Sup boys.
Another day.
Just curious - when selling high end cards you’re involved with a client who in plain English has a good amount of disposable cash/income.
When selling card(s) that reach 20,50,100k plus mark - are the buyers typically new to the hobby or are just advised to jump into it ? are they Dubai money dudes or Wall Street dudes ?
Just curious to see and feel out the type of buyers out there. With the way this market is headed / in the next 5-10 years I wonder… will someone pay that 120-150k for a Psa Zard ? At this point ; does it become a 2-3 people purchase?
Don’t let Scott fool you. The entire high end market is just him selling to his alt accounts who then sell back to him, including Sekai (Japan), Sheng (Hong Kong), Sean (Ireland), Shone (Israel), and Scout (USA).
So whatever he’s doing at the moment is your answer for the buyer base.
I’ve got a 100k usd offer (a lot of 1st edition holos) from a “white collar” 35-40 years old, he mainly collects sport cards. This is just a single personal experience
My last 3 biggest deals, very high dollar, were completed with people nobody here has ever heard of. Like Scott said, it’s more than one person that’s feeding the market. It’s many people, many of whom are extremely private,
Gary - what do you think there intentions are ? To hold for a while and flip in 10-20 years type of deal ? It sounds like they don’t care for the cards but moreso the long term investment type of thing …?
This kind of assumption really annoys me. When people jump in and set record prices, people speculate intent and immediately assume the worst of the buyers. I am of the opinion that you should try to change your mindset and be thankful that there are newcomers into the hobby actually buying and setting these prices.
Money is undoubtedly a huge factor in decision making. If someone offered Gary 5 million dollars for a BGS10 pristine 1st edition charizard, how could you automatically assume that the buyer is a ‘speculator, flipper, only in it for the financial gains’? There are so many better ways to make money because pokemon cards are not liquid and subject to the same risks as equities.
Anyways, don’t assume people ‘don’t care’. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t turn a blind eye for any card.
High net worth individuals don’t buy anything to “flip” 10-20 years down the line. They buy to hold and diversify their already very complex portfolios. They usually invest a tiny % of their income into collectible acquisitions on a yearly basis. These people who work for auction houses and act as “sales people” for them have a group of clients with different collecting desires and their job is to source or let them know when new things that fit their collecting profile pop up for sale or auction. It’s not like when the Queen dies, all these billionaires are going to flood the market with their “gem mint” graded coins or paper currencies lol. If you check on Heritage, a lot of the auctions, the bigger ones and specific have names of estates associated to them. So usually when the Patriarch/Matriarch of the family passes, the children or the heirs can decide they prefer to liquidate and sell off certain pieces of the collections.
I think Scott made a video at some point if I’m not mistaken he brought up the saying people make in the MTG community about an Alpha Black lotus – it’s never the right time to sell an Alpha Black Lotus. I think the same logic applies here. The new “big” money entering the market isn’t buying for the short term or even for the long term and flipping side of it. They’re just adapting with the times. From my experience, no one I know with money or new/young money is buying any fancy art from 50-1000 years ago. But they’re dropping 30k+ on authentic original Alec Monopoly paintings. They’re spending 10k+ on some limited edition highly sought after KAWS vinyl figures, etc. As the years go by, more people are going to be able to relate and distinguish wealth and prestige (as has always been done) with these more modern collectibles. And Pokemon cards, graded slabs of PSA 10s, sports cards especially or relics, etc. will continue to command and be synonymous with wealth and prestige, imo. Just peaking Instagram and checking pages like the Montparnasse Collection page and all the similar pages to those, or looking at what all the “IG celebrities” like Benjamin Kicks are always posting in terms of their acquisitions, it’s pretty obvious to see modern collectibles are established entirely.
Man even cologne lol. The Creed cologne brand has been around for like 200+ years or something, and I would have NEVER thought about spending 500$+ on a bottle of cologne 10 years ago. Fast forward a few years back, and some social media celebrities men and women made a few remarks or posts or hype around the Creed brand. Women went on and on about how good Creed Aventus smelled, the memes associating the cologne and being “guaranteed” to “pick up” etc. Next thing you know, either owning Creed Aventus (having it on your night stand or by your toiletries when anyone comes over) or smelling like it (because now the smell is easily recognizable) is associated with “good taste”, but more importantly, wealth. Even though, as a 500$+ luxury cologne it was likely always associated with wealth, just no one really knew about it. People didn’t know they *needed* to collect Pokemon, but now they do?
