Many of us are more like Sams Club or Costco. Sometimes they may have flood lights or pillows and sheet sets. Sometimes they won’t. Walmart ALWAYS has both. I guess, Sams and Costco could be considered ‘on the fence’ between a sustainable business and “flippers”.
(For those of you unfamiliar with these company’s, they are GIANT warehouse super center stores. Yes they sell milk, gallons only, and toothpaste in 6packs. But if they get an amazing deal on pianos or trampolines, they’ll sell those too…for a while. Just don’t go in looking for a piano;)
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Thank you Scott, wonderful video. I love how it’s divided into collector/investor/flipper. I think it’s a proper segmentation of the pokemon collector population at the individual level.
I just want to re-emphasize the importance of understanding what affects the value of a card in the long-run vs. short-run, as well as distinguish the collector vs. the investor a little more. Currently they are the same, but they start to diverge if/when the card’s long-term value reaches a ceiling for whatever reason.
At the heart of it, the long-term value is determined only by collectors (and as of now, investors*****). No more, no less. The short-term value can be determined by many other factors (flippers, short-run supply, short-run demand, etc.). I think this is the key information that people often forget about when they want to know what a card is “actually worth.” If you know this piece of info, you can start to figure out how you can track the value trend of a card as well as its potential (but as Scott says, this fails for cards that rarely pop up).
* - I am going to say investors as well, but the big caveat here is that as the value of a card starts to plateau/decrease in the long run, collectors will still want the cards while investors will want to dump them all away since the cards are more like securities than sentimental objects.
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The lines seem to blur. I feel like many investors naturally become collectors. I agree with @cman that an investor type is more likely to sell off at a certain price point vs. a collector type who will hold on the the cards much longer, even indefinitely. However, I feel many investors will naturally become collectors or already are collectors in other hobbies, but are just unfamiliar with pokemon at the moment. The initial catalyst for me was a combination of investment potential and nostalgia. I would even say the investment potential was the greater factor for me because there’s no way I would have sunk several thousand dollars into pokemon if I didn’t expect that it would be a wise long-term investment. So investing really was the primary reason for why my collection grew so quickly over the past 12-15 months.
The fact that I love looking at the cards and have many childhood memories and feelings of nostalgia is just a nice bonus to make this type of investing fun. I’ve found that the collector mindset gradually finds it’s way into my participation style within the hobby. For example, I’d never seen the crystal Celebi card before. I just simply haven’t taken the time to look it up, but OMG it’s one of the most beautiful cards I’ve ever seen. Right up there with the crystal Lugia (which I recently acquired). Now I NEED to have the crystal Celebi in my collection. The motivation there is primarily because I want to have that beautiful piece of art in my collection. Most of that excitement likely rests on the fact that I grew up with pokemon.
I’m curious as to how often investors with no pokemon knowledge or background end up developing a true love of the aesthetic of pokemon cards. I imagine this would be the case with anyone who appreciates art or collects art more than someone who collects something like sports memorabilia.
I fall into this category, an investor that became a collector.
I was and still am heavily invested into MTG finance and used to spend a heap of time analysing price trends and growth potential based on availability (a lot easier with MTG since they have released print numbers). When pokemon go was released I realised just how massive the pokemon fan base is, saw the exponential subscriber growth of poketubers that only did TCG box openings, spent time looking at the data and came to the conclusion that a lot of vintage pokemon cards and product were under priced and due for a correction. I was confident enough in my assumption after doing my research that I bought a lot of stuff in a short space of time, based solely on numbers and logic with no emotional connection to anything.
That initial buy in got me involved in the community and market discussions here and I really enjoy it, I find E4 a lot more helpful and friendly than the MTG finance community to the point where these days I spend more time contributing to the pokemon community than MTG.
Now I find myself buying cards just because I like them with no thought on the financial aspects. Eg. Aquapolis Holo Ninetales (#H19) reminded me of my dogs and I thought the art was cute so I bought one. I’m also putting together 1st edition sets which while partly financially oriented I’m also doing because I’m enjoying the collecting aspect and appreciate the cards. As I’ve gotten more involved I’ve gotten less focused on finance and finding more enjoyment in the hobby itself along with the community.
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crackheads out here trading first ed base for blow. I’m doing my mf thang getting these pieces of poke history into the hands of loving owners. speakin of which, ya boy on the come up for another ungraded first ed zard. ya heard it here first. 60% of the time I hustle all the time
But seriously, I love collecting cards I just have to make a profit while doing it. This has definitely become easier as I have more money to work with, and now I have my eyes set on keeping some of the cards I’ve gained. I want to get as many first ed shadowless zards as I can. I have the goal of getting a psa 10 one someday. I’d also like to get a psa 10 crystal zard one day. I even have hopes to collect all of first ed base holos, but not sure what grade I want to shoot for. Almost all other cards are expendable to me.
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I agree
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