This is related to Scott’s video posted today. The current availability for vintage cards is nauseating. There are 9 PSA 10 1st edition base set Venusaur cards available on eBay with 3 more starting at PWCC this month. That’s 12 total on eBay.
I remember collecting the PSA 9 1st edition base set and bidding in some competitive auctions because the card wasn’t available anywhere else. Now the PSA 9 and even the PSA 10 cards are everywhere.
How long will this availability last? Are there enough collectors or at least long term speculators/investors to buy up this supply?
Good question, I just watched Scott’s new video while at the gym and was wondering the same thing. I imagine prices will stabilize once there is more scarcity, but like you said it would take some long term investors to buy up the current supply.
It will last until the next big upswing in prices, Pokemon isn’t hot at the moment and business are looking to take their capital and move onto the next collectable (Yugioh imo).
In all seriousness, it’s speculators trying to catch a falling knife. That’s it.
If you’re a collector it’s a buyer’s market.
If you want to put on your investor hat… you’ll be waiting years to see any sort of significant increase in price. You can do a lot in 3 years with the money you could potentially throw at wotc set cards. The market needs to gradually absorb supply and this has never been a fast process.
WotC set cards are not speculative by any means because even the most casual collectors are aware of what they are, by nature if it’s iconic it can’t be speculative.
A lot of differences today compared to two years ago. There is more activity and sellers today than ever. Everyone is trying to flip product, this is the result. Actually just finished a video that touches on that, somewhat of a part 2.
Overall I think there are macro cycles. I doubt the pattern will be identical in 3-5 years. It has already changed within 2-3.
Pokémon is about as healthy as you can get right now you guys are crazy. Go ahead and chase the next “big thing” that’s always where the lemmings go to lose value. See it in the stock market all the time. Speaking of the stock market…take your “flippers” and “supply” issue and times it by a trillion and that’s the stock market. And that sucker still on average rises.
@jcincy101, That is a good point. A lot of people conflate a “healthy” market with only increasing prices. While it is frustrating for people who bought at peak prices for some cards, today there is so much more activity, which is more relevant in relation to health of a hobby.
What I want to know is where all of these big time sellers (d&a, or the guys from Iowa) getting their supply of first edition base, especially the highly graded stuff? Are they buying collections of mint stuff and getting it graded, or buying pre-graded and unloading? Is there really that much gem mint stuff still floating around 20 years later that hasn’t already been graded? Surely they can’t still be opening 1st base boosters as that isn’t financially profitable.
That many people are uneducated about the value of their collection, or are ok selling them off to a store/seller like them? It can’t be like pawn stars where multiple huge collections are coming in weekly and they’re buying for pennies on the dollar is it?
@kpod, There are businesses who spend annually 6 figures on the low end, some around 1M. For example one business bought a larger pokemon collection that included a 1st Ed base box among other wotc cards. The total price was over 100k.
@kpod Larger stores have buylists and typically pay 60-70% below retail. There are a lot of people who don’t have time sell cards on ebay. Especially when you get into large quantity collections.
Also the businesses typically guarantee payment for their buylist. I did a patreon call with a guy who bought a 1st base box during release. I told him his options, he ultimately went to one of the larger stores and got the cash in hand.
These larger entities will dictate the set card market moving forward. I touched on this before in patreon and some public videos. Basically a good rule of thumb is when an individual purchases a card, there are businesses out there adding 0’s to the capital and quantity of that individual purchase.
The biggest market is the stock market. Let me tell you why it feels so good and healthy to be in Pokémon market (I am in stocks too, but like to compare)
You can’t dilute Vintage Pokémon product. You can (and happens often) they dilute your company shares in stock.
No sudden crashes in vintage Pokémon product. Any stock you have right now can have a scandal, accounting fraud, or the ceo dies (imagine if a Elon musk died) and the stock craters in a matter of seconds as robots trade millions of shares on their algorithms. Can’t happen in Pokémon.
And finally: people get into stocks to make money. So flipping is rampant and people sell all the time. A lot of people on the Pokémon market are collectors and simply don’t sell.
@garyis2000, He was waffling more than instagram waffles. He was a retired doctor, was rigid about how he wanted to transact, didn’t want to hold the box any longer, so took the closest in person deal.
