“Expensive” is relative. Just any card you got that went up to a point where you would question whether you would pay that price today.
It’s a tough place to be in since you have to weigh the emotional side of why you bought it against the practicality of owning something you wouldn’t pay for today
This one I actually bought droppedshipped from ebay for $600 because I like the set/ for the himeno binder. I think a copy ended just under 5k recently on pwcc. It’s a weird feeling because I didn’t intend to sell it (and still don’t). Yet this thing I bought on a whim could cover 2 trips to Japan alone.
I bought this card for 60$ in early 2019. Graded it myself and got the 10 on it. Knowing it goes for ~4k sometimes it’s tempting but I know I’ll never get one again if I sell it.
PSA 8 copies of the Charizard to the right are worth 10 times as much as the box it came from, a PSA 10 copy would probably be a decent down payment on a house. Safe to say I will never pull another one.
Pulled and graded this myself back in 2013 when I was only around 14. I only learned years later just how hard it is to get in a 10 and the sheer tax zards have in that grade.
Purchased back in 2019 for around $500 usd. This was my absolute grail at the time and was set on having it PSA 10. Would never have guessed it would be as expensive as it is now.
Got two eevee heroes boxes with the goal to pull this after the release and I actually pulled it on a nice summer day with my gf. (Tbh she pulled it bc I weighed the packs beforehand and put them at the bottom of the box for her to open). As it was a cool memory I initially didn’t want sell it.
Due to the hype (don’t want to start another Moonbreon discussion) the offers were so high that I sat together with her and we both decided that it’s the best to use the money for other projects.
So this beautiful card is still a nice memory but has a new owner and I honestly wouldn’t buy a copy for the current market price
instead I got us tickets for a convention in Paris to create new cool memories and also partially funded an Art academy purchase with the money
I bought this about 18 months ago as a CGC 8 that I picked up for $80. Seeing as how raw copies were about $300 at the time, it was quite a steal. Once PSA prices got lower I waffled for a couple submissions on if it was worth it to crack and send. I finally decided to crack it and send it in. Somehow it came back a 10, and its currently the most expensive card in my collection. Never thought I would ever get one, let alone a 10!
Sounds like, ultimately, you’re pretty indifferent to the price of the 2018 Player’s Ceremony.
Someone recently asked me about my Player’s Espeon so I had to dig out the buyee listing. It was pretty questionable, and since then the seller has received quite a lot of negative feedback, but I distinctly remember feeling the fomo, and that it could soon become unattainable. I knew at that price it was a ‘good deal’, in that I could sell it for more if I needed to, but it was probably the first card that I became obsessed with and had no intention of doing so.
I don’t have them anymore but in 2012 I wanted some pokemon cards that were kind of rare for Christmas. My mom bought me a psa 10 shadowless venusaur, psa 9 unlimited base set charizard, psa 9 base unlimited Blastoise, and psa 10 ancient mew. I was 12 at the time. They stayed in a cabinet under the living room tv until 2020 when I was back home from school because of covid and that kicked off me getting back into the hobby.
Probably the mario/luigi pikas. I wasn’t even into pokemon at the time but someone at my yugioh locals had them in their binder and I traded for them cause they looked neat. Probably gave less than $200 in value for the set.
Back in 2015 I made a big purchase of the very first pretend pikachu box for retail. I thought it was so cool but I was interested in the deckbox and sleeves more than the cards themselves.
Nowadays it’s hard to hold onto them considering their combined price would cover a nice vacation.
Some of my other early purchases were of this Psyduck promo. I picked up 3 of them for about 25$ each because I loved the art so much. Before I graded any I jokingly listed one on eBay for 200$ as there were none available. More sellers started listing them at that price and I took mine down. The price has stayed about the same since that moment lol.
I graded my two spare copies and kept one for the binder. One received a 10 and the other a 9.
Did your mom buy the PSA slabs or were these cards raw that were graded later on? On top of that, how did she know to get such great cards!? I ask because I only discovered graded cards pre-pandemic and had no idea what PSA was. I’m impressed!
Nope she bought them already graded. I think she got them from a lot on ebay from a dude who was trying to get rid of his stuff for some reason. I can’t imagine my boomer mother successfully navigating ebay by herself and getting such great cards but I’m not complaining!
Bought the Scream Mimikyu directly from the Pokemon center for 10 bucks bc I genuinely loved the card. I had absolutely no idea it was a rare card back then lmao.
I feel like 90% of my collection qualifies for this thread, for better or for worse! I’d say the best example perhaps is my PSA 10 Japanese Crystal Ho-Oh.
I used to have one in 2016, but then sold it. I really wanted to get a Crystal Ho-Oh in NM+ condition back, so I ended up buying a full set of Split Earth with the hopes that I could sell the other cards and get the Ho-Oh for not too much. The set ended up being in impeccable condition and the Ho-Oh graded a 10. With prices nowadays there’s no way I would ever be able to get the card and if I had the money to buy one I wouldn’t use it to buy this card. But I’m super happy that I was able to get it and I love the card!
