Honestly, I’ve been looking at a PSA 10 Umbreon VMAX for a couple years now and it just seems like it’s never at the right price. I understand pokemon has been exploding in popularity and the price of big chases like moonbreon have shot up, but it seems like every time theres a boom in popularity the prices of super high-end modern chases stay pretty stable after the fact.
Moonbreon was at $800 for a very long time, and the black label was at around 4k for months less than a year ago. It will probably go back to these prices.
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Umbreon alt art went as low as $150 raw shortly after release. It was there for a solid week then went to $200 and went up to different levels and sat for months before climbing again.
Just what I remember for others to learn in case they weren’t around for Evolving Skies release
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Depends. Hows your luck with lotteries?
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It’s the chase of the modern era for most collectors. Even kids know what this card is. I personally don’t see this card ever tanking. If you want it, I would just pull the trigger.
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Nobody can predict the market, if you want it buy it, if you don’t feel comfortable with the price forget about it, I’d love to have a snap squirtle but I’m not paying that much for a peice of carboard so instead if I see it online I just pass by and say oh cool that’s a nice card, sometimes you have to come to terms that you can’t have everything, if it’s something your comfortable with I’d buy it and stop looking up prices on it after you have it so you don’t have any regret if it goes down
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Good time = when you are ready to buy it and have the funds.
It’s a card you have wanted for a few years now, as others said, it might drop a bit but will probably just go up over time. So if you got the funds and it’s for your collection, bite the bullet and buy it. Once you have it, you won’t be market watching anymore and you won’t be worrying if it’s going to increase more or if you bought at the wrong time if it drops.
I am finishing my PSA 9 1st ed Team Rocket Holos set, many can say it’s the worst time to buy that right now, but for me, it’s a good time because that’s where I am in my collection goal and I have the funds ready for it. Still looking for the deals which can be found but I know I might have overpaid on some but I am not worry about it anymore because I own it now.
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just wait for mega umbreon ex to come out. People will move on
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Since hindsight is 20/20 and no one can predict the future I think the “right time” to buy is completely dependent on the buyer.
As an example, I restarted collecting in early 2020. I really wanted a PSA10 1st ed Dark Charizard. IIRC it was around $900 when I first started looking at it. As a new collector, that amount seemed absurd. It then spiked around 10k during the pandemic.
I kept an eye on it and purchased it for $4k in 2022.
Do I wish I bought it at $900? Yes.
Am I glad I didn’t buy it at $10k? Yes.
Do I regret buying it at 4k? No.
The right time is always the right time for you.
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Id try to say to not buy when everything else is increasing, but idk about Moonbreon. I got my PSA 10 when it was around $900 bucks close to 2 years ago and thought I overspent then. But much of the casual audience that only likes modern full arts (aka a bunch of people) really treat it as the crown jewel of collecting. That might be strange to people who understand pop and have been in this for a while and know what’s out there, but that’s just the general vibe I get from talking to friends and people who are just getting into it. My opinion when to buy is really based on if you think the new audience is going to stay around for the long haul or not.
I have a feeling some modern pops soon, but if that one drops under 2k, I’d try to snatch it then. But like others said, when you have the funds might be the best time. It certainly will have some lasting power regardless.
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Definitely not now.
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Kinda what I’ve been leaning towards, but with how insane everything has been lately I’m just unsure what is and isnt overpriced atp lol
When you are stating overpriced, what are you measuring it up against? If you are measuring it up against the bottom, then it is definitely higher. If you are measuring against an expected retracing over the next couple of months (imo), it is still higher as well. However if you are pointing towards the future 1 to 2 years or more, this card definitely has the chance to at least catch the price of the current Latias Latios GX ($4k ish), and then the tinkering continues without conclusion.
Personally I feel that some of the advices given above are pretty good, the best time to buy something is when you have the funds for it, and when you want it the most. In fact you can also explore the possibility on why you have not pulled the trigger for the card, perhaps it is that you just dont like it enough?
I pulled the trigger for 2 raw copies of the Japanese Umbreon back in 2022 for around $650 on Mercari Japan. At that point I was also hesitant if it is the right purchase, but I really wanted a copy so much, I knew I was okay with whatever the price movements of the card were following the purchase. If the price at any given time is not a big enough factor to sway you to purchase, you should also ask yourself if you truly like the card as well.
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I’d personally wait for at least a week or two after tomorrow 
Other replies are right, there is no telling what will happen. You can try to watch broader macro-economic trends to judge when you might see movements in this market, but that can be quite difficult.
For instance, tomorrow many more tariffs will be implemented that I expect to have broad implications for all markets including collectibles. We’ve already seen the stock market drop for three days in a row this week in anticipation of that. A lot of businesses and people who have not yet felt any pressure from the admin’s tariffs are about to and there is a chance we see that economic pain wick its way over into collectibles. In fact not to veer too far off topic, but I have it on good authority that a local business near me that I’ve done work for in the past could end up firing their entire sales team this week because of this. You can reasonably extrapolate that across the entire country and expect a lot of economic pain. People will probably begin to part with some items like collectibles as a result of economic forces beyond their control.
But ultimately, disregarding the staying power of this card and how it seems to be gen z and gen alphas base set charizard equivalent - the right answer is whenever you feel comfortable. It’s like any other investment from my perspective, you need to be comfortable with the possibility that the market value could go down (perhaps drastically) after your purchase and never recover. Once you’re comfortable with that it’s time to buy.
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Guess that depends on your outlook for modern and what happens to the broader economy and/or if pokemon decides to print some other card that becomes more popular and all the modern folks move onto the next shiny thing 
i’d say moonbreon has just as much of a chance of tanking to 800 as it does of going back up to 3k+. will base set 1st ed psa 10 ever tank by 60%? probably not even if the economy craps out one vintage whale can just prop up the prices by themselves. no one can really prop up the price of psa 10 moonbreon if it starts to tank because there are just too many of them
There are currently 6326 PSA 10s Moonbreon Japanese in the market, and 16148 Moonbreon English in the market. Even if you add them together, in 2025 are there 22,000 people globally that would like to keep a copy of PSA 10 Moonbreon regardless of the price? I would say yes.
The base set 1st ed PSA 10 is definitely more price inelastic in this sense, but not sure if OP has $250k to drop if this serves as an alternative option to his umbreon purchase, if we were to stay on topic.
To your point of whale propping up the price themselves, the moonbreon is currently around 100 times cheaper (2k + vs 250k), with approximately 120x times the population. Anyone with the financial capability to buy out 1st ed vintage zards if they are dropping, should also have the same capability to buy out moonbreons since their market cap is not too far apart.
I also own alot of vintage cards myself, including a 1st ed zard (feel free to check out my ig, I pinned it), so I would be the most happy if both do well in the long term. Both are awesome cards that define their own era.
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well, not only is the pop high but the availability is high as well. moonbreon gets auctioned multiple times a week and has endless fixed price listings always available, so inorganically keeping the price up on that would be rather difficult. you’ll also be able to pick up that card any time you want in psa 10 until the end of time
contrast that to 1st ed base whose psa 10s rarely get auctioned and is otherwise only available in a couple of absurdly overpriced fixed price listings i wasnt really talking about charizard since yes that one is crazy expensive so much so that it doesnt really follow the broader market as closely. but for example, you couldve easily picked up the lower tier holos like zapdos, nidoking, poli for 4-4.5k at auction the past few years. but even considering charizard that one also only comes up for auction once every few months.
I am not sure why you are turning this into a Moonbreon vs 1st edition base thing as the thread is about OP asking for advice on when is a good time to purchase the card he fancies in question, which is the Moonbreon.
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Isn’t saying “Don’t buy it” the same as saying “Buy it”? No-one knows what the price of anything will be with 100% certainty. How can you advise someone not to buy it? On what basis?
The correct answer is “no”
So just buy the card if you want it and accept you’ll lose money.
It’s a hobby after all, eh?
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