I got back into the hobby in early 2013, my goal at that time was to buy and open a base set box. I had seen that Christmas Day 2012, a few boxes sold on ebay for $275, so I wanted to try and pay around $300 for one. A $300 opportunity never came up, and box prices just slowly continued to rise. Next thing I know, boxes are going for $500+ plus and I couldn’t justify it as a broke college student.
Here I am over a decade later, and a sealed base set box is still the goal, only now its going to cost $12-15k I could reshuffle my collection around and easily afford one, but I’d prefer not to do that since I may need part of it to help with a downpayment for a house.
Maybe 2025 will be the year I finally get my hands on one…
Found and purchased a raw English Rayquaza Gold Star on eBay for ~$160 USD around 2014-15 when I was in high school. It was the first card I ever sent to PSA and it got a 9. Still in the collection today.
Other examples include PSA 9 Umbreon ex Unseen Forces and other more popular ex’s for like $40 each, probably around 2016. 2014 is the earliest I was collecting/buying stuff. Was too young to cash in on the even cheaper stuff that other people here are mentioning in that 2004-2012 range
I can certainly relate to that one brother and/or sister.
Around 2015 I was a few years out of college and got my first bonus. I was saving up to buy a house but my first thought when I had the cash in hand was “man it would be fun to open a base set booster box”.
At the time I was assuming nobody cared about Pokemon and it would be cheap. After going on eBay I was shocked to see the price and didn’t think about anymore.
Fast forward to current day. I have the house but man…I still want the box.
I guess the silver lining is, had I purchased it, I would have opened it and lost the majority of the value.
I use to buy and sell on reddit when I first started collecting again about 10 years ago. Here’s one of my first purchases back then. 24 Base Set 2 packs for $125. I opened most of them, but I still have a few left from this purchase.
I mean, most of the purchases that I can actively remember are from late 2019 onwards, but another thing I do remember (besides getting HGSS and DP products that were bought for their MSRP when they were the current sets which of course is very cheap compared to prices today) is that when a department store in my city where I always used to get Pokémon products as a kid was (unfortunately) significantly downsizing their TCG segment, they put a lot of products on clearance. I distinctly remember getting like five DP era theme decks, because they were selling them for only 2€ each which is still the best deal in relation to a products MSRP that I have ever seen. Also regarding the late 2019 / early 2020 prices, here are some Screenshots which I shared before:
I paid C $290 for 50 unweighed Unseen Forces blisters in 2012. That included C $40 shipping. It was fairly pricey but I didn’t want to wait for a booster box to pop up for sale.
They were all mint condition too, not crumbled up like the ones you see today.
This was for a complete Wizards Black Star Promo set, complete Wizards Prerelease set and complete W-Stamp promo set. All in mint condition with many still sealed. The seller even through in a bunch of extra cards.
Of the items, telescope, headphones, UV pen and light etc, arguably the “Secret Voice Recorder” held the most weighting. It was a small, plastic silver recorder that recorded 2 seconds of sound and could play it back. I believe they were standard issue in the UK until recently, given our efficacy in all matters international. I traded this item.
So if we assume…
£3.99/8 = 49p, x3 weighting for being the ‘best’ thing.
£1.49 or $1.96. £3.04 when adjusted for inflation from 2004.
For Mudkip .
I will never tire of it. That’s just how things were.
I was collecting (and paying for the collection through buying/selling) during university between 2011 and early 2013. I stopped at that point and didn’t get back into it until late 2018.
Despite it seeming like the dark ages of Pokemon, there was still a lot of people buying, selling and collecting, and plenty of people knew what was rare and what was desirable. Just not to anything like the extent we see today. What kept prices down, e.g. £5 Legendary collection booster packs, £50 Crystal Charizards etc, was that there just wasn’t anywhere near the competition and skin in the game as you have today. Hundreds of pounds/dollars would buy you the high-end, rather than the tens-of-thousands that you need today. But the crucial difference was that the high-end cards were 100% a passion-purchase. Only the select few people gifted with 20/20 foresight considered them to be investment vehicles. Whereas today, if someone sees something as both a passion purchase and an investment, they are willing to pay up significantly more, hence the massive price inflation.
I bought WOTC booster boxes regularly for a 2-year period, prices for 1st ed Neo boxes would vary from £200 - £350 depending on the set and volume on eBay at the time. 1st ed versions of Fossil and Jungle would run around £250 while their unlimited counterparts would go for around £130. Mint ungraded gold stars were sub-£100, depending on the card. Sealed English Southern Islands sets were selling around £30. I imported a Skyridge box from the US for £300 from Troll & Toad. Both the single cards and sealed products from Legendary Collection were basically seen as dirt, and sold for no more than a few pounds per pack. I sold a raw (but 9/10 condition) reverse and regular holo Charizard from LC for £25 and £30 respectively. I bought a couple of PSA 9 Shadowless Charizards for around £80 and flipped them for £120 after a couple of months. But similarly that price could have been back to £90 a month later.
Looking back, it sounds now like a dream scenario. But it didn’t really feel like it at the time; there was little concept of stonks or upside potential for these things, it was mostly an environment for collectors, though people who knew what they were doing were definitely making money. It was a lot calmer too, and prices reflected both lower competition and the average discretionary income of the collectors at the time. While there could be volatility or shorter-term changes in demand for some things, we’d typically be talking about a change in price from £40 to £75, rather than £100 to £1000 that we might see these days.
2017 was a solid year to buy great cards just cause you liked them, I will say that. The Team Magma Team Aqua box on Fanatics this week was bought for $72 dollars that I borrowed from my mom in 2010.
I could reshuffle my collection around and easily afford one, but I’d prefer not to do that since I may need part of it to help with a downpayment for a house.
for ~$160 USD around 2014-15 when I was in high school. It was the first card I ever sent to PSA and it got a 9. Still in the collection today.
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when I read your screenshot my initial thought was “damn that’s a good deal”.
