Wanted to provide some data on Evolving Skies Alt Arts. September - October saw a noticeable uptick in many of the card prices on TCGPlayer.
If this is manipulation that’s epic 
Imo more card prices should be manipulated so I can stop focusing on buying cards and feed my family instead.
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I’ve pretty much said “Bye” to the modern alt arts. If they stay the same in 5 years, I’ll grab 'em then… once the true extent of print size has been realized. Otherwise, I won’t have died… The world will continue. My collection will continue, either way.
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Agreed. I think it’s interesting these cards are still experiencing rapid price spikes even after being so high in price…but I could complete full pre-SM era sets for the same price as a few of these ES alts combined. So until the alt art market stabilizes (if it ever does), I’ll continue to window shop lol
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It is incredible that an ultra modern set has 12 cards ≥$50 and 7 cards ≥$100. 
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Personally have a way different outlook on Alt Arts than what I’ve seen in this thread. Alt Arts are easily the most beautiful and unique cards we’ve ever seen and I think they’re going to go the way of Gold Stars, ie to the moon. Buy now or wish you could have gotten in at 1/5 the price.
It’ll be interesting to see how the prices change as the supply changes over time. Maybe the demand really will continue to outstrip the supply even long-term and sustain these prices? Or will it become a thing where there’s way more supply than realized? I kind of feel like at the very least there will always be a much higher supply in NM or better condition, just because of the way people preserve a lot of these cards now for grading and other things.
I still don’t feel fully comfortable buying these yet, but maybe it’ll be a missed opportunity even at these prices. Feels pretty speculative overall. If I did pay these more elevated prices, I think for me they would become permanent collector pieces so I don’t have to worry as much about the ROI side of things.
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I smell a reprint
For all the people sitting on a pallet of sealed Evolving Skies, there comes a time where opening up makes sense with these alt art prices sky rocketing. That should bring more supply of singles onto the market and maybe match demand a little more closely.
is it ever worth opening those boxes… They are ~$250 atm. A big risk for the 0% chance of getting an umbreon
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I’ve debated this, however, the pull rates are atrocious. I don’t have a pallet, but still.
Honestly, this trend is good. As much as it keeps the cards away from those who want it, they had enough time to find most copies of the card(s) for a while at affordable prices. Look at Team-Up and Unbroken Bonds. I can see their AA’s going up (other than Latias & Latios) but the box has been high for a while.
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Evolving Lies
Evolving Cries
Evolving Dies
Evolving Whys it so expensive
Evolving Unwise to open
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I get this point, but we also have to look into the future, this are in high demands because alt-art are the all cool new shiny things and there are only 1/2 of them for famous Pokemon.
What will happen to them when the new super rare card type will be introduces with a new super cool Umbreon for example?
I feel everyone will move the attention to them and the price of alt arts will probably normalise.
It happened with gold cards as well even if there was less fomo.
Thing is that considering the rarity/price ratio it’s quite hard for me to buy them (even if I would like to), I can’t justify that with the price you pay for 1 of them you can get a few PSA 9 first edition base which are rarer.
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What’s interesting about this though is it seems all these modern collectors or speculators are just sitting on the sealed product and watching it rise. However, it feels to me that most people are mainly interested in the singles and less interested in the boxes. So it really begs the question, who is going to line up and start paying $500 or $1000 or a box or wherever this set ends up going to?
Although I totally expect people will be willing to pay more for these ES boxes in the near future or later on, it will seem like quite the gamble knowing how bad the pullrates are for these Alt Art type cards to me. I think that’s is what turns me off the most about hoarding modern boxes is knowing the pullrates are so bad, so it makes the risk/reward factor very unattractive to me compared to just buying the singles.
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Why look to the future when we can look to the past? Ultra rare versions of popular Pokemon like Eeveelutions, starters, Gen 1 favorites, etc demand high prices even if newer versions have “better” art or fill the whole card frame, etc.
Lots of these older sets had way better pull rates than any specific alt art from a modern set so the value could disproportionately skew from what would be expected even if a lot of the modern product gets opened. An example might be how hard it is to pull specifically Espeon ex from Unseen Forces vs Espeon V alt art from Evolving Skies. Box price is going to be a big factor here too.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and 1st ed base are awesome cards as well! I just think that the prices on alt arts are only going up as modern sets stop being printed/opened/included in secondary box products in the coming years.
You cant look to the past because they have never printed as much as they do now. And its by several orders of magnitude larger now, not something insignifigant to the point where we can look at just how popular a card is. A five figure pop report in a year may seem normal but it most certainly is not
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Ill add i think they have the fundamentals of a top tier chase card in pull rate and desirability but qty that exists gem mint is a hurdle that i personally cant see demand ever overcoming to bring them to true “collectable investments”
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There aren’t any 5 figure alt arts as yet though. Closest is Charizard V which is around 4k.
It’ll get there eventually I assume.
I’d also like to bring up again the bias that old timers might have. As a person who didn’t grow up with Gold Stars, I don’t have any desire to collect them. So while there is a lot more supply of AAs or cards in the SWSH era, they have also been exposed to the greatest number of people. Whether they have the card already, or continue to chase, these are the cards that define this era. And when the packs stop being put into products, and people still don’t have them, we’ll see what happens.
As previously said, I don’t think the sealed product is going to matter much. Unlike opening a Base box with almost a guaranteed Charizard - and if not 12 guaranteed holos, or even guaranteed Shining, Crystal, ex cards, there is no guarantee of anything in these awful SWSH boxes.
I’d love to be wrong of course as that would mean I could buy them cheaper down the line, but not really a risk I’m willing to take because it gets unaffordable quick if all of them are rising.
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I agree that if we look at the art of a card, there is no contest, these will be always sought after.
I feel price are inflated and the comparison long term with an Espeon ex (which is a personal favourite) it’s hard to validate.
There are 38 psa 10 Espeon Ex and already 688 Espeon alt art by looking at the pop report, considering the psa backlog the number will be way higher.
But don’t want to convince anyone, collectibles are unpredictable, anything could happen and 100% agree on how beautiful the card are, I in fact own some (I would like that Lugia alt art so much).
I am just convinced that scarcity is more important than card art when it comes down to price.
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Im not saying they will be cheaper later, just that they wont be the million dollar porfit people expect. Even if they somehow had rhe appeal of gold stars they would literally need to appeal to 100x more people than gold stars do and each of those people would need to be willing to pay a gem mint or mint premium for them