I’m two cards away from finishing my Team Rocket 1st edition PSA 10 set and I am now starting to think about what might be a good long-term hold collection. I keep coming back to packs because there is a limited supply of WOTC-era packs and they keep getting opened. But I have a few questions:
Should I be seeking out graded or ungraded packs? I like the idea of having them graded because they’re safe, but aren’t graded guaranteed light since most people won’t grade a heavy pack?
If they are guaranteed light, why will they have value in the future if everyone knows that only light packs get graded?
I guess at a more macro level, is collecting packs long-term a good idea?
Just curious what the community thinks. If this is the wrong place to post, sorry!
I’m going to try and sum up what I’ve seen over the years here to give you a consensus opinion:
Preamble:
If people are selling WOTC packs on ebay, they should be selling them as “light” or “heavy”. Weighing is trivially easy, and there’s no way 99.999% of people on ebay selling these packs have not weighed them. If you see a listing anywhere that says “Unweighed pack! Heavy?!?!?!?” or whatever along those lines, they’re full of it, and its going to be a light pack. I.e, they’re trying to rip you off. For transparency they should list the weight. Whether you buy heavy or light packs is up to you - heavy is obviously going to be much more expensive.
To answer your questions in order:
Totally up to you. Graded packs (at least via PSA) do not list the weights, so you would need to crack 'em and weigh the packs your self to find out - which kinda defeats the purpose of buying graded packs. Buying “authenticated” packs may be better, but not my much in terms of weight. You can keep packs safe without them being graded - carefully sandwich the packs between 2 pieces of wood, and vaccum pack them, store them in a pelican case, and they will be very, very safe.
They have value because in general, over time, more WOTC packs will be taken out of circulation - either by people opening them, hoarding them away, etc. They are also highly sought after and are no longer made, so in general, given the deprecation of these packs to people opening them, etc, the price will go up. This is why light and heavy WOTC packs generally go up in value over time (scarcity).
If you can afford it, collecting WOTC packs is a good idea, because of the reasons listed above. Modern packs are a different kettle of fish.
some packs are popular to reseal and that makes graded versions of those packs more valuable imo because you know its not full of energies. 1st ed base english mostly but as more money comes in the scammers will move on I guarantee it
So in theory, buying graded WOTC packs will be a good long-term hold. It doesn’t matter that it’s probably light packs that are graded because, ultimately, it’s still a WOTC pack that will gain value over the long-term. Thanks for the reply. This makes me think buying graded packs might be the best bet.
Do you know how PSA grades them? What are they looking for?