While browsing E4, you notice someone has sent you a message. You open it and read that Gary has decided to leave the hobby and has left you with 50% of the PSA 9 and PSA 10 1st ed Charizard market (58 PSA 10s and 264 PSA 9s. I know Gary probably doesn’t have that many, just play along please). However, he specifies that you are not allowed to keep the cards for collection and you can only sell them. Gary’s lawyer directly handles the cards, you do not even get to see them. You can get the lawyer do whatever you want to the cards (sell, donate, destroy, etc. Be creative!) and you can take as long as you want to sell them. All this information is only known to you but you can publicize it if you wish. How do you maximize your profits? (ie. don’t destabilize the market)
Optional challenge mode: Same thing but you only have 3 months, after which all unsold cards will be destroyed!
Optional game (for Gary only): You are Gary. How do you proceed??
I’d get in contact with a hedge fund/investment group and pitch them on the growth opportunities within the Pokemon collectibles market and show them just how quickly the PSA 9/10 1st ed. base charizards specifically are rising in price. With an approximate current market value of $20k * 58 = approx $1.2mil and $6k * 264 = approx $1.6mil for a total of $2.8mil in current market value. That’s a pretty small amount of money compared to some of the stuff large investment groups put their money in, you could probably even find a single investor that would be willing to take on the entire lot. They pay me market value, lawyer forwards the cards to the investor, and I take the money and put it into index funds and live off the interest generated. Maybe, if there’s not a lot of paperwork involved, I’ll even put a thank you sticker on Gary’s tombstone for my money-is-no-longer-a-worry life.
Challenge mode makes it easier really as it completely handcuffs you. eBay auctions are the only way to go. Start a little slow so not everyone knows. Market will buy them up at similar prices to current. But at some point prices will drop fairly sharply as I doubt the market could bear all the cards at current market prices in such a short amount of time. You would likely have the early purchasing people abusing the shit out of the 90 day paypal return system who paid $6k for a 9 when a month or two later they were going for half. So overall you’d be happy to probably end with about 1/3 to 1/2 of todays market price for them all IMO after all is said and done.
Maximizing profits you would just list them 1-2 at a time per grade. Attempt to cross the solid 9’s to BGS 9.5’s and some solid 10’s to BGS 10’s. Stay above market value BIN price with B.O. available. Take nothing lower than the last previous sale (except where fair due to “weak” cards). Continue on like that selling maybe a few a month until gone. Do as many private sales as possible and sprinkle in some PWCC and probstein consignments.
Create 1$ listings with shoddy pictures with item location being in China for each Charizard so no buyer will be interested
Purchase them all as the buyer
Continue Gary’s legacy
Pretend to be Gary and pass them off to the next “Gary” in line when I step down and make people wonder if holding all these Charizards gave Gary immortality
Monetary gain (loss): -$161 plus shipping fees
Gain from the confusion of other collectors: Priceless
Hide one of the PSA 10’s in a secret location in a given city or country and give very tough clues to the public about its’ whereabouts for someone to find and keep. Given that it’s an established five figure card you’d have a great chance at it going viral across the world. It’d be like the real life version of Pokemon Go. News outlets all over could pick it up and now the whole world becomes educated on what a PSA 10 1st Edition Base Charizard is and what it’s already worth. Hopefully you’ve been able to gain enough significant publicity to really boost the short term value.
Before all this, you pay PWCC whatever it takes (within reason) to NOT sell any Charizards in the 6 months leading up to this event, and once the story reaches maximum hype, you introduce 3-5 listings to PWCC, one after the other as an easy alternative to hungry collectors and rich hype beasts who don’t have the time or will to look for the hidden one.
Beyond that, perhaps the best long term strategy will always be to keep them as long as possible. Maybe commit to sell one every 18 months or two years. I know of a guy in the US who had/has a nice cache of base set booster boxes who uses a similar strategy. Every time he sells one, he wont sell the next one for any less, and he’s very conservative with how many he sells each year.
Certainly there must be a creative way to get at least full market value for everything in only 3 months. @hypernova gave a good example. You’re essentially saying it’s not a challenge because it’s too hard
But yeah, I’d agree, going the straight up ebay liquidation route is going to destabilize everything. That’s selling one PSA 10 every two days and three PSA 9’s every day!
I think @hypernova 's suggestion was extremely optimistic at best and more likely just completely incorrect. No disrespect meant by it, but I just don’t see it as a real scenario.
There is no way in hell any serious investment firm is going to pay full market value for such high volume of a “risky” collectible like that. Especially given the recent exponential gains. If it were buying a card that was 1 of 2 out of the pop then yeah sure maybe. But even though these cards are fairly liquid and frequently change hands they are not remotely liquid enough to not suffer at least a 30-50% dip in value with 50% of the market fire-saleing in 3 months. You are talking trying to dump a few years worth of natural sales within the frame of just 3 months.
No, the investor/investment group would hold the cards as… an investment. They would not be purchasing the cards in order to immediately turn around and resell. That would make no sense. Controlling 50% of the market would in fact limit the available supply even further, increasing prices in the long term as long as demand continues. Considering it is the most iconic card in the hobby, this would be an amazing investment opportunity for them.
He knows that, but an investment firm’s main goal isn’t to just look at the potential gains. It’s to limit risk. They’re not going to pay full price like Gotta’s saying. They don’t need to, there’s nowhere else you’re going to go. So, they’ll take a percentage off limit their risk and give you a lump cash payout that’s a good percentage below market.
