Give me your advise on if you think higher end booster boxes have capped out for now, so many boxes are already at the 10k mark and i dont see how they will jump a huge amount again short term but you never know… Im referencing all high end boxes from wotc, so lemme know what you think thanks!
I agree with you but a big drop wouldn’t surprise me,
3 Likes
These are some of the most stable items in the hobby, if they’re dropping, so is the rest of the market.
1 Like
Only time will tell man
5 Likes
I think we’re all very eager to see what 2020 has to say.
1 Like
Nope.
Too many people are happy to invest or do box breaks because they can’t find buyers for their sealed boxes. We’re also starting to see the prices of graded singles start to catch up with box and pack prices as well.
Until wotc packs become prohibitively expensive don’t expect the growth of boxes to slow. There’s a lot of people out there who are able to afford throwing $40-$100 at loose packs.
5 Likes
The question at hand is more so whether boxes and sealed products are unique collectible assets themselves and not just vessels for cards. Some price rises for boxes make sense, when PSA 10 1st ed. base Charizard is 40k it’s quite easy to see how a 1st ed base box that produces 12 holos (albeit zero guaranteed PSA 10s) is in the 80-100k range. For someone who doesn’t collect sealed product, the math works out to me here, there is a significant premium but you could make back a good portion of your money if you opened the box and got good pulls and good grades.
Other boxes are frankly insane. Skyridge is 16-18k right now and the highest price PSA 10 card is like 2.5k for Charizard. Many of the other crystals sit around 500-1000, holos maybe 75-200 depending on Pokemon. There is zero way you will ever come close to making back a good percentage of your money. Same goes for many EX series boxes as well. You might pull a gold star, but everything else good you pull out of those boxes is a $100-200 card in PSA 10, and you get at maximum 3 ex per box.
However all of this is irrelevant if the people buying sealed product don’t care about the cards at all but instead see the sealed product itself as collectible. I don’t think we have enough evidence yet to support this, maybe with 5-10 more years of prices like this it will make sense, but everything I have seen shows that cards are still the most fundamental collectible asset. We don’t have grading services like other collectible hobbies for sealed products (see video games, LEGO sets, etc) and the sealed product grading we do have (packs) is atrocious. I think the next couple years will be telling.
6 Likes
Sealed box supply goes down and sealed pack supply goes up. I’m waiting for the day when the sum of the individual packs are worth less than the sealed box. If you’re buying, I’d suggest buying a sealed box and avoid individual packs.
1 Like
As long as box breaks still happen, price wont drop…
1 Like
The boxes themselves are most certainly unique collectables, the prices will not always correspond with the expected value of the cards inside. When the supply dries up enough we will see some of the more abundant boxes begin to pull away from the expected value. This is what has happened with skyridge.
1 Like
Never understood all the sealed box collectors and thinking of boxes as their own separate collecting entity to the cards inside. Sealed boxes have value because of the potential cards/ packs inside. While I don’t disagree with the logic that the supply is dropping as boxes are opened, there are still way more boxes around than people give credit to. The skyridge box among others is so far beyond the value of the potential cards inside that eventually it will correct and equalize with the cards. Here’s a weird comparison but for the longest time the order of value for precious metals was palladium, gold and platinum being most valuable. Now platinum is the least valuable and palladium is the most valuable. I realize there’s many factors for this example based on manufacturing uses, demand/supply, etc but this something that I think almost no one foresaw changing.
2 Likes
I don’t see a price drop at all. In fact, I see them rising. Part in reason is because I see a lot of collectors Migrating here from other sports collecting venues including myself. It’s just at this point, they’ve become out of reach for myself lol.
I’m on the side of the fence that sees boxes as separate collectibles, like fourthstar said. Why buy a 10k box when you can find almost any complete WOTC set for sub 1k? Obviously there are outliers but the point remains the same. There is a potential marginal ROI but if you have that much money to gamble then you’d be wiser to take that capital elsewhere.
As a side note, I get a different reaction from holding a WOTC box than I do from flipping through a binder of the same set. As a kid, getting a single pack was a privilege; let alone an entire booster box. I could never imagine it. Owning a booster box is fulfilling for the same reason as completing a set. That being said, I don’t think every box will end up opened because there will always be high end collectors with the same train of thought.
Merry Christmas Eve 
3 Likes
No. There are collectors who view sealed boxes as collector’s items in and of themselves.
Good luck expecting Skyridge boxes to dip when there are hardly any out there, and expecting them to “equalize” with the cards (which really aren’t all that valuable in the grand scheme) is nuts. In order for that to occur, Skyridge boxes would have to drop over 10k in price. That will never, ever happen.
One of the worst things about this hobby is that people project their own opinions on to everyone else. You feel that boxes are only valuable because of the “potential cards/packs inside.” A whole lot of other collectors don’t feel that way.
1 Like
I’m willing to wager that it will drop by over 10k. Heck im even happy to put a short term time frame on it.
Pm me if you want to take it up.
You don’t like people projecting their own opinions when it differs from yours, yet you project your own loud and proud?
1 Like
My issue is that it seems like some percentage of boxes are treated like vessels for the cards/packs, and the remainder are treated as unique collectible items with a value inherent to themselves. I don’t think anyone is arguing that boxes aren’t collectible, the question is whether they are so collectible that whatever cards are contained within them have little to no bearing on the value.
It would make much more sense if the trend was that vintage/out-of-print boxes were like this and were priced significantly above the prices of perfect pulls with perfect grades. But while that’s the case with stuff like Skyridge and EX sets (even the non-GS sets) it’s not the case with the most iconic set in the hobby. 1st ed. base boxes are still priced quite reasonably when you consider what you can make out of one. The scarcity argument doesn’t hold up either because the numbers of available Skyridge/1st ed base are similar. It’s not like there hasn’t been a Skyridge box on the market for years and people are listing their 1st ed. base every week. I am certainly not an expert on WOTC box prices but what with the prices 1st ed holos are commanding right now, they also seem fairly reasonably priced.
Right now I’d put more stock in the well-established areas of the hobby. It seems strange to me that sets like Skyridge and EX boxes vastly outpace WOTC sets in terms of box value to card value ratios. I think we will see some kind of correction in the future, whether that is an increase or decrease in prices is yet to be seen.
2 Likes
Packs and boxes also have nostalgic value, the price people are willing to pay to momentarily relive their childhood, the cards inside don’t have any bearing on the price in those cases. Opening packs is the heart and soul of the hobby. I think most people hold the experience of pulling their favourite card higher than if they/their parents just purchased it for them
3 Likes
I’ve watched the hobby develop over the last 8 years since 2012 when I got back into collecting seriously as an adult instead of just a kid collecting cards. My opinion comes from my experience of being engrossed in the hobby for that 8 years and slowly watching the value of the cards inside the boxes being worth way more than the value of the sealed box, to the exact opposite today and I don’t think the disparity is sustainable. Just because you disagree doesn’t make my opinion any less valid. Prices of sealed boxes will continue to do well but they will certainly hit an inflection point in relation to the cards inside. Look at other sealed boxes in collectible areas outside of Pokémon and you won’t see the same price disparity.
3 Likes