So I’ve spent most of the night going through JP blogs, i find them interesting i always get to see things i don’t usually see. i.e. Vending sheets in the original box, the original envelopes Masaki promos were sent out in and sealed Lottery Promos.
I know it’s been mentioned somewhere before but there is real hostility to foreigners and we are constantly refereed to as devils. They go through auctions posting big cards being bid on from people using Noppin and call us the devil for taking the cards. google translate isn’t the best but it seems they deliberately drive up prices of some cards when they see foreigners bid.
There was a a post talking about how stupid we are! someone offered this guy $5000 for his no.1 trophy in bad condition but he wont sell it to foreigners even though we are so stupid to offer that much money since it isn’t worth that much.
just thought it was an interesting observation. has anybody had a bad run in with a JP collectors being hostile?
I do think that we overuse Yahoo Japan, however. I look at it like a delicate ecosystem, that was effortlessly preserved but then overrun with us scavenging out all the deals. It’s no wonder the “locals” aren’t impressed. How would you feel if a bunch of Japanese collectors came onto eBay then all the sudden made prices TRIPLE or QUADRUPLE for things that we, as collectors of the English speaking world still need to buy. We would be pissed.
I try to only use Yahoo Japan for trophy cards or cards that I can’t find on eBay or anywhere else, and as infrequently as I can. It’s so overrun with collectors now that I really do empathize with the Japanese collectors who could have never predicted this.
I sort of agree with you on this but i would make major point that the price we pay is usually more than what a Japanese Guy/Girl can get in local store on singles and promos. I see Web Holos go for 200-600YEN in store and Y!J for 1000-4000, VS cards even cheaper if you know where to look.
I think we rob them of the cheap lots of cards though, as soon as a lot is mentioned on UPCCC its quadruples, Y!J should have only 2 rules 1. don’t talk about Y1J 2. Read rule one. It’s just to easy to buy from i guess and the information is on every forum i visit. It ruined usenet for everybody and will certainly ruin Y!J for both JP and Gaijin
In regards to trophies and Ulta Rares like any collectable they will attract Worldwide attention so therefore will always create an extreme.
Well the thing is that prices are based on supply and demand in an individual market. We have our market, and they have theirs. Prices grew (or didn’t) individually on each market, just like two ecosystems that are completely separate from each other. It just so happens that prices grew differently, and in many cases slower in their market than in ours. So then we come and scavenge their market like hungry cayotes starved for meat and they’re left with an unpredictable market that is absolutely exploding in prices and demand. I wouldn’t be happy either.
I feel for them, but ultimately people are going to go where the prices are cheapest. The Japanese collectors just end up being the casualties of this.
Americans had to deal with a similar situation i believe on the launch of Pokemon cards, Base set boxes all being sent overseas, Europe was paying a lot more than the $80 a box wholesale price. In Australia dealers were paying $200 a box in bulk.
The demand will slow and the market will recover eventually, Only difference is WTOC overprinted everything Media Factory. JP promos have some value because they weren’t mass produced like every English card from WTOC was.
I’m just trying to empathize with the Japanese collectors, they have a fair point. I also think there are translation errors, they probably don’t refer to us as the devil Japanese is a complicated language.
I hardly think it’s evil that outsiders are going on the japanese auctions and are willing to pay more. The japanese sellers are making more money so I don’t see the problem.
I guess we outprice normal Japanese collectors and we are running the country dry of rare cards, so sellers are snapping them up from all shops and re selling online.
The next generation will have no more masaki cards at the rate I’m snapping them up at
Hahah why so many Masaki cards? They’re beautiful, but they seldom hit eBay anymore.
I remember I once had a listing on eBay for AGES for a Masaki Omastar at $20 OBO. I had an offer at $4 after months, and I almost considered taking it! Times have changed.
I do sympathize with the Japanese sellers on the fact that foreigners use Y!J a lot because everything is cheaper.
However, I only sympathize to a point. Yeah, we do make it hard for Japanese locals to get rare cards for cheap, but they do the same thing to us, only in a different field. The Japanese buy up tons of real estate in America, which prevents Americans from buying it cheap.
It’s the whole 20/21st century process of globalization. The world is becoming connected, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it (unless you dismantle the whole Western world).
Prices on eBay used to be really low, but with the massive increase in collectors and the massive increase in awareness of eBay, prices have skyrocketed. The same thing is happening to Y!J, it’s just that Americans (and other foreigners) are accelerating this process.
Some if us ‘foreigners’ do have the advantage of favourable currency exchange rates against the JPY. Our participation in the local Japanese market creates more demand and drives prices of cards up, making it unaffordable to some Japanese collectors. They are ‘priced out’ of the market and they are unhappy about it. This is not really different to when an auction we are eyeing gets mentioned in this forum and we end up getting outbid or paying more that we hope to pay for the cards. We also get annoyed.
On the flip side, Japanese sellers end up getting more money for their cards when gaijins do bid on their auction and Japanese middlemen get their slice if the pie.
