My take on investing in modern sets & a theory

General
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Just rewatched Pratte’s investing in modern video, now I’m no expert, I’ve been collecting passively since around 2005, and here is my take on modern.

The market has flattened out but it is still up a tremendous amount before, Pokemon is only 26 years old and we’ve never seen an influx in new collectors since the Logan Paul era. In theory, we really do not know what is going to happen, but now since so many people are on edge about collecting and investing into Pokemon I feel like we’re coming to a turning point.

I noticed the panic to buy Eevee Heroes as soon as supply ran somewhat low, I saw prices around $180-$190? then when the reprint came they dipped back down to $145. The sheer hype for this set and Evolving Skies and how “quickly” those prices rose leads me to believe that the second SWSH goes completely out of print will show what the market is really going to look like going into the future.

Pratte talks about how Evolutions took 4 years to move, we also have to take into account that it took 4 years to move because nobody was investing in Pokemon like they are now. VMax Climax boxes & ES/EH are already moving with the market. When Japanese yen dropped so did VMax Climax boxes.

To conclude, I believe that there could be another investing frenzy once SWSH goes out of print and Scarlett & Violet is introduced. One of three things I believe to happen, we see a quick increase in price causing people to realize modern can be invested in and all of a sudden everyones heavily investing because they see modern miraculously increasing in price. OR we see a steady increase and wait for a potential boom for the 30th anniversary of pokemon where we could see an influx in scalpers. Lastly although I highly doubt this would happen, modern stays at an average price such as ES only going for $180-200 for awhile, which I do not think is possible.

EDIT: I know this is a SUPER Hot take, Like i’ve said I’ve been collecting for A LONG TIME, this is merely just an analytical post on modern, I’ve been collecting WOTC for over a decade now, I’m just SUPER curious to see what modern will do after all this craziness & no I’m not 10xing in 2 years, I’m looking at how these sets MAY move in 10-15 years given the crazy circumstances.

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thanks just raised the price on my steam siege boxes

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3 options… 2 make money. One stays even. Cant lose lol.

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This thread just affected the market in less than an hour tee hee.

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I mean in what world does a popular set like ES or EH go down in price? No it’s not going to 10x overnight, will it increase a significant amount in 10 years though? Probably.

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Yeah steam siege and evolving skies are comparable.

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It’s always interesting to me how much people focus on “boom” moments and to see attempts at anticipating the next one. It’s a bit of a shame that people cant expect the market to grow in a healthy way that doesn’t require extremely viral moments that basically throw gasoline on a fire

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If we learned anything in the last 3 years it is that hype sells more than scarcity/rarity

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For some, the boom is all that they know and have experienced. And that experience has shaped their view on collectibles and the collectible card market.

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In the here and now, anyway…

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Imagine only collecting for the past 2 years, and the entire time in hobby has been record high prices, and seeing prices tank.

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It may indicate that modern can be invested in, but should it be invested in [for the individual]?

I think a factor that needs to also be considered is, your positioning over time. This could sound like timing the market, but here’s what I’m really getting at:
I’m referring to one’s reasons for investing. Hard stop. When do you want, or why will you need to be getting out? What are the expectations (predictions) and requirements (necessary conditions to make your intended ROI possible) of the market at that time? These are critical things that need to be considered as well, but the dataset for modern cards is different than vintage or legacy (mid-vintage), so we have to be careful to consider those differences.

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When investing talk is the norm before the product even goes out of print…

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When everyone thinks an investment is a sure bet, that’s exactly when it isn’t. The fact that so many people hold this perspective is a big part of why (IMHO) modern is a very poor investment. If history repeats itself (as it tends to), it won’t turn out well.

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just buy other stuff. spend the same money on older cards and you’ll fair better. there are plenty of listings for cool vintage on ebay

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The logic here isnt exactly sound. Everyone says the s&p500 is a sure bet, does that mean it isnt?

Also, i want to point out that evolutions was printed for 3 or 4 years after the end of XY, so the end of SWSH doesnt promise the end of ES printing either. It could be printed a ton more. They might even just do an alt art printing and include tons of alt arts in a “best of” set, or trainers toolkit set thing, with a large array of popular and playable cards guaranteed. It would not surprise me if they made high value modern cards affordable. I would encourage it too.

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I meant collectible investments – the stock market is a totally different beast. The value of a stock tracks a company’s real-world performance. Investing in an S&P 500 index fund (or the like) is pretty close to a sure bet because you’re just betting on overall private sector productivity. In contrast, investing in the stock of any given S&P 500 company is far from a sure bet and is much more similar to investing in a specific collectible.

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What happened that made it not turn out well?

I feel like although the fundamentals aren’t there and because so much stock has been hoarded, the medium term is when the crash might happen. In the short term, even though scalpers seem to have decreased, all these sheep following people like PokeRev mindlessly, will have bought up a number of ‘investment copies’ or are looking to and I think the price would spike when it finally goes out of print.

Unless of course Pokemon does, and hopefully they do, bring about yet another reprint of sets like Evolving Skies and Brilliant Stars. The recently released (and still releasing) Evolving Skies ETB reprints are already being hoarded even though there are so many of them.

How many people really have the disposable income to buy these and sit on them? Or play pass the buck?

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Everything I say here is within the context of ignoring the dips, as we all know those happen. Instead I’m focusing more on long term.

If we wanna take the Pkmn collectibles market as a singular entity, ignoring all other markets and risk assessments of collectibles compared to other investments, I see modern as an aggressive investment. Meaning that it has/had potential to pay out highly, but it is also significantly more risky. And honestly, I’d venture that the “high payout” isn’t really present anymore. The growth/profitability isn’t as insane as it was during covid, whereas I feel the risk assessment has remained the more or less the same. One’s “guarantee” of stonking has diminished significantly.

Vintage to me is more of a modest growth mindset, like equivalent to a 4-8% growth quarterly retirement fund or something. (Idr standard time periods for growth in this context. I think mine is quarterly :thinking:)

I say this because as has been mentioned, we are in semi uncharted territory. The hobby has never been as large as it is now, nor has it had the same mix of problems simultaneously (covid, printing shortages, inflation, crap pull rates, etc)

Focusing on the booms and/or growth in general has higher potential to get you burned emotionally and fiscally. Just buy what you like and you’ll never go wrong. If you can afford to take the risk, then buy the 1k JP umbreon vmax alt art🤷‍♂️. You may be paid out in a big way, but that risk exists no matter what, even if purely due to the lack of concrete information on our current situation surrounding the hobby.

Of course I “invest” in Pokémon. We all do here, whether we intend to or not. But I track my numbers purely for fun. I don’t intend to sell personal collection items for a long while. Extras are fair game, though. I haven’t started investing in high end modern because to me it still feels untested/unproven. There is some amazing stuff to be said about a handful of sets, but we still just lack knowledge of our economic situation and how it will continue to affect not only pokemon, but the world, going forward.

Vintage isn’t unaffected by outside economic forces, but I argue the ripples will be significantly smaller on vintage than modern. Vintage has fewer over-invested individuals who have potential to dump mass amounts of product, and/or fewer people who will fear sell.

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trying to invest in something that is still being produced doesn’t make much sense. It may feel like you’re buying at a deal now because some day it will be more. But in reality, you’re just being the consumer nintendo wants you to be.

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