for me, it looks like that set prices spike up with the age of the buyers. Meaning if someone played Gen 3 as a kid they want to relive the nostalgia in their mid-20s or later and the price goes up. Is this a right observation? And will the prices from now on be always this high for a set or did you see it falling off after a while?
I know there is sometimes an initial spike in price at the beginning. But is there a lot of fluctuation in older products or do they tend to stabilize over time and just go up in price with age?
I was wondering about this as well. I just got back into collecting from when I was a kid and honestly Iāve been enjoying learning many different aspects of the hobby. Iāve been thinking about future value and was looking into 4th gen cards (Diamond and Pearl Series). I think people have that attachment to the first games and cards they collected so in 10+ years or so when all the first timers of Gen 4 are older and have jobs, money, kids, they will turn to their first sets. Maybe this will increase popularity and value?
Iām not sure if this will be the case or if it would lead to a temporary spike in prices and then a drop cool off? I havenāt been around the hobby long enough to know. Cool idea though. Thanks!
Iād say diamond and pearl cards will ramp up eventually but it was sort of a low point for the series. At the moment EX cards are starting to get more popular and I imagine diamond and pearl will follow eventually but not sure how much they will increase.
Pokemon should follow the trend of the video game industry considering the demographic is similar if not the exact same.
For example lets look at NES games. The NES was released in 1983 and games retailed for $50 (~$90 adjusted). After release prices gradually went down until they hit the bottom in the early/mid 2000s when the average price for a used NES game was $6. Then around 2010 something changed, the kids that grew up with the NES finally had full time jobs, families, homes, and a stable source of income which caused them to start buying back their childhood. The average price continued to increase until around 2016 where theyāve leveled off at an average of $27 a game. Of course there are exceptions to this rule as the highest end games are still slowly creeping up, but most of the āstapleā games have plateaued as the people that wanted the games now have them.
While separate generations of Pokemon cards wonāt take 30 years to peak and plateau due to a variety of factors (entry price, no economic recession (hopefully lol), and overall popularity), I think the graph will follow much of the same trend. Weāre already starting to see it happen to a degree with early WOTC stuff.
(Hereās a bunch of stats and the chart I referenced if youāre interested)
There tends to be mini hype bubbles where there is a particular card or set that spikes or has a little resurgence through people talking about them more or new record prices being set. After this period there is usually a cool off or even a steady rise etc. A lot of people in this hobby are looking for the ānext big thingā or the one underappreciated card/set that is seemingly undervalued so there are always these mini price fluctuations which is interesting to watch because you can learn more about specific cards than you would otherwise have thought to look on your own.
Itās nice to see that other people think similar about this.
Iām interested in your predictions. Which D&P and HG/SS sets do you think will spike next?
And what are the most sought after cards from this era?
Would be fun to see in a few years who had the right predictions
