I am new to posting on here, but I am currently working on a research project that delves into the early market for Pokémon cards, with a particular focus on graded cards and singles. The aim of my research is to capture the essence of what the market was like during its nascent stages and to understand the evolution of Pokémon card values and popularity over time.
To make this research as comprehensive and accurate as possible, I am reaching out to this wonderful community for assistance. If any of you have:
Screenshots of old listings, sales, or auctions from the early days (especially from the late 90s to early 2000s).
Data on card prices, sales volumes, or any other relevant market metrics from that era.
Personal anecdotes or experiences that can shed light on the buying/selling/trading dynamics of the time.
Links to old articles, forum posts, or any other resources that discuss the early Pokémon card market.
I would be immensely grateful for your contributions. Your insights and data will play a crucial role in painting a vivid picture of the Pokémon card market’s early days.
It would be helpful if you have a more specific time range in mind and also a specific group of items. For instance, the story of English base set is very different if you look at 1999 vs 2003 vs 2013 vs 2016 vs 2019. I see you mentioned 1999-early 2000s, is that all you are interested in? Graded or ungraded? Sealed product or singles?
So i’d like to get data of early PSA sales/singles sales from the very beginning so i’m assuming 97? From it’s inception to 2010~ the grey area where I’ve been unsuccessful of gathering any info.
I would like to update that the pojo.com price list via the way back machine has served as a gold mine. I’ll make sure to share some interesting screenshots here later today!
No I have not! That would be awesome if they’d be able to share any info on the past market. The biggest lead by far has been using the wayback machine to view the pojo.com price list throughout the years, though i’m not seeing any comps for graded cards.
You might appreciate this, some of the earliest cards graded
The CD promos, Cool Porygon, birthday Pikachu were also some of the earliest graded Pokémon cards that were imported and graded en mass for the USA market
I had Beckett books during ex era that would have avg going prices for most raw cards of the time. I have no idea how accurate they were but some original era ones might exist.
I don’t think you realize there was no real “auction” market around 2000.
Internet wasn’t even available for a lot of people, so you won’t find anything like PWCC/Heritage/others doing online auctions.
What comes close was Ebay as marketplace to buy/sell. Paying per minute for using internet (by phoneline) So finding information took a lot of time and because of that a lot of money.
WotC had a kind of “website” (message board) were you could once a week ask questions about gameplay/cards. You had to be “in line” and only got the option to ask 1 question. There might be logs about that.
Pojo had a magazine also did Becket. The online version were a little later (I think around 2004)
The Becket magazine had an overview with prizes by card. Ungraded, Grading wasn’t barely used.
So in general the “market” was local. Untill internet became more and more accesible by the people.
So you won’t find sales volumes, nearly impossible because there was almost no contact between the “markets”.
I am pretty sure I didn’t see a single graded Pokemon card in 2003 at Gencon, or 2004 Worlds.
I only have a few of the Pojo/Beckett magazines, because in Europe they were hard to get.
But here is a page from one of them. (2003 edition)
Pokegym (they have a lot of data) also had a trading/prize discussion area.
It goes back to 2005 (and there is also an earlier board but I don’t remember the name) Pokegym
I walked around as they constructed decks, and Imakuni (out of costume) spotted me. We talked a bit, remarking on how everyone got a Charizard.
[“It’s very expensive in the United State,”] I stated.
[“How much?”] [“A First Edition Charizard goes is around three-hundred dollars.”] [“Three-hundred dollars?!”] [“Yeah. But that’s the First Edition one.”] [“It’s the most expensive?”] [“No. The Japanese Tournament Kangashkan is one-thousand, five hundred dollars.”] He staggered back slightly.
I was on Poke Gym as well! I actually won a match against the #1 player in the world in a City Championships in 2008 with this listing I posted on there, was so shocked to see that the post is still up Flygon Gliscor BR Deck | The PokeGym
Were you thinking of pokemon-trading-cards-online.net [defunct for over the past decade]? (The original PTCO). Most of the members eventually pivoted from PTCO to Gym in '05-'06 due to server issues, if memory serves.
@lucario4ever, between the online community boards I was active in (PTCO, Pojo, Gym), the vast majority of the transactions that took place were raw cards. As others have mentioned above, graded cards were not a widely acknowledged commodity.
