Hi All,
I’m trying to gauge what the true value of the Stamp Box promos are. I’m not sure they’ve exhausted the apparent 100,000 limit yet.
Would 100,000 in circulation be considered a big or small amount? Prices are still all over the place though I have read they have dropped a lot (obviously) as more of the boxes have become available.
Would they continue to drop further? Also I am assuming that the Pikachu holds the bulk of the value as opposed to the Cramorant but since they are sealed together it’s hard to tell what the value is individually.
Lastly, on the topic of big or small print runs, do we think that for ultra/secret rare cards actually have that amount of cards in circulation or how much bigger are they? For example, the rainbow Pikachu or alt art VMAXes or gold trainers etc.
Idk if that’s the actual # but 100,000 is a big run imo, especially when a large amount of that is going into the hands of adult collectors. A lot will stay sealed and the cards that are being opened are going straight into sleeves or sent to get graded. I think prices of the graded cards will continue to come down as the pop climbs, but don’t expect no big decreases over the next 6 months because it’s really popular.
Like most modern things and even some vintage, you’re gambling that the people with a chokehold on the supply will be able to continue doing their thing.
Regardless, I don’t see the merit of using a trucollector evalutation (i.e “actual” price) as a metric to gauge the price of what is currently and will continue to be a feverishly speculated item. As a general rule of thumb, I’d just assume the the cheapest one recently sold is the one that is closest to being sensible.
When this thing first came out, it was cheaper than now, then it went up, leading into the christmas holiday, it started to drop. There could be several reasons for this, but in any case, the holiday changes people’s focus, and it would not be a good time to write anything in stone. I’m with @c0ll3ct0r on this one right now. we can’t konw what 100K LOOKS like, so I’ll just assume it’s more than I think it is. I managed to get a complete box for about what some card sets alone are selling for now, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose money in near-term returns.
Let’s take a look at another Pokemon promo distribution campaign with known print numbers, the “Masaki” Evolution Campaign.
Over 140K people participated in this campaign, and Trainer’s magazine provided the following breakdown for print numbers:
Alakazam with 39,000 copies
Gengar with 36,000 copies
Machamp with 29,000 copies
Golem with 22,000 copies
Omastar with 21,000 copies
People often say they can’t imagine what 100K cards looks like. The Masaki promos provide a very real past example.
Now, this campaign occurred over 20 years ago in 1998. You can regularly find each of the “Masaki” promos raw from $80-200 depending on condition and Pokemon (ironically Gengar despite having high distribution, is also the most expensive). PSA 9/10s are incredibly expensive due to the holder they were presented in leaving indents in the cards.
Back then, people also did not collect cards in the same way, so mint copies have risen dramatically in value. Due to the way people preserve their cards now, I wager most of the stamp promos are going to be PSA 9/10 in quality. In my opinion, there is very little premium on the grade for these promos because of this.
So think about that for a bit:
Each of the Masaki cards have less than half of the 100K print run the stamp promos do (Alakazam at 39K printed)
Masaki promos are way, way older with a 1998 release date vs. 2021
Masaki promos can still be bought raw or PSA 5-6 for $80-200 pretty easily
The PSA premium for the stamp promos is not going to be there because these are distributed in a very secure box with their own cello wrap
With the current stamp promos around $170 combined, I’d say that’s probably where they’ll stay. Over time they might actually drop as people realize how many of them are actually out there, but there definitely is an artificial price floor being held since people don’t want to lose out on their current stashes. Personally, I think they’ll drop to $100 combined.
With all that said, they are beautiful promos, so buy them if you want them and forget about the price you paid. I personally wouldn’t “invest” in them given the factors above. These promos are not the same as the Munch Pikachu / Mimikyu which were far more limited in release, prone to damage in their distribution, and most importantly not released at the height of Pokemania 2.0
I personally wouldn’t obsess too much about the total number. There are plenty of highly printed expensive pikachu cards. We just don’t talk about their print run because it was never publicly announced. My guess is the total number is similar and within an order of magnitude to other boxed releases like Kanazawa pikachu, poncho pikachu. Even the scream pikachu is prob 10k+. It was given to every museum visitor for a week.
Full disclosure, I have bought some of the stamp promos and plan to buy more.
For me personally, I don’t worry about high population as long as it’s a card that a lot of people want. The price is holding well imo and it’s still pretty much under the western market’s radar. I would be more concerned if this was going under MSRP.
In fact, I showed this card over a family dinner with nobody on the table interested in Pokemon cards except for me. They all said it was beautiful and I believe that’s a decent (albeit anecdotal) indicator of newer people that may be interested in it in the future.
I personally own a few stamp promos and I believe they will do well in the future.
However, this is one of the few cards I see appear on my twitter feed from non-pokemon card accounts where people in the replies will say something like “yo that’s dope as fuck! where can I get that??” (I may be paraphrasing). That is to say, this is the kind of release that appeals to people beyond the hardcore pokemon card fans.
Regardless, for many items it doesn’t matter how many are printed, what matters is whether the numbers printed are sufficient enough to satisfy demand. There are cheaper/similarly priced cards with WAY lower raw distribution numbers just because they aren’t all that exciting. Also, there are more expensive cards with higher distribution numbers because they are very exciting. Actually knowing the distribution numbers for cards is quite a rarity, most of the time we have no idea how many are out there and the only conclusions we can reliably come to are based on relative comparisons, e.g. there’s more Japanese DP era cards printed than EX era cards. So to answer one of your questions, we have no idea how some of the main chase cards from sets compare to these promos in terms of sheer number of cards printed.
As we see with the stamp releases, other things can also constrain the market (e.g. per person limits, requirement of being a Japan resident, in-person-pickup only, inability to resell the actual stamps). These constraints make it harder to obtain a box, thereby increasing the price–it’s why a $40 box sells for $150-200 on the secondary market.
I don’t know what you mean by “true value,” as the true value is quite literally what the market price is right now. If you’re asking us to prognosticate about the possible future value of these cards, as the saying goes, I have two balls and none of them are crystal. There are good arguments for why these cards will increase in value as time goes on, and there are similarly good arguments for why they will decrease. If you like the cards, just buy them now and be happy. If not, don’t.
100K is ton of promos. The only reason the prices are “holding” (even tho they are slowly declining) is due to their distribution, otherwise these promos would have a significant lower value.
Its good to take into account that majority of these promos will be kept sealed or treated very well, so the psa 9/10 population will be high and over time these prices will fall as the print run is huge paired with people treating these carefully rather than playing in the schoolyard or trading amongst friends
