Had an interesting thought and wondered how others might react.
Let’s say Pkonno suddenly released billions of cards into the market. Suddenly it’s easy to find a 1st Edition Base set and No-Rarity Charizard for $10 USD a pop. Card prices take a huge dive. Pkonno releases over a million verifiable copies of the Illustrator card, rendering every sense of rarity of a card to mean zilch. Every trophy card, every rare variant in every language, every single cards is now as common as a 1st Edition Machamp.
Would we still collect? Would we want to complete our sets? Or would it ultimately kill our drive all together.
I’d be unhappy that the value of my collection just plummeted. (Shocker here - how people feel about this will directly correlate with the value of their collection)
I’d also be mad that the lifeblood of the hobby - the chase - is suddenly gone.
Cool that I’d be able to own every card all of a sudden, but it wouldn’t mean the same thing anymore.
Nah, I’d be mad too. All of the cards that have taken me years to get and collect would mean ultimately suddenly very little. My excitement of opening a pack to get my Unlimited Shining Gyarados would feel less inspiring. I’d be angry that my collection was basically worthless. That the efforts and risks I made to get some cards would mean almost nothing.
I’d still collect all the Gyarados cards, but it would be such a passive thing that I’d likely start forgetting it. I think it’d be a horrible thing.
Charizard is popular because it isn’t an energy card. Saturation is the death of collectibles. Or more generally, the death of desire. Saturation removes the challenge that motivates collectors.
“Nothing in this world worth having comes easy” - Bob Kelso; a million other people.
*Yes I would still collect. As readily available as they would be, Pokemon cards aren’t for everyone, so there would still be a novelty factor attached. That said, there is absolutely no question that my own desire for certain cards is attached to how popular they are… as collectors we (I) am nothing if not egotistical.
Happy and not happy. I’d be happy that I could afford cards that I want as the art and the history of the cards stays the same. But the chase would be over and that’s half the battle for me. Collecting modern is similar, I could go out and buy copies of whatever I want on ebay right now but that’s not fun. It’s why I’ve been chasing a mint condition binder set, even breaking open PSA 9 slabs for them. I’d also be sad the value of my collection dropped overnight. Sure, I don’t collect because it’s worth something but I don’t think anyone would be completely happy seeing their collection value plummet overnight.
Collecting should be hard to the point where you can’t just go on ebay and buy everything for $1 a card. But it also shouldn’t be hard to the point where nothing is achievable.
I’d say a more realistic scenario would be that pkonno has 110 illustrators. Or 110/3 of various vintage no1 trainers.
If vintage cards were released in the billions I’d probably keep a 1st edition base PSA 10 Base - Fossil set and call it a day. It wouldn’t be worth much ofcourse.
In this hypothetical scenario, which I am truly not concerned about in reality, the whole underlying premise of collecting cards would be gone. Scarcity/rarity and price hurdles would be gone, hence no challenge.
It’s like starting a game with an invincibility cheat or with all items and level 99. Fun for like 5 minutes, then kills it.
In the hypothetical situation you describe, can we actually still call it ‘collecting’? The fun about collecting is that there are both easy to get and hard to find cards. If everything is easy to get and we can just buy to complete a certain set or collection goal, that’s that. There isn’t really ‘collecting’ anymore, instead it’s just ‘buying’, which is similar in terms of the end goal, but worlds apart in terms of the road towards that goal and the experience along the way.
I personally would probably just buy those last cards to finish my goals, and then move my focus to a different collection like Yu-Gi-Oh or twisty puzzles, or perhaps a new collectible all together. Don’t care too much about losing all the value per se since I right now don’t have any intent to ever sell, although it would still suck considering the value put into it, that’s for sure.
Pkonno2002 is a Japanese seller known for selling extra copies of extremely rare cards, like three Pokémon Illusustrator cards, SNAP Photo Contest cards, Trophy cards, and more. We have this thread showing all his rare card sales thus far to give you an idea. This began around January 2017, and he’s sold quite a few pretty ridiculous cards over time for thus far little over 1 million USD in value last time I checked.
I think if something like that were to happen I would still collect. I love this cardboard and I don’t think that will ever change. Modern would still be coming out too so I would still try to pick up all of the great cards I want coming out and cards to come!
Agree with most of the sentiments. It would be a bummer considering all the work/money put in, but it would be cool to pick up the cards that are out of reach now. I would still collect for sure
The nostalgia and inertia would still be there. Scott would look around and say hey its 2008 again. He would slow and steady buy the entire hoard of billions of cards as his biggest challenge yet. Then in 50 years we’d be back to 2020 prices.
