Vintage vs. Modern Pokémon Cards: Are Vintage Cards Undervalued?

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I’ve recently gotten back into collecting vintage Pokémon cards, focusing mainly on PSA 9 graded cards. I wanted to open up a discussion here to hear your thoughts:
Do you think modern cards are overvalued when compared to vintage ones? Or would you say modern cards are priced fairly, while vintage cards remain undervalued in terms of their worth?
For example, the Glaceon VMAX card from Evolving Skies in PSA 9 is priced at around $200. In comparison, vintage cards like a PSA 9 Zapdos holo 1st Edition from the Fossil set or a PSA 9 Dark Gyarados holo 1st Edition can be found for less.

What’s your take on this? Should collectors be focusing more on vintage cards right now, or do modern cards justify their hype and pricing?

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I think we’re in a period where the specific card has a big influence on value, as opposed to just whether it’s modern or vintage.

Glaceon VMax is an Eeveelution, making it more widely collectible than a random Pokémon from one of the early WoTC sets. If you compared a PSA 9 copy of 1st ed Jungle Vaporeon or Neo Destiny Espeon to one of the Eeveelution chases from Evolving Skies, the modern/vintage disparity doesn’t look so stark.

Works the same way from the other end, compare a less desirable/collectible Pokémon (such as a PSA 9 copy of Noivern V alt art from Evolving Skies) and compare it to something like a PSA 9 1st ed Dark Gyarados, and you’ll find the vintage price again looks a lot more healthy compared to the modern.

After 25 years of set releases, there isn’t really an undervalue/overvalue situation going on, it’s just that there are standout favourites/amazing artworks/collectible evolution lines across all the different eras which end up as “winners”, while everything else chugs along at a slower pace.

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I think most of these discussions make the mistake of assuming that vintage and modern belong to the same market. I see the value of vintage and modern products driven by different audiences and fundamentals.

Fundamentals Vintage Modern
1 Rarity scarcity artificial scarcity (FOMO)
2 Age Hype
3 Condition Condition
4 Popularity Popularity
Audience Vintage Modern
Motivation Nostalgic, hobby Financial, Flex
Years in the hobby Old Young

These are broad strokes. Many collectors are interested in both markets which creates overlap, but if you compare these markets side-by-side their values don’t make sense.

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agreed, but with the way crypto is running, they bound to go back up. Vintages will never get old

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Might be a little “WOTC fatigue” going on too. I love WOTC, grew up with it, and it’s what I started collecting and focused on for a while. But as much as I love it, it gets a little stale sometimes.

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Come to ex

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Oh I have. Haha. I haven’t really messed with WOTC much in a couple years. Discovering Japanese a couple years ago was like a whole new world opening up.

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It’s crazy to think that the entire wotc era was just a couple of years. Seems like a bigger portion that it really is

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It’s like 1994 Jim Carrey. Sometimes we get a lot of substance over short periods.

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I think it’s also important to realize that not all vintage is good. Many vintage holos are meh, we wouldn’t even look at those if they were released today. Just focus on few very nice vintage hits.

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I would agree with previous post in that the two markets are operating on similar , some the same , but still key different fundamentals.

No one is rushing to buy PSA 9/10 WOTC/EX era cards as investments because their favourite YouTuber showed them a price chart of prices moving up 10% with an open mouth thumbnail.

The one big factor in my opinion that people tend to somewhat know but not really consider , especially the younger crowd, is that WOTC/vintage has had 20+ years for supply to flush out. Though for most of this time many cards were not worth grading even in PSA 9s.

It’s really 2019-2021 that flushed a lot of the supply out, as a result I do believe the prices are being suppressed where the supply has been able to cater for demand for the last few years. I do believe we will reach a point soon where there will be small supply increases moving forward and the demand will begin to overtake the supply.

if you look at grading rates of wotc / vintage era , you are seeing significant slow downs in PSA 10s and 9s, even with CGCs impact. You can see the price movements in gold stars , shinings over the past year.

As a result the prices are drifting up , you could say it’s being pulled by modern too, which is true however when most social media channels like YouTube post content, I can’t remember the last time I saw a recommendation / post on buying a WOTC PSA 9 1st edition holo, or an EX. Yet the prices are holding / have drifted up over the last year.

I can’t speak for everyone but to generalise - as a primarily vintage collector , I buy PSA 9s mainly or raw then grade, there are very few circumstances that will result in me needing to sell any of my collection as I am well into a career with a house etc . Can the same be said for someone buying a moonbreon for $2k today? Almost Everyone I see picking these up are buying for investment , flip, it’s the cool thing purposes.

In a nutshell - supply of everything was high for the last few years but Moderns demand was insane vs vintage somewhat “normal”, however its vintage’s new supply of graded cards that will begin to crater and that’s when you’ll see the steady increase.

so is vintage undervalued against modern ? The market prices things wrong all the time. Only time will tell.

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No stay away!

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as someone who grew up during the OG hype, vintage is boring. modern is fun and has better art.

hope that helps

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As with many complex questions in life, the answer is that it depends. Each market has overpriced cards and underpriced cards.

If I were to paint broad strokes, I would say that vintage is fairly valued and modern is overvalued right now.

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How dare you.

You think you know a guy and he goes and says something like this

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hey, i said vintage. not ex era

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OG hype as in the 1999 pokemon hype?

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Best breakdown I’ve seen for a while, well put

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As others have already pointed out. I think that some vintage cards are undervalued. If you ask me, they all are, but the market is somewhat different now.

A lot of new fans don´t have the nostalgia for WotC cards. If they see a POP 19 holo first edition PSA 10 Smeargle they don´t think, wow, what a gem. They (may) think, who is Smeargle? Umbreon and Charizard cards (for example), however, may very well start to shoot up again if the attention shifts just slightly.

In the end though, I would not buy a POP 15.000 card for 2k because I´m not sure if hype is a big factor in that price. I would take a look at the ´in between´ era´s, like Black & White and X & Y. These cards have PSA 10 POP´s of around 500 or lower and feature popular Pokémon often. They may well be set to rise.

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Yeah if you break it down into - popular species vintage vs popular species modern it becomes a lot clearer that vintage is undervalued ATM. Because art is subjective and hype doesn’t last you’re just left with supply and historical value

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