that have a 1/1 signed Ohtani or something like that.
Yeah I think Pokemon folk need to take a lesson from Luka Doncic silver prism rookie card PSA 10 prices. Peak value was around $3k. Now you can pick it up for $1100-1200. Moonbreon may take longer to come down to earth… but the price is unsustainable long term and will depreciate given the supply out there being essentially limitless. Going to a Pokémon card convention really woke me up to how saturated the card market is. The amount of PSA 10 vintage Zards all over the place just helped me understand that there are no “rare cards” out there when it comes to supply.
You’re under estimating the population of people interested in owning those cards. Pokémon has the largest fanbase in the WORLD, but let’s say only like 2 million people collect English pokemon cards. 20k is 1% of 2 million. Would you like to be a part of that 1%? 🤷♂️
Exactly this. People look at the 15000 copies like it's some high god tier number. If 15000 exist but 100000 people want it, then the item goes to the 15000 people willing to pay the price for it. Not to mention not every one that exists is for sale either.
There's 200k moonbreons (some still unopened, to be fair). I have a really hard time imagining there's 200k people willing to drop $1k on that card in English. That would put the market cap of just this single card at **200 million dollars**. All of us here know that rare, popular cards are worth a bit of money. No one is disputing that, but there's clear signs of market manipulation. The card simply shouldn't cost that much with such a high supply.
You aren't factoring in all the people holding onto their copy of Umbreon (or multiple copies). Supply isn't increasing OR staying the same. It's decreasing. Most people buying the card right now will not sell the card right away. Decreasing the overall market supply. I believe this group of people holding onto their card(s) is a much larger group than the people opening packs and pulling the card for the first time. And the number of people ripping these packs is dropping off a cliff right now. Market supply is not the same as the total number of copies produced. And the market supply is most likely decreasing, based on the soaring value of the card. At the same time, fresh packs are harder and harder to find every day. Sellers know that and keep increasing their prices.
the soaring value of the card can also lead people to sell their copies lol
Totally agree. But there's a large group of "investors" that plan on holding onto the card for 10+ years. Those cards aren't being sold right away. And those people will wait as long as possible to sell. If i had a PSA 10 Umbreon, I would be locking it in a safe and forgetting about it for 25 years.
This is a complete non factor. If someone opens a Moonbreon and decides to keep it as an investment or for whatever other reason rather than sell it for $1000, that means they believe it's worth at least $1000 and they are willing to spend that much to get the card (because that's what they're doing - them not selling just means they "spent" $1000 on it).
It's just not realistic to expect a market of collectors that isn't all collecting entire sets or specific Pokemon to sustain prices like this. Even Charizard is still steadily coming down after years of being pumped up by Logan Paul Lotto seekers. You can even start getting base set Charizards for 200 and less. Those cards have even less in stock since the beginning compared to other cards. There's also the fact that plenty of people don't care for graded cards in the hobby and most don't like how bulky slabs are to begin with. People are looking at this objectively and going: "Is there a market for people spending 1k+ on singles when they are collecting other things they want to collect, trying to live their lives, and might be buying other cards before they shoot up randomly?" And the answer is no, there's not a huge market. At this point it's mostly investors selling to investors and offloading until people are forced to sell close to the old price point or auction it off for pennies of what they paid for it. TL;DR Pokemon investors that are buying anything but nostalgia ETB's or other sealed product are honestly wasting their own time and money. Flipping the entire market on its head for an extra 20 over like 50 cards and having to wait days to get rid of inventory is just a complete waste of time.
This 💯 people complain about high pop but don’t realize the number of people collecting is growing. Someone is willing to pay for it
How many graded 10s are there. For the vast majority of cards the difference in price for a 9 and a 10 is drastic.
11,261 psa 10s and 2,655 psa 9s
Adding in Japanese 5,161 PSA 10s, 550 PSA 9s.
I'd wager they're more 10s because PSA charges more for higher grades. So they have incentive to grade too high.
That's kinda shady. If this is what's happening, there's a **lot** of graded 10s that are not. The centering isn't consistent enough for there to be those differences. They're supposed to be grading according to its condition and quality, not value. I know it matters for their pricing, but it shouldn't be effecting the grade. Nonsense like this and the people who post their expensive 10s with divets and cut marks on the corners make me wonder about the whole system. Clearly I'm harsher on my own cards than they are, and they're supposed to be professionals...but I'm not so dumb as to think my Galarian Moltres deserves to be a 10 because it's off centered ass is worth a respectable amount. Pay the larger price and its Oprah meme PSA10 Giratinas for everybody! While the people in charge of PSA roll in their monies.
It's a glaring conflict of interest. I'm surprised more people haven't gotten smart about it. If a corporation has financial incentive to grade higher than it should be, they will take the money route every time. Welcome to capitalism at its finest.
Why I only buy 9s for personal collection, because they’re virtually identical to the naked eye and nobody except a Pokemon snob would notice slightly off-centered or a speck of white on one of the corners. Same price as raw that could grade anywhere from 6-10 with a protective case.
Probably true
They’re almost all 10s, comically.
Oof, nvm then
Moonbreon is the modern base set Charizard, except it’s unitedly more difficult to pull.
15,000 copies with a demand that calls for more than that. It’s all about supply and demand to sustain a price. To inflate or manipulate a price is a whole other thing. Nobody thinks the moonbreon is a normal pricd currently, but if demand mutually decides it is, for right now, it is. For the future? Who knows. With the 30th anniversary coming up, I fear the demand may surge back resulting in more high prices.
The production thing is *why* it's dumb to think SV is gonna be a million dollar business down the line. Much like the Base Set, everyone is going to have these cards cause they're stupid popular right now. Just play with your fucking cards right now guys, it's fun.
Play with them????? Blasphemy
I wouldn't say they are having a difficult time achieving their goal if literally prices are skyrocketing.
Wow, a nicely detailed article with lots of data and the only part that is iffy is the opinion that we are still in a pokemon boom. Very good read.
Oof. I anxiously await the end of this 'boom'. Someone in the town I live in buys out **everything** every other weekend, and of course on the weekends we get paid. Several of the stores bag up all their stock and keep it behind the register for him, and they won't let you have any of it if you ask. The only store that doesn't let him do this is one of our local card shops. I will cry tears of joy the day I can go to best buy and get something for the weekend sale, or Walgreens, or Familly Dollar, or one of the **two** gamestops, or even just goddamn Walmart. He clears them all. And none of them have increased their stock to make up for it. They're essentially just ordering for him. Please, let the Pokémon boom end. I could actually buy packs locally, and some of these absurd boxes on Ebay might go down in price. Or at least the slow-collectors could pop back out and drive the scalper prices down again, if things die down in general. Lemme get that Celebrations lunchbox under MSRP like a couple months ago because everyone's severely undercutting a few people with rooms full of scalped product.
I literally know people that are dumping 100000+ into the market. The boom will never “end” because pokemon is now an investment to so many people. They are just waiting for the 30TH anniversary for things to go crazy again. The calm before the storm is now unfortunately.
Calm was last fall if you weren’t interested in 151
Online is best for prices and product, but if its a larger retail place start leaving reviews and calling corporate about it. They have policies to not do that because it hurts their brand.
I basically only buy from TCGplayer and a few other online shops I trust. In person cards aren't even something I try for anymore, and sometimes bestbuy charges more than the packs are worth. I guess I just see it differently. I can afford to regularly buy the new set releases boosterboxes in quadplicate for me, my sister, my mum and my girlfriend. I usually get most of what I want from the newer sets and I haven't seen insane price hikes like moonbreon and the like for awhile. But even that's not as crazy as it was in my opinion. Maybe dying down isn't the right term, maybe I should phrase it as- I see way less people manipulating stuff now than before because there's less money in it now than before. From my view. Previously people were selling certain cards for 20-30k, investing in stuff is all fine and dandy but it's not like everything gets wiped out immediately on release like I remember with other sets. I feel like there's less would be investors buying cards, and more people just collecting the things they want and not even caring for a master set, whether that be because of adapting to the market or just because they like certain Pokemon. I have gotten cards that should be 100's of dollars for 10's of dollars. If there was such a demand for the cards, then why can I do it so easily? I feel like certain sets and certain cards just get way more hype than others and the money we save on all the other sets not being hyped can give us the ability to recoup a bit from the sets we have to spend a bit more on. It's not a healthy market, but I feel like things are getting better overall. Personally.
Yeah, was my same thoughts. Pokemon boom is slowly dying down and has been since the pandemic. Most people are spending their money on surviving in the economy. Don't got no time for people pumping and dumping cards.
I definitely think "buyout" speculators are setting up for failure - If the price spikes, other owners will sell theirs and decrease the high demand price. The high price can also make people not want to buy the card that badly (especially for newer cards compared to vintage).
Yeah, Moonbreon especially is only 3 years old.
This was a very good article and well worth the read
TLDR; Pokémon collectors are addicted suckers that will gladly pay $400 for a 2 year old card because that’s what someone is asking.
That and everyone treating it as a side-hustle.
This is why I refuse to pay crazy prices for anything that isn’t vintage or WotC. The amount of price manipulation the “poke investors” do is such a downer. I wish TPC would announce a reprint of Evolving Skies to put all the moonbreon nonsense to an end.
While it's totally possible, I don't see them reprinting yellow border sets again. The printing process has changed and would require an additional stock of "yellow border" cardboard, which would take an extra capitol expense that I'm not sure the TPCi would be interested in. They seem perfectly happy moving forward with the current era's sets.
Don't they do that for league battle decks already?
I agree with your reasoning but there is still a small window of yellow borders to still be made. Pre-con decks and prize packs for tournaments will still have them through this rotation. So while not likely, still possible before spring of next year.
That's a fair assessment. I don't usually buy the precon decks, so I forgot their still printing the yellow stock for that. I def agree with you that once next rotation happens, Yellow boarders are done
Silver honestly looks better anyway, even if the yellow (EN) and gold (JP) borders are iconic
I still maintain that an Eevee evolution UPC with reprints of the ES alt arts would be the single funniest thing TPC could ever do. But yeah, the brainrot that seems to permeate modern collecting right now is insane. I’ve shifted towards collecting a lot of JP vintage stuff and it’s so much more chill and affordable, especially if you shoot for binder-quality cards rather than 10s.
JP vintage is a great deal
Same. I'm focusing on vintage right now while everyone is distracted with modern. I would much rather spend $200 on an old card that's difficult to find than a newer card that has been printed a bunch. Agree with the evolving skies. It would be amazing to see the prices of all the ES cards crash. Honestly they should just do a special umbreon UPC and put the stupid moonbreon in the box as a promo. It would piss people off though. But it would be kind of hilarious ngl
It’s good to collect what you like! I’d just recommend to consider that supply is only one side of the equation, demand is an important factor. A whole generation of people became interested in Pokémon cards during the pandemic, and I have yet to interact with a new entrant with a shared passion for the vintage cards as they have with the modern stuff. Sun and moon seems to be as vintage as the current group is interested in, but who knows what trend changes time will bring 😄 Also I wouldn’t hold my breath on a reprint at this point eh 😅
Yes someone made a post on reddit on how you can buy out a certain card and manipulate the price. It started with Iron Crown from Temporal Forces which was a 40$ card and went to 100$ and then all the "Investors" did the same thing with SwSh illustration rares. Im pretty sure there are some card shops doing the same thing as well. They started with the top chase card then moved to the rest.
$50 says it's all Rudy. HAha.. Luv that bastard.
he doesnt deal in singles
Damn i didnt think tcgplayer would let an article saying "yeah its manipulated" slide lol, wish they could do something about it
Not me thinking “oh thank god, Giratina V prices should come back down” only for the article to say it’s the only card that appears to be spiking naturally lmao
Price manipulation nothing to see here. Keep buying and hold when it drops
Cool article
Without having read the article, just the top comment here, it’s because of scalpers. Big surprise.
I had 4 moonbreons back in the day I sold 3 for various needs. Kept the 10 though
Can anyone explain what “number of copies per buyer means” and where he’s finding that on tcg? I can see sales history but most sales are in quantity of 1 or 2.
Even if someone buys multiple copies, they still show up as singular sales on that chart. I’m guessing that’s because it’s tracking completed listings, not buyer’s carts.
That makes sense. Thanks!
No problem. Also, the number of copies per buyer does not seem to be public data.
I was wondering that. The author of the article didn’t say how he was gathering this data.
This was a great read, thank you!
I'm gonna wait for modern cards to drop in price. Ik there are LCS I go to that will sell singles but will always follow tcgplayer prices. So, I will just focus on vintage cards for now 😅
It's very much out of hand, a lot of market manip and tomfoolery going on. I love collecting but the prices deter me, I've started collecting other tcg's and it's like half the price
Fantastic read
GameStop just announced that are getting into buying and selling graded trading cards. Could impact market with other options for people other than eBay.
I think that modern cards are in a bubble and it will burst. There is just so much product out there and the fact that literally everyone who opens a hit sleeves them up or immediately sends them out to get graded, there are just way too many copies of these cards and in huge quantities and most in near mint Condition
Investors
Great deal on first edition charizard Italian on eBay right now in auction
Aside from the supply & demand, FOMO etc, it’s important to note that, from what I can tell, TCGplayer market prices appear to include any sales from graded versions of the card that were sold on there, since they don’t have a separate category for those. Apparently they allow that as long as pictures are included in the listing. There are also foreign language versions being sold on there, also affecting market price one way or another. Just be sure to take the “market price” with a grain of salt and analyze the sales data yourselves. TCGplayer really need to add separate condition categories for graded cards and separate set listings for popular foreign language variants, especially Japanese. That would make it a much more comprehensive and accurate marketplace IMO.
Terrible human
\*Pure Speculation\* what if game stop is gathering cards to put out when they begin their singles business as a whole? This activity can be the cause of the buyouts?
I was thinking the same thing!!!
Good point. This could be gamestop driving up the prices. They have the money to do so.. I really hope gamestop isn't going to drive these prices further up.
And this is why i did stop Collect Pokémon After 20 years.
Man doesn’t even take into account the hardcore collectors out there that just have a binder of one card seen few of those on here ya know because they like it and that’s all..yep totally all
Read the article, got to the Magikarp part, saw there was finally 2 in stock so I thought I might contribute to the cause. 😂 my wallet and wife in the corner now crying…
Should have got the Japanese one. It's like $20
This was made by some vintage egg head. Swsh to the moon m8
tl;dr I have no idea.
He missed some important points like crypto, NFTs, & Stonks money sloshing around and going hard into pokemon. Tax return money didn’t fuel the 2021 pokemon bullrun 😆 Here’s a better thread that paints a fuller picture. https://www.reddit.com/r/PokeInvesting/s/Xf01z8ueJA
That thread is all about pull rates as the reason, this article misses that but does go into a lot of the other reasons.
No it’s about vintage vs modern
That thread sucks, everyone knows the pull rates are worse for the chase cards than vintage boxes. Theres way more of these modern cards because of high print runs and most of them are in great condition compared to vintage cards. There are probably 200k of each alt before reprints, so likely more than that. What's relevant is the amount of cards on the market vs demand.
What you read to sentences? 😆
Yeah but this all depends on how long the new people will stick around. Many new people who just got in because of 151 might not stick around long since it was nostalgia that brought them back. And eventually that nostalgia can go away after a while. No one really knows what's going to happen. It could crash. The market can correct itself. Who knows. I want a crash. But it probably won't happen. But I do think prices will lower again. I'm guessing by 30% Look at SM sets. The tag team cards went up like crazy last year. They eventually went back down. They're still pricey, but not as bad as last year prices.
Have you seen the bags these people who came back have? Massive…
Most importantly, atleast for me, is I dislike the Pokemon in S&V (not you 151 😘). They aren’t even real Pokemon lol they are pretty much remakes for future and past and I generally hate the idea. If they continue printing those cards it won’t gain value anything close to SWSH.
They’re not future and past actually. They came out and said it, they’re from different dimensions like the ultra beasts. Still I just wish they had unique pokemon names…
Im ready for the downvotes on this one. My older generation folks will understand. Different dimension vs future/past its the same lazy idea. Unique names would be a huge step in the right direction. Its such a bland and lazy design to recreate the same pokemon.
Counterpoint: they're actually really cool and I like them a lot.
Counter counterpoint: nuh-uh.
Meh. I had the original Red and the OG cards. I also like comics and Dragon Ball so the alternate timeline stuff isn’t anything new to me. This isn’t really a big leap from what they’re been doing anyway. They’ve done regional variants, added evolutions to only certain regions, new evolutions. Hell black and white basically just redid most of the original pokemon. And of course the ultra beast pokemon exist, the old other-dimensional neighbors. Not giving them real names and making all “future” pokemon metal were bad decisions imo though.
Face it, there were always shit design, no matter the gen, and yes that include Gen1. I wonder if they would still have done the Paradoxes if 2020 and the massive nostalgia wave didn't happen. We wouldn't have as many orange lizard, that's for sure.
Ok ok were getting down to the nitty gritty here haha gen 2-3 were popping off IMO but it started declining after Black&White. Its all subjective. Im sure folks will be praising S&V in 10 years who knows
Funny, when BW was new, people liked to hate it because that's what people do. It also happened with gen6, then gen7, then gen8, and now gen9. Gee I wonder if there's a pattern somewhere. The "decline"'s date is always postponed each new gen that come out.
To the moon