Thought this may be fun to discuss. Im sure everyone here has made some regrettable or just interesting decisions during 2020 and 2021 hype times. Lets hear how they went. No need to discuss prices specifically if you dont want, we’re all aware of how dumb everything was.
For me, the dumbest thing i did was around Thanksgiving 2020, i bought a neo destiny box in person in a parking garage for mostly cash. It was unlimited and i paid a lot (not to mention risked a lot in meeting in a garage), paid probably more than 1st eds go for now. At the time i had only owned 1 vintage box and it seemed like they were being ripped to shreds every day so you had to jump. Hard to pass the fomo in that case when scarcity was not really understood. Long story short, i realized i overpaid and broke even a few months later and any other vintage boxes i bought since then have been heavily scrutinized beforehand. Also the seller turned out to be cool and were friends now.
Awh, that ending makes me smile. Seems like it was less a mistake or dumb decision and more a learning experience! If you broke even it definitely could’ve turned out worse haha
Yeah and looking into it a bit i definitely didnt pay 1st ed prices. But i lucked out there a lot. He didnt rob me after all,and the box was real.
Im sure some people have true horror stories, i didnt mean to ask people to discuss those if they dont feel comfortable. Was meant to be a bit more lighthearted
In October of 2020 I made my first large Pokémon purchase and bought a pair of base set sequential PSA 9 Charizards. Overpaid by quite a bit!
Still have them both as a remainder to take my time with larger purchases. Back when I got them it seemed like every listing was being bought by the second so it was more of a panic buy. Definitely didn’t understand how much base set was really printed lol.
I entered the hobby during the pandemic boom so didn’t have a comparison point for what was “normal.” While I didn’t incur any huge losses, some cards I bought then that I wish I didn’t:
PSA 8 English Neo Rev Houndoom for ~200 which is now selling for closer to ~100. Since the PSA 9 was more than I was willing to pay I decided to get the 8. I don’t have any other 8s or graded Houndooms in my collection. I wish I had bought the Japanese 10 instead or didn’t buy at all.
BGS 9.5 (Centering 9.5, Corners 9.5, Edges 10, Surface 10) Neo 2 Japanese Umbreon for slightly less than PSA 10s are going for now. While this has a chance of crossing to a PSA 10, I just bought this because I was curious about Beckett cases and PSA 10s were more than I was willing to pay. It’s the only Beckett card in my collection.
PSA 10 Non Holo English Aquapolis Umbreon for about what it’s going for now. While I didn’t overpay, this card doesn’t fit my collection goals. I collect vintage Japanese holo Umbreons. I bought this before I switched my focus to Japanese and PSA 9s since the holo version was out of reach. EDIT: Just checked Ebay and last sale was 2x what I paid for it originally.
The theme here is overpaying for graded cards that didn’t fit my collection goals during a supply crunch for graded cards. And also buying cards I didn’t really want because what I wanted was out of reach. I learned a lot from this experience!
Back in 2020 I really wanted a jungle blister pack but they were trending at $400, so I traded a few things and about $200cash, including a psa10 adidas pikachu and I threw in a sdcc shellos psa9 because their wife liked the shellos so I thought Id be nice. Probably not the smartest value trade seeing how pikachu is worth $400 alone now and the jungle blister is about $300. Oh well, at least they enjoyed it and I have my Flareon blister.
Buying sub 9 MNT and KSA slabs in 2021 because I was new to the hobby and PSA was backlogged to oblivion. Learned the hard way that their “grading” was even wilder than sub 9 BGS and few people, not even other Canadians, wanted them. Took the better part of a year to sell them to unsuspecting local buyers. In most cases I either broke even or made a small profit. But never again.
Again, back in 2021 I tried buying a few cards RAW to eventually send in for PSA grading. In most cases I was able to sell them back to break even but the absolute worst offender was this 1st Edition Neo Genesis Skarmory. I FOMO’d on it hard because I thought the card was flawless from the photos, but it had some of the worst front centering when I received it in person. I ended up paying ~$200 USD for it, which looking back, was pretty ridiculous even back then. Worst part was when I finally submitted it for PSA grading it only graded an 8. Just decided to cut my losses and wrap it up to me being inexperienced with the hobby back then. Probably why I’m more risk averse now and prefer to pick up cards that are already graded.
Thankfully didn’t pick up too many graded cards in 2021 due to the PSA backlog. The few that I did grab either held in value, retracted back up in price, or were sold to break even/make a small profit.
In the Fall of 2020, I purchased a PSA 9 Corrected Blaine’s Charizard from Gym challenge for $3000 USD ($4090 CAD at the time). It was the most wasteful and FOMO-influenced purchase I’ve ever made. One of my earliest purchases was a Corrected Gym Challenge Booster Box so I really wanted the Charizard to go with it (conveniently I only starting wanting it during the mania )
There were only a handful available for sale at the time and none from Canadian sellers. But I had found a guy on Instagram who agreed to sell me one for $2400 USD, only he later backed out claiming to only accept F&F and raised the price. The mental jump to spend another $600 wasn’t difficult at this point because it seemed like if I didn’t buy one NOW I would never get one.
They’re currently selling for about <$1k and the card has never felt as essential as it did before it arrived at my house. You live and you learn
In November 2020, I FOMO’d hard and bought a “NM” Dark Charizard holo for waaaaay too much. It was my first large purchase, so I was nervous till it arrived. Shocking to no one, it was not NM, but had a ton of edge wear that I wasn’t looking close enough at on the pictures to notice against the white background. Needless to say, I was super embarassed and didn’t ask for a return or anything because I figured the seller would say that you could see it in the pics. Took it as a learning experience to be super anal about quality, and its served me well.
Eventually got it graded and returned in my latest return…PSA 7
My FOMO moment during the pandemic is probably the Futsal Pikachu. Iirc I paid 1.25k USD for my sealed copy, and now they’re worth 30-40 bucks sealed and 95-100 bucks in PSA-10.
Another FOMO moment, although for this one it actually turned out pretty good, was buying my favorite three Charizard cards. Never cared too much for Charizard in the past, and I could have bought two of these cards for a lot cheaper years ago than I paid for them now, but since I did like them and was afraid they might go out of my price range (as in, the price I’d be willing to pay for something that’s outside of my main collection goals), I bought all three of them in the same week,
somewhere in Spring 2021.
Wow. I can almost relate to the futsal pikachu purchase. Bidding on every futsal pikachu I could find (luckily only won 2 for less than yours) was my goal. There was the notion that the this was super exclusive given only to players in an exclusive youth league. Months later they announced that they would be given to LGS and printed at a much higher capacity.
I’m trying really hard to think of anything, but I didn’t really do anything crazy aside from having a bigger budget for lower desirable cards people wouldn’t grade even if they had a mint copy… sacrifices in order to cross some cards off a list essentially.
during the pandemic I mostly focused on lesser known items that didn’t increase very much & what was in front of me and released at the time, it helps that I had already knocked out all the big ticket items I wanted prior. I just temporarily forgot those other things that rose exponentially and decided I would wait for a better opportunity in the future and said to myself if that opportunity never presents itself I can live with it.
the set release of Eevee heroes made me feel extremely passionate about collecting the card game again after a while of slowly losing interest.
During the pandemic I started buying cards within days of release. Historically, the lowest raw card price is a month or 2 after release. I overpaid on the GYM promos ($8 vs $2). But I fomo Eevee Heroes hard, and got Moonbreon for $400 and rest of the alt arts for $50-$200 each. Did the same for Evolving Skies, got Moonbreon for sub $200.
Now with the SV era, I will be patient again and wait longer after release (so I say I will)
Overpaid a good amount on relatively mediocre condition 1st ed venusaur and blastoise just to round out my starters. Not even happy with the grades they ended up getting.
And sending like 200 cards to cgc just to have them graded since psa was still closed. Got absolutely reamed on their harsher grading standards and got loads of 8.5’s on mint japanese holos.
Seems like it was less a mistake or dumb decision and more a learning experience! If you broke even it definitely could’ve turned out worse haha
and KSA 
slabs in 2021 because I was new to the hobby and PSA was backlogged to oblivion. Learned the hard way that their “grading” was even wilder than sub 9 BGS and few people, not even other Canadians, wanted them. Took the better part of a year to sell them to unsuspecting local buyers. In most cases I either broke even or made a small profit. But never again.
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