I’ve seen plenty of these types of collectors over the years. Much of their collection is based on cards with low pops and not much else.
Now the two main questions, what happens when these low pop cards go up in pop,do they become disinterested?
And second,why is so much stock in it? Population rarely matters if the card has more than 1 or 2 tens. And almost everything goes above that at some point.
Just some questions I’ve had for a while now. I’d appreciate some input.
Those types of people enjoy collecting and owning something that is limited/scarce
Yeah it’s funny yet sad when you see someone put cards up on ebay in this style: RARE POP 2 WOW and it’s a common jungle card with a PSA 8 grade LOL
There are plenty of rarity salopes in the hobby, and that’s ok.
The immediate interest in a card is simply for it’s rarity or difficulty to obtain in a high grade. Most of the time any other factors are either minor or not important at all. I can understand the feeling, I once had a POP 1 PSA 10 of a pretty popular card and it was pretty awesome.
A lot of the time that mentality costs people a lot of money, however.
It’s just about rarity/pop number. They aren’t buying the item, they’re buying the stigma that it’s important/valuable because of the rarity/pop number.
This doesn’t apply to cards with actual low production numbers because typically there is meaning attached to them.
These people aren’t bad for the hobby, they just have a different view to those who collect for other reasons like artwork, Pokémon type etc.
Surely the answer is obvious. Rarity. Rarity adds depth to a collectible. If every single card printed had the exact same number of itself in existence wouldn’t that seem a bit boring? I think it can appear to be that a person only collects what is low population but it is likely multidimensional. For a lot of people I’m sure the artwork is what initially turned them on in the first place which is why they are in the hobby to begin with. You take a card like the classic Charizard for example. Sure, you can own an ungraded base set Charizard in a matter of seconds if you obtain any random one you see but adding elements of variance such as condition, print run, defects, etc makes it more of a challenge whether that be because there are only X amount graded in 10, because they are just hard to come by, or because it costs a boat load of cash in a competitive market. Now if you are a person that exclusively collects something because it is low pop, you would likely end up with cards that aren’t necessarily rare which is an important distinction. Only then would I agree with your statement, “Population rarely matters if the card has more than 1 or 2 tens.”
To answer your two questions, I think we would have to be talking about a specific card.
Rarity, scarcity, excitement! You tubers like to grade cards and check population. I guess its a buzz to have the first ever card graded in say an 8 9 10 etc.
Though low pop does not mean rarer, or valuable by any means.
Again, low pop absolutely CAN mean rarer. You can’t say it doesn’t. Fact is, some cards are just not easy to find in the highest quality.
I never said it doesn’t 
It can mean it of course.The fact it is low pop doesn’t mean it is rare, valuable or hard to find.
The main issue I see with it is that nothing ever stays low pop. Even most crazy rare trophy cards have multiple high grades. They’re basing their collection on a factor that becomes less relevant over time.
Who is they? Someone who strictly collects low population cards, particularly ones below a handful in the population? Does anyoine actually do that?
Another thought. Someone who collects something that is low pop might not necessarily only collect it because of that. The items might have that same attribute in common.
Maybe the issue is with how you are defining the word low. It’s a relative thing. There’s 234 PSA 10 Base Unlimited Charizards out there which sounds like a lot but over 4500 have been submitted for grading to PSA. So if you ask me, 234 is low in that case.
Well there are some people like Derium, who just don’t know the first thing of the graded market, and get excited for a League promo PSA 9 pop 1. But this is completely a “rarity” thing, as everyone stated before. While an extreme example, if everyone in the whole world got 1000 1st edition Charizards tomorrow, I wouldn’t even want even want 1.
I would argue Pop could become more relevant overtime, especially with super rare cards such as trophies. If pokemon is still big in 20 years, I would expect ungraded old back trophy cards almost impossible to find, and the POP will approach the amount of mint copies that exist, and again, after 20 years, how many 9 and 10 will ever be graded after that? 1 or 2 of any given trophy max?
Collecting Rare Cards can lead to making a truck load of cash. Not only is it a better investment, but its a overall a higher achievement for both your collection, and your wallet, especially in the long term. Taking risks, leads to more experience. More experience leads to much greater things then you can imagine yourself doing when you first started. If I didnt spend more and more, and take more risks, ide still be buying psa 9s off someone 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NVdyvCyTnE
Or maybe im not a super saiyan and this is the reality of synd
Which one do you think it is? People?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn_HupY6pkk
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hPp4dgmrc8
Holy hell Syn. That is a ridiculous amount of text. Not even sure where to go from there.
But off topic, i did eventually get a 1st edition Suicune Gold Star. So i get the last laugh there.
can i have it. because i need one. for my coolection
its 5:58 am in the morning, I started writing this philosophee at 3 in the morning… I have spent 3 hours, and Im trying to give the best motivation speach i can to collect and why people collect rare cards, because its so much more then just rarity.
The Pop will always play a role in any hobby. It is a great metric for older sets and cards that are very difficult to grade.
There is definitely a learning curve to the Pop report. For example, a generic holo card from the dp era probably has a pop 1, but isn’t impressive. But a very rare/scarce set or promo card with a low pop is an achievement. Then you have stupid shit like this:
Yea so crack out those 1997 pika and sell em so I can earn my own. It wouldnt be earnt my self if I bought it graded though, plus it’s more expensive graded. 
A good example of what smpratticans is saying is also a card like plasma gale zard and Blastoise Engrish bw7. That thing is always oc and Charizard authority sent in like 100 of em and didn’t get a PSA 10. 
Those are crap smpratticans there’s to many 10s of those 2014 pika trophy out there. Zapdos no rarity is rarer in 10 ive decided
FEAR ME SMPRATTICAN FOR THOSE 2014 PIKAS SHALL BE MINE!
Was the star 10000 yen by any chance?
Naw, it was a gem mint version I got a while back.