What are the biggest challenges, issues, and obstacles you encounter when collecting Pokémon TCG?
For me, often it’s the difficulty of separating collecting from its relationship with money. I’m a collector, not an investor or speculator. But I notice that when I start buying, my brain tricks me and tries to make me buy things that the market values more.
For example (I collect mainly WOTC and 1st if exists), a PSA 9 generally holds its value better than a PSA 8… Why can’t I feel content buying the PSA 8? Or why can’t I feel completely fine buying that same card just to put it in a binder?
Looking forward to hearing about yourown obstacles and will also love to hear comments on mine. Does anyone else experience the same thing?
Similarly, I find that I justify buying cards that have value or potential, even if I would rather save to buy a higher priced card because “It’s a great deal!”
The one thing I could do something about is not buying any good deals, but only good deals on the cards I actually collect. I think this is a great challenge for a lot of people😅
I think the biggest challenge for me has been and will always be competing opportunities.
Each week there are so many options. Yet, I have a finite amount of time and money, so hard decisions must be made. When it comes to rare or niche cards, it becomes even more difficult because I don’t know when the next copy will show up.
I often trust my gut and am generally happy with my decisions, but I would be lying if I said that there weren’t cards that I regretted passing on.
I’ve collected Warhammer since I was young and I always wanted every option for that. A “Why have just one type of heavy weapon? There’s like 8 options, buy them all!” type mentality.
When I started collecting cards again it was a nice thing to do with my wife for fun but it has spiralled a little bit. It’s not enough to just get a master set, I start wanting to go above and get more. Promos, alt versions of cards, etc.
It’s an impulsive thing that I don’t necessarily have to stop but I need to take that breather and accept that a collection doesn’t need to be completed in the fastest possible time.
For example I’d like every SV promo card, I don’t need to spend £150+ on a Van Gogh Pikachu when there is still a relatively strong chance that there will be plenty stock to come. But my brain tries to convince me otherwise.
I realise this makes me sound like a major addict but it’s in hand, I just think it’s important to talk openly about how it’s okay to slow down sometimes.
the amount of space it needs - i don´t have any sort of bulk, but still it takes up a ton of space…sometimes i wonder if i should consolidate everything into a few cards
One challenge is being from Australia, it’s so hard to find cards when the postage is very expensive. A $5 card might cost $80 to get shipped from overseas. There are options but it just makes things harder.
My biggest challenge however is remaining focused. I try to complete sets but I get easily distracted by random one off cards. For example I’ll find out about a unique promo or some oddity and I’ll have to have it, neglecting my original goals. I’m not sure I’ll ever complete my WoTC at this rate. I do still love it though.
Making clear goals. I have my favorite items and eras but truthfully I just love all Pokemon. Even newer gens I still really like. This franchise owns me. It’s hard to decide what to actually collect and what needs to be sold.
But I always think of it as a positive if every item I sell is tough for me to let go of. It means that they are good items
My biggest challenge would be conflicts between how I imagine to get my most ideal collection vs how the reality is. Basically, things that I should be doing to expand my collection that I don’t particularly like to do.
To explain further:
I prefer to trade to be able to grow my collection. Meeting and talking to fellow collectors is also a major part of the experience. I believe I have done so successfully here on E4 and outside. But I cannot deny that selling is also very beneficial to be able to get some funds to further my collection.
Piggybacking off that, I am a binder collector and I plan to stay that way for all of my collecting journey. But it would be foolish to deny that grading will certainly maximize my sale values. This is because usually when I am trading, I am doing that against collectors who always have graded cards and I have to trade raw cards vs graded cards. Those graded cards are always cracked after the trade and go straight into my binders. So it feels like a disadvantage.
Also this because I always have to factor in import fees and taxes.
I think for me it’s mainly money and opportunity cost. For example, on any given week or month, I’ll often come across multiple cards for good deals and I wish I could buy them all. But I either don’t have enough money or one sells before I decide to pull the trigger and then I miss out. What I’ve learned though is often there will always be another chance to get almost any set card in the hobby, so I don’t get too discouraged at this point.
The other thing that can be tough is valuating condition/price aspects. For example, I’ll ask myself if it’s worth paying a significant premium for a mint or better copy compared to just settling for NM or EX conditioned cards? What I learned is the condition differences can be so minor that I don’t really care as much, especially if it’s going into a binder set. I like having mint cards and PSA 10s and things, but as time has gone on, I actually really enjoy just getting a NM copy as well and as a result I’ve saved a ton of money on a lot of cards by making some compromises along the way.
Finding information. When i started my deck collection there was very little information about decks besides base set and general information from the boxes. Finding out about printing changes and corrections was done by scrolling through listings comparing each box over and over again. Even modern stuff gets released with little information, especially if its rereleased product in new packaging like the sunmoon trainer kit packaged with several packs or the amazon exclusive battle academy bundle that was also with several packs.
Finding old product. Some products rarely ever show up and when they do people want 3x a reasonable market price because its old. I have 4 decks left to complete a large section of my collection and only one is available but massively overpriced. The other 3 havent shown up for at least 2-3 years. Theres no issue paying market price for rare items but I refuse to buy a box with $500 value of contents for $2000, reasonable is around $750.
Selling. Im terrible at selling. I dont even want max value, just reasonable slightly under market price. But taking or updating photos, dealing with shipping, dealing with buyers, lowballers, etc, i hate it all. I have piles of fun stuff ive picked up over time that doesnt match my collections but its such a hassle for me to sell it that it just piles up.
Biggest challenge is staying focused on 1 or 2 collecting goals. Most of them take me months to complete so sometimes I go off on tangents buying some random card when I’m supposed to be completing another set. Sometimes I’m on track, other times I’m shooting from the hip. But if I’m having fun I go with the flow.
Yeah, I think the issue is exacerbated by the media we consume and especially in a forum like this with many established old timers.
I started off only wanting to collect 1ea of the cards I liked, but then spiralled into buying multiple copies because of the many anecdotes shared on here of people selling off their duplicates and still maintaining their collection so it ends up funding itself.
However, not all markets are the same and I am in a relatively small one so selling has ended up a lot more difficult than I’d imagined - I have no time pressure or need to sell, but still it doesn’t look like it’ll pan out the same way it did before for others.
And that whole detour made me hyper focused on value and those kinds of topics rather than simply enjoying what I wanted to collect. I’m shifting back to just collecting because all this talk of value is exhausting and unenjoyable.
The biggest struggle is not letting negative experiences ruin the passion. This might be more unique to me due to elevated exposure and being around forever, but I think we have all felt it to some degree. It can even be navigating the craziness of a release. Kind of like what we are goghing through right now.
I’ve missed some major opportunities because I let the terrible people who owned a good card get in the way of a good opportunity. Or the madness of scalping deter my interest in a release. The worst are the relationships made that go sour and its tough to cope with the positive memories you had prior.
