I don’t post here often, and the last time I did was when I asked about the Art Academy cards that no one thought would be worth anything. I’m glad I didn’t listen because I bought as many as I could, and then they skyrocketed in price. I did pretty well with that purchase.
Now, I’m curious about a non-promo card. I generally avoid non-promos since I like the stories behind promos, like the ones I’ve collected. But something about the Ceruledge IR from Surging Sparks really draws me to it. What are y’all’s opinions on it? Is it undervalued? Overshadowed by older-gen Pokémon? I like it more than the newer full art Ceruledge from
PE. That one in my opinion is way too busy.
I’m not a flipper, so whatever I do is more long-term. Just curious what folks think. I have noticed that the centering on Surging Sparks is really bad overall—at least for the English sets. That has to help the value, considering the pull rates for that set are rough, and even if you do pull one, it’s probably a PSA 9 because of the horrible centering.
My gut tells me it’s being completely overshadowed by other cards in the same set and newer sets. Being a Gen9 Pokemon hurts it too. But that’s some cool ass art and ghost armor with swords for arms is pretty badass. I’m not a set guy so I don’t go all big eyed for just any card. Historically I only buy promos. I think most set cards look like lazy digital art. Which is a reason I shy away from collecting them. That’s what my gut is telling me.
I collect and would like that collection to go up in value. Like I said I’m not a flipper. That being said when was this forum just for discussing cards for collecting with no monetary angle?
Yeah the market is weird. Some folks says PSA 9’s are worth what raws are in modern. Seems a bit silly to me. My plan is to buy a bunch of them get them graded and forget they exist. I’ll keep one out for display but I think these sets have to go out of print for the market to be real. If I lose money I’m fine with that. Chances are I’ll just break even and have a bunch of nice looking cards.
Idk man, buy what you like. Things are so volatile right now that long term speculation of hyper-modern is difficult. Although I guess if prices are pretty reasonable, it doesn’t hurt to buy 5-10 of them and sit on them for a few years.
It’s a beautiful card and with today’s market anything seems to be possible, but picking up a regular random IR card as a long term investment feels a bit overkill right now. Anyway it’s well available and for sure doesn’t break your budget to buy now so if you like it it doesn’t hurt to go for it. But i have to say this line feels like a bit too thick:
When reading the thread where the topic is discussed it’s slightly overkill to say that nobody said they will be worth anything. It’s great that you made some money with your purchase but tbh with covid boom you could have made money with basically any purchase made before it
I dont think it has anything that the other 200 illustration rares dont. Itd make a nice binder page. Maybe you can buy a bunch and the market moves and you make dozens of dollars. cool card tho
I would say it’s a complete misrepresentation. Gary said some negative remarks but that’s because he has a salty history with the cards and is not a serious voice on the topic. Basically everyone else in the comments were positive on them.
That’s pretty unambiguous. I rose an issue in the thread that if you wanted the desirable illustration cards, the specific Spiky-eared Pichu was a common promo and not the kind of limited quantity card that would be ideal to buy. I didn’t even say not to buy it, just that it lacked the fundamentals that many of the other illustration cards had.
So what was the actual outcome? The original post was in 2019 so it’s no exaggeration to say that you could have bought basically any graded card at the time and made money on it.
But raw copies of the Pichu are still around $20 and the highest sold graded copy on ebay was like $80 for a PSA 9. Maybe the 10 premium could get you a few hundred (there is a live copy for $576)
So it’s great you made money but let’s consider the alternative situation I suggested in the thread.
But I was buying the actual illustration winner cards with limited copies at the time like this one in april 2019:
So to correct the revisionist history here, not only were e4 members generally very positive on these cards in 2019, the advice you were provided was really good.
Agonizing over whether to purchase a $35 modern card you admittedly really enjoy over the prospect of losing maybe $20 in a worst-case scenario seems like a really sad way to collect Pokemon cards. But to each their own.
If I were only buying one, then sure—but I like to focus my efforts, so I’ll probably grab 10 or so. I’ll eventually get them graded… maybe. So the cost won’t just be $35. Worst case, I think I’ll break even at such a low entry point.
The question I raised wasn’t whether I’d lose money or end up in a financially precarious situation. It was more about the card’s potential future. From what I’m gathering, the general opinion here is based on values after they’ve already risen, not before—so no worries. I’ll just buy it because I like it, hope for the best, and keep doing my thing.
I keep my older brother up-to-date on some of the happenings in the Pokemon TCG, but he has very little interest in it. He’s more of a Magic player.
That said, when I was telling him about the hype around Surging Sparks at release, he was looking thru the set list and the only card he commented on was this one. He really liked it.
