On PokemonPrice, you can see where a wild covid appears. Before that the market had cooled a little since the highs of 2018.
Anyway, I thought some of you might find it interesting.
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Very interesting. You can clearly see when those Magic manipulators showed up on the Pokemon scene 
But seriously, this chart would show the opposite graph for vacation/travel spending, restaurants, concerts, hotels, local shops, etc. I wonder what it will look like in May/June as parts of the country open back up and there is competition again for these dollars. I could certainly see a period of slack prices in the market at some point until demand dollars catch back up. Wish there was a way to break that data down further
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@rainbow , what is it do you do irl? are you also in investments? or equity research analyst?
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@sgpokecollect That’s not the type of information I like to disclose online.
@jonandek I also think it will be very interesting. I think May will appear strong on the chart next month. A lot of cards have reached new all time highs.
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fair enough lol
personally, I think the huge line that spikes up will peak in May/June. but then it won’t head down in a straight line. it will gradually bump down for a while until it settles again. problem is, what that means for individual values will be literally all over the place. that line just represents sales which is of course volume x price. to some extent there will just be fewer transactions as both card buyers and sellers (some sellers are opportunistic and not full-time sellers) get back to work or other things. so volumes will fall. but the price side will depend on so many factors. I think many more graded cards will be coming into the market. EX series and neo series will take the lead in terms of “vintage”. I predict 8s and 9s will lead the new graded volume but it will be interesting to watch the 10 pops for these. for EX I think many 10s will enter the market, not as many for neo. where new graded pop is available and enters the market, combined with the lower transaction volume, this should start to put the downward pressure on prices. collectors won’t lead this, but it will be places that rely on regular sales volume like troll and toad and dacardworld. the dealers.
of course this is one person’s opinion only. the big unknowns are how much graded pop is coming in and at what grade level and which sets. and of course do the new people that have either stepped up their collecting or have come into the hobby stay active?
I do not predict a crash for vintage prices will occur, particularly the higher grade, lower pop cards. hard not to be swayed by my own biases though
EDIT: and thanks to rainbow for posting this info!
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I largely agree. A point worth mentioning about the resumption of PSA grading and their returns is that they already have a rediculous backlog of around a half a years worth of cards to grade. What that means, is it will take about that long before we see targeted gradings hit the market. Meaning cards that have been selected to be graded in reaction to their price increases post-covid. Until then we will see a lot of broad supply, but a lot of the breakout cards that surprised everyone with their sudden appreciation will likely mainly appear once the baglog completes. So it will take roughly that long before I would become confident in seeing some of the pops stabilise as there will undoubtedly be many new additions that will creep out of the woodworks.
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The trend was already going up significantly before the pandemic (February->March). Seems the pandemic may have exacerbated things, but it’s not the fundamental driver.
Pointing when the first US case happened is a bit misleading imo; arguably things only “got real” in early-mid March for most people. If the thesis that the pandemic was driving the increase in prices (for whatever reason, either because people are “bored at home” or “afraid of inflation”, etc) was right then such an increase would at best have happened only after March, but clearly we see a significant increase already during February->March.
Just my 2 energy cards
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@smpratte I think you’ve done a few milestone posts in the past as far as member count has gone… any chance you have any other metrics to show as far as forum activity goes in similar fashion to the OP?
COVID and the price increases are definitely leading to unprecedented activity on the forum (and obviously it just being larger than it’s ever been each passing month). 1st page of new often has been less than an hour and you’ve gotta go back 5 pages to get to yesterday. All all talk of a market bubble and I wonder if we are in an e4 activity bubble?
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good point about the grading time delay… peak could be much later like fall/winter, as I would imagine the initial graded cards coming back would get immediately swallowed up by the market given pent up demand. of course, there could also be another COVID surge. if things shut down again in the fall/winter, all bets are off. strange times we live in
Sure here is the monthly activity. Definitely some records:
- Monthly hits are at 1,400,000.
- Daily posts record 685
- Daily hits record 62,000
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The price surge started long before the pandemic, going back to 2019:
See here: www.elitefourum.com/t/recent-price-surges-for-psa-10-1st-edition-jungle-fossil/24440/1
The pandemic is when things heated up to the next level but it’s far from the only factor.
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The surge started almost exactly when Gary Vee started posting about sports card investing 
www.garyvaynerchuk.com/why-im-investing-so-much-money-in-sports-cards-examples-included/
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Can’t wait to buy up cheap PSA cards when all the raw card->PSA card flippers get busted when PSA card prices drop on them. They’re all doing the same thing…overpaying for vintage packs (to open) or buying raw cards to grade. Then when PSA gets through their backlog, the market will be flooded with PSA cards from all these flippers. Stimulus money will have dried up by then and quarantine orders will be relaxed so a certain amount of collectors will naturally leave the hobby.
If you watch channels like graded gem, he is saying that he is having “unprecedented levels” of submissions going through his service. We all know what that means especially with PSA card grading suddenly being the popular thing to do. Save up that cash!
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You will always pay more than what a flipper paid. Maybe their profit margin will shrink due to more competition and market saturation; but you aren’t “sticking it to them” so to speak.
Yeah but that trend was more gradual and has a logical link: unemployment was at record lows, stock market was booming and 90s kids who studied STEM majors were getting stupid rich working at tech companies.
You can use base charizard PSA 9 as a decent barometer. From jan 2019 to dec 2019 price went from about $200 to $250. From dec 2019 to may 2020 price went from $250 to $700.
With the PSA 10 1st ed Jungle/Fossil cards, the prices of the cards had increased by 2-3x times in the previous half-year or so (leading up to when I made that post in October 2019). I know that’s just one example but it nonetheless represented a very significant price surge before the pandemic.
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Not true. The problem for flippers is they need capital to buy into whatever next item they’re going to flip. They aren’t exactly planning on holding the item for long. Their mind set is basically buy xyz raw card for $25 grade it to try to get a PSA 8/9/10 and then sell it for $250 or whatever price. When prices are rising as quickly as they are now the flipper might get more aggressive and maybe pay $150-$200 for the card thinking the price will rise even more by the time they get the card back. If the prices drop on them instead then they aren’t likely to hold on to the item. Their business strategy simply isn’t aligned with “buy and hold”.
You don’t want capital if it’s coming at a loss, unless that loss can be justified/absorbed in the new purchase’s opportunity pricepoint. That’s like taking out a bad loan from a shady bookie.
The card is a product. Its overhead is the price of purchase inclusive of tax and shipment, as well as fees, taxes and shipment costs when it is sold. Whatever is left over from the sale (after overhead is accounted for) is the profit margin. It’s more likely that you would simply sit on your product, or if desperate, sell at cost.
You’re describing a situation in which a flipper “gets aggressive” and takes a ton of risk and then needs to bail out before they end up with an even bigger loss. Most flippers don’t operate that way. The risk is small because they are buying low, paying less than the average person on grading, and then selling high. When they buy at x pricepoint to sell at y pricepoint, they are calculating a certain amount of psa 10’s that will more than cover any cards sold as 9’s and 8’s at cost or a bit under. I don’t think there’s as much gambling involved as you think.
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