Are European First Editions undervalued?

General
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Are European First Editions undervalued?

The cardcollecting hobby started mostly in America. Sure, people collect cards in every country but as far as I know. Collecting graded cards with high prices is something that only existed in the US. For example sports cards, old MTG etc.

Now I know that MTG is also populair in Europe, but that game is more about playing the cardgame rather than collecting. Pokemon might be the first cardgame that Europeans are going to collect and are willing to spend good money on.

I see more and more Dutch people going back to pokemon and they do want the old graded cards. Right now, Dutch first editions go for very little on the International market, that is currently dominated by American collectors. But how long will that continue? Demand from Europe is rising and the demand for European PSA graded first editions could go up really quick, before we even realised it.

Not only is this a question for Europeans to ask themselves, imo also Americans should re-evaluate the value of euro first editions. There are way more English first editions than for example Italian, German, French first editions on the market. The cards are not as common as you might think they are. One important thing to keep in mind is that, most european cards have not been graded yet because PSA is still a new concept to us. I’m also expecting to see a rise in PSA grading for non-english languages.

In short:

  • Low supply/exclusive
  • More Europeans start collecting
  • Serious collectors already have their English First Edition cards

These factors could spike the price of the cards in the next few years. Low demand is whats keeping the price low but that is something that could change one day.

What do you guys think? Am I crazy for thinking non-english card will rise faster and catch up with the English cards or do you guys agree?

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Specifically talking about first ed base here.

I would be shocked if non-English cards were to catch up to English. Truth is, you’ll find more Italians collecting English than [North] Americans collecting Italian. I am skeptical that Europe is experiencing some sort of collecting boom that isn’t happening in America. Even if it were true, it’s a fatal assumption to assume these European collectors are only interested in their respective language.

The biggest issue with the non-English (and non-Japanese) is the market is too niche. If you have a Polish card, you could sell it in Poland or to maybe a handful of people outside Poland. With English, you have America, Canada, UK, Australia, ect. and there are probably tons of people in non-English native countries that may be interested in English cards.

If you had a language with such scarcity that maybe only at most 2-3 complete sets were possible, you might see a premium on these because people like the chase. I don’t know if there is a language with such scarcity though. In general, you’ll probably see the big cards like Charizard, Venusaur and Blastoise sell for a decent amount in other languages (since it’s reasonable to collect 1-3 cards in every language, not 102). Overall though I’m not to optimistic about European cards. Not to say they don’t or won’t hold any value; I just think over time you’ll see the gap between English and European widen, not shrink.

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Chinese perhaps might be a good example there.

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As a german collector myself I have to agree. 1st base charizard/venusaur/blastoise might hold some value and they increased over the last year. Not much love for other cards, though.
I stepped away from collecting german cards because I just can’t justify spending nearly the same amount on a card that isn’t even gradeable and further won’t hold that much value in the future. 1std base might be a little different, but on the german ebay something like german goldstars/neo destiny shinings aren’t even much cheaper than their english counterpart (it gets much cheaper when it would grade a 9/10 in english though).
But nevertheless there are some crazy people who pay a lot for certain cards in german but that is mainly for some very special first edition ones that doesn’t come up often for sale.
All in all I think that would apply to most other european language cards, too.
So even though in european countries there might be a lot of people collecting pokemon, too, most of them are interested in mint english cards. Some collect the native ones, too, but most of the time these cards won’t hold a big premium like the english ones does.
And I can’t imagine that native cards will rise to a similar value than the english ones over all.

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if your talking about base set then they can be graded and some people collect the base set but msybe if psa starts grading other langauge cards for instance german gold stars then maybe there will be an increase but ooutside of base set i cant really see the prices increase :blush:

apart from korean unlimited

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I do think foreign Base Set cards (mainly the holos) might increase in value, but not nearly as much as the English. There are loads and loads of English-only collectors out there, or English/Japanese only, and not a lot of people are interested in foreign languages.

I’m Dutch myself, and in my youth when I was 7 years old we already had only English booster packs in our local (Intertoys) toy shop, even the unlimited Base Set. In that shop they’ve never sold any Dutch PokĂ©mon cards, even though the first three sets were available in Dutch. So when I stopped collecting I had around 500-750 cards, but 95% of those were English, 3% Japanese, and only the last 2% was split between a lot of other languages, mainly Dutch, French, German, Italian.

Now I mainly collect Pikachus, Sevipers, Mimikyus and some Moltres in every possible variation. So I’m one of those people who’s definitelyinterested in foreign cards, and is willing to pay more than their English counterparts when I come across one of those missing foreign cards.
There are some cards that are worth (a lot) more in foreign languages compared to English, but that’s mainly due to their scarcity and rarity. One example is the #26 WotC Promo Pikachu for example. In English, German, Italian and Spanish it’s worth less than 8 USD; in Japanese it’s worth around 10-25 USD; but the French one is 75-125 USD. Not sure how the French one was released, but it’s a lot harder to find, and also a lot rarer than its counterpart in other languages. But this is one of the few exceptions. Overall English and Japanese will be much more desirable. Korean unlimited Base might come reasonable close with non-holos, due to being very short printed, but English 1st edition Base are still at the very top, and will remain there.

As mentioned by others, there are a lot of (big) English-speaking countries that had Pokémon releases, like the US, UK, Australia. And also a lot of the smaller European countries had English cards (like Belgium, Norwegia, Sweden, etc.) Some might have had a few of their local cards for some select sets, like Dutch, Polish or Russian cards, but these are very minimal, and now they have English releases as well. English is just more popular in the western world, and Japanese in Japan (and parts of Asia).

Greetz,
Quuador

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Except for Japanese, I don’t think there is much demand for foreign languages outside their home country.

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Oh its definitly true that English was more populair than Dutch here in the Netherlands. I remember i could easly trade Char Unlimited English for a First Edition Dutch. This made Dutch cards more scarce in the long run. At that time we never realised how unique the Dutch cards would be on a global market.

But I don’t know man. Personally I would prefere to own something special, rather than something ‘populair’. PSA 10 unique language card would always beat a PSA 9 English card in my book. Also if we look at the history of magic we might see something else:
blog.mtgprice.com/2014/12/16/foreign-language-cards-for-dummies/

I still believe foreign cards might come close to 90% of the value of an English card. Value also depends on economic factors. Dutch and German do a lot better than Spanish and Italian for example. Here in the Netherlands you pay way more for cards than for example ebay.

btw, are there Polish cards? I looked it up and can’t find anything.

I’m scared of buying Japanse right now. Too many cards are still in Japan, waiting to be sold for cheap. And all those cards grade pretty good due to their superiour card quality. I expect to see the market still being flooded with psa 9/10’s Japanese cards. Prices will continue to drop. :sweat:

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Isn’t a big factor shadowless? German cards were never shadowless. And it seems to me 1st Edition German cards are muuuuch more common than English. (Except for Neo Destiny)

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I believe age favors English. The english first edition is a year older than EU first editions.

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Pikachu World Collection 2010 contains 1 Polish card; and the Mysterious Treasures and Diamond & Pearl sets are both released in Polish. source (and I have three out of four Polish Pikachus in my collection)

The available languages:

  • English
  • Japanese
  • German
  • French
  • Italian
  • Spanish
  • Portuguese
  • Korean
  • Dutch (Base, Jungle, Fossil, and some WotC promos)
  • Chinese (Base, 1 card from the Pikachu World Collection 2000, EX Legend Maker, Plusle & Minun Deck, and some POP promos)
  • Polish (Diamond & Pearl, and Mysterious Treasures, and 1 card from the Pikachu World Collection 2010)
  • Russian (XY through XY BREAKthrough - or maybe BREAKpoint, and some XY-era promos)

Greetz,
Quuador

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Personally, I noticed that Dutch collectors only want the holofoils. They don’t really care for the rest. I got tons of Dutch and Dutch 1st Edition common and uncommon but all sales are overseas to specific collectors. Collectors like Quuador that only collect one specific PokĂ©mon. The Dutch market for commons doesn’t extend further then Pikachu and Eeveelutions. Those, no matter what language, fly out of my stack within minutes.

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Good point. I have many foreign Base cards and because of some of my listings I get requests daily for all language Wartortles or Raichu’s or others. More and more people are doing the character collecting system and need a Chinese 1st Ed or a Spanish unlimited. Some even message me for one of each. I normally get 4.00 or 7.00 each (com/uncom) so it’s not a waste of time. I recently sold a 7000 card lot of French and actually regret it cause I’m getting more and more french requests.

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I have also read somewhere (maybe on E4) that the Dutch Fossil unlimited had a very short print run and is more rare than 1st edition.

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Yes. That was carrots. 1st Edition Dutch Fossil is more common than UED Dutch Fossil.

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I don’t know many people who would prefer Glurak or Dracaufeu over Charizard lol.
The only rise I see in foreign card collecting is people collecting all the card variations of a single pokĂ©mon, but other than that Dutch cards and other foreign cards are in low demand as far as I can tell. I don’t specifically check for these cards either though so I may be wrong.

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It’s the Base Set Charizard art work that counts for most. The name on top of the card is secondary to the art.

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I think pop and bragging rights are extremely in favor of euro cards. The low pop makes them more rare and exclusive. The only problem is their current low price and we all now that doesn’t make the card special. European cards have a bad image of being cheaper and less valuable then their english counterparts, but in reality they are actually a lot more rare.

Supply is in favor of a high price for EU cards. But demand says its English that is better. Hopefully EU cards get some love too in the near future.

True, I’m going to have a hard time asking premium for my Dutch Fossil Unlimited collections hahah. "No bro, these are non-first edition fossils! they are a lot more rare than my first edition fossils! I promise! :laughing: "

We used to spit on our Dutch cards and wanted everything in English. The flavor and text on the cards are lame if you can read it hehe. In the Netherlands you basicly grew up with the English language through media. Wizards noticed this and stopped producing Dutch fossils and switched over to English. Have people noticed a difference in pricing for rocket first edition? compared with fossils? For rocket, wizards prob have printed a lot more first editions to meet the demand for the Dutch.

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Haha exactly. I remember seeing almost only English cards back in the day. If I saw a Dutch card, it was a holo, others were probably thrown in a corner :laughing: . I really disliked the “IP” instead of “HP” (which we were all familiar with because of computer games). Also, all the boosters I bought in town were English as well, never saw Dutch ones for sale.

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I never really got why they made it IP. The German, Spanish, Italian KP, PV make sense. But why IP? Why not LP for Levenspunten (Life Points)?