I just see how so much stuff is going up over the last years since the big spike ~2017. Especially Wotc Booster and Booster Boxes, they doubled last year and didnt dropped at any point. Single cards from Wotc are not going up that crazy but over all, they are also increasing. I just think that there has to be this one point where it just cant get up anymore/falls down…
I cant believe that it can only drop with a overall bad Situation like a economic crisis. It cant get up forever, and it feels like it did until now.
Well yea, and the question now is, is the situation right now too positive (mainly on Wotc Cards and Sealed Products)?
I hate to answer a question with a question but, why can’t pokemon items continue to go up? Most true collectibles do. One example is sports cards from the T-206s to Gretzky’s to Jordan’s. Another example I’ll explain is, I recently bought a Beatles album for nearly $30,000.00. It feels like a solid investment too when you consider its value history (See the value chart below). Keep in mind the last 55 years have seen numerous recessions and economic downturns which never affected that collectible value climb.
The first picture is my lovely wife showing off the item.
The second picture shows the values from the 70s thru 2006. The chart doesn’t show the last 13 years but there’s been several sales besides mine that continues the upward trend.
So again I’ll ask you, why not;)
Because people don’t want to believe that their window of opportunity to buy the things they want is closing or has already closed and that they need to change their collecting goals to better align with their budget.
To be fair… I seldom hear “should I take out a loan or max my credit card to buy fine art/stamps/coins?” or “Raffling off my stamp collection! $20 per ticket”. It’s less about the franchise and more about the collectors.
Prices change for a reason. It all can be simplified down to supply and demand.
What is the shift in either supply or demand that will lower prices? Is more product gonna magically appear? Are a large number of collectors suddenly going to lose interest in collecting? What is the shift that will change things?
@qwachansey seems to be suggesting that some collectors have gone into serious debt to pay for their Pokemon card collections and that a recession could bring down the Pokemon card market as well. But I highly doubt that people going into debt to pay for Pokemon cards is some sort of systemic issue that is going to have major ramifications for the entire hobby down the road.
So to answer your question, supply of vintage product is going to decline, so the only thing that is likely to lead to lower prices down the road for vintage products is a loss of interest. Obviously that’s entirely possible, but Pokemon is still incredibly popular in 2020 and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. And it’s still the case that the vast majority of people who grew up on Pokemon do not have a great deal of accumulated wealth at this point. It takes decades for most people to acquire serious buying power.
More people who grew up on Pokemon coming into greater wealth has the potential to create even more demand for high-end cards, which will continue to decline in supply.
The debt or can’t afford argument is only relevant if majority of the market is comprised of those individuals. While the wafflemaster420XXX’s are loud, they don’t make up majority of the market.
One thing I want to touch on, is that every day there is less and less sealed WOTC Pokémon products available. Every time someone opens a pack or a box there is one less available on this earth. If these items are getting scarcer and harder to find, why would the prices go down? Wouldn’t it make more sense for prices to continue to grow? Just like we are? Our generation is getting older and most of us are making more money each year to spend on the things we like!
Sealed product saw unprecedented growth in 2019 as did many cards. While I think sealed product outran the value of the cards inside a little too much, I welcome the growth as cards will certainly follow suit in a big way. Some boxes in the $5k+ range become out of reach for many people or the scarcity alone limits the availability. The population growth of high graded, higher end set cards has slowed and are becoming more finite/less availability. In general, Boxes are no longer cost effective to open (You still see it happening but mostly with other motives like a channel, box break, etc). All this together limits the number of additional set cards that will be graded PSA 9/10 in the future and slowly reduces the amount of sealed product in circulation. PSA has graded its 1 millionth Pokémon card and the popularity of Pokémon hasn’t been this high since 1999 if ever. No one really knows how much higher the populations of certain rare set cards will go but I would guess we have flushed out the vast majority of the PSA 10 vintage demographic. As many have already said, this is a recipe for higher prices barring any major macro economic factors. Happy collecting and 2020!
I higly doubt Sealed product will ever fall in price; mostly due to the fact that box breaks are happening all day long and they fill within a couple hours.
People can’t afford U$S3000 to buy a Base Set Booster Box; but they can actually afford $300 for an Artwork set (3 booster packs) guaranteed unweighed from a livestream.
This is happening, every single day; and is leading to scarcity: Less amount of product available means prices going even higher.
I bought a Gym Challenge Sealed booster Box for U$S1200 and a Base Set Spanish 1st. Ed box for U$S2000 less than 2 years ago; a spanish base set 1st. Ed box sold for U$S4000 yesterday -eBay- (was listed at 5000; i sent a $3000 offer and the seller ended up selling it for U$S4000). Some low pop PSA10 cards are going to explode in price; even more in 2020.
And there’s something ‘‘unique’’ that is still flying under the radar, PSA9 1st Ed. Base Set, most holos go for under $350 and i bet thats not staying there during 2020.
As @randox mentioned, some 2003-2007 cards exploded in price; Suicune from Ex Team Magma vs Aqua went from $140 to 440; Charizard Ex From FRLG went from $390 to $800ish; as soon as people realize how low pop some Ex Team Rockets Returns cards are (i.e hitmonchan, articuno, scizor…oh man, trust me, some Ex 2003-2007 will surpass the U$S1K mark). And if we ever again see a Milotic Ex from Emerald (PSA10) listed, thats going to be a new Ex 2003-2007 record price wise.
@enlightenedbulbasaur I do not think a recession will “crash” the Pokémon market. But it’s undeniable it will adversely affect more people in Pokémon, especially for low - mid tier cards, than those in longer established hobbies.
To take your net worth chart – I fully agree that as people age it bodes well for the hobby! The age of serious baseball card collectors is likely a full generation older than the average Pokémon collector. My point is that where we are *now*, relatively few collectors are over 35, and many have most of their net worth tied up in Pokémon. I’m not talking about trophy collectors here, which does not represent the entire hobby.
In ten years we’ll be in a much more established place and the market will be completely different. I’m looking forward to it! But for now, the collective age is lower. Sure, Instagram users like blazeit420charizard are not indicative of collectors overall. However I’m not going to pretend they don’t exist or that 22 year olds aren’t buying cards they cannot at all afford. Because these people are so vocal, it does affect overall perception that Pokémon has a younger audience.
I think a lot of the youtuber smaller collectors will eventually find a new thing they like. However, there are young collectors i see (like 17/18) buying trophy cards and sealed product. Along with people around my age (31) or older finally having stable income to buy boxes and higher end items. Plus i have friends with kids around 7/8 that are into pokemon and they invest in boxes and psa cards for them when they get older. I can see pokemon being a healthy hobby for a very long time
A lot of collectors are in the younger age bracket (early 20s). This group of people will eventually slow down their collecting and even liquidate their collections to purchase a unit/houses/kids/real life expenses.
While I somewhat agree, I’ll throw this out there. Do you think the early 20s kids are collecting WOTC, or modern now? They have no nostalgic connection to the early Pokémon (they would have been born in the late 90s). Not to stereotype or classify, but I would guess most “kids” that grew up with WOTC era stuff are in their late 20s/early 30s and most younger people are buying up post 2007 cards (that they grew up with). I’m curious as to what the age breakdown truly is!
You need new future teenage/young adult collectors to offset this. Given the popularity amongst young kids now, I think we should be ok. But yes this is a decent risk.
I’m early 20s and collecting ex’s and some wotc. Main focus is ex’s tho as that’s what I grew up with. I do know a lot of mid 20s collectors who are exclusively wotc tho.
I higly doubt Sealed product will ever fall in price; mostly due to the fact that box breaks are happening all day long and they fill within a couple hours.
And there’s something ‘‘unique’’ that is still flying under the radar, PSA9 1st Ed. Base Set, most holos go for under $350 and i bet thats not staying there during 2020.