For a while the title could have been about Obsidian Flames in general, but now the booster box prices have starting moving up. This product seems like a no brainer to me as a charizard set. It will be popular in the future for that simple fact. The ETB in general is cool for the promo charmander, and the Pokemon Center exclusive one contains a stamped copy too.
I expect these will hit $100/box almost immediately after going out of stock on the Pokemon Center website, and only up from there really.
At least in my opinion, this is a pretty meh set overall. Yes, it has Charizard, but so do other mediocre sets like Darkness Ablaze - these types of sets haven’t performed that well overall thus far. Add that to being part of the early SV era where a TON of product has been printing and I think this will probably be slow to grow.
There is also only one card in the whole set worth more than $20. As with all sealed products, if one is patient enough the value will probably increase eventually, but I think it will probably be a while. I do like the PC ETBs for the stamped cards, but booster boxes are probably still better and those still can’t hit over $100 even with the MSRP increase in SV. Also, as an aside $100 for a $60 box isn’t a huge profit in general, especially when factoring in shipping and fees.
To be fair, there are 4 charizards. But yeah I understand your point. That’s fair enough to explain not being popular immediately. I don’t think it will stay that way once it’s no longer available at retail.
I agree that booster boxes are better, and I will probably pick up a case of them in a few weeks as well. I have to disagree on $100 for a $60 product not being “huge profit” - even if the seller covered shipping + fees.
Say the seller offers free shipping ($10) and pays eBay’s 13.25% fee + 2% ad fee. So that’s $100 * 0.8475 - 10.0 = $74.75, or 24.6% profit. If the buyer covered shipping then that jumps up to $84.75 or 41.3% profit.
The last couple Charizard sets haven’t been doing too hot (no pun intended) with Darkness Ablaze and Champions Path. Have they gone up from their lows? Slowly yes. But not to an extent where I’d want to park my money. I think there are better places to look if your goal is solely to hold it til it appreciates.
If we’re basing it solely off Charizard, even 151 directly after has an additional 3 Charizards, but with a lot more of a set identity (and desirable cards in general) than Obsidian Flames has.
Only 4, but as mentioned above I believe booster boxes are better. I just also like the Pokemon Center ETBs that include a stamped promo, and charmander is a particularly popular pokemon.
Of course I would agree that 151 is a much stronger set and much better products in general. This thread was more about why people dislike Obsidian Flames, which seemed to be happening before 151 even came out.
Sorry I wasn’t clear enough, I more so brought that up to try and answer the original question as to why Obsidian has been more or less ignored right now. The set came out while everyone was anticipating 151’s release just a month later. And the one thing Obsidian had going for it, 151 had as well. So I think that’s another reason Obsidian has had such a poor start.
I think 151 overshadowed most of the Scarlet & Violet releases. The hype for it was huge and it persists as the most memorable pack opening experience in the block thus far.
Totally fair to do so! I’m not much of a sealed collector, so for me it’s a lot of effort to package larger items and deal with buyers questioning if a product is resealed, but to each their own! I guess I just feel I could make that much money faster in other ways, haha.
I agree with others here just that there is a lack of set identity and by this point art rares have become “the norm” so more is needed (don’t get me wrong, I love pretty much every special art!) The Charizards in this set are also by far my least favorite Charizards to come out since Darkness Ablaze.
Exactly. I need my profits. And I need them now. In fact, it would be nice if I could just click buy one one site and that would automatically list the item for double on eBay, a sale would occur, and the profits be deposited to my bank account. The original seller can just ship my order to the buyer instead of me, save everyone some time.
Also, I don’t like regular ETBs for main sets. Why would anyone want those when there are the PC + stamped promo version or booster boxes to be had for best $/pack? I would not buy ES ETB for more than the price loose of packs inside. Maybe even less, since ETB packs shake around and can get all jacked up.
To be fair, while this looks like pretty great ROI on the surface, there is a lot more to consider.
Upon release, the ETBs were selling for well above MSRP. Here’s someone on E4 offering $75 per, a few months later $65 ish was the average eBay price, you get the point. I don’t recall the exact settling point, but to the best of my knowledge they eventually came down to maybe $55-60 per box. It was certainly possible to get at the $50 MSRP, but in very limited quantities absent distributor pricing.
Then, factor in eBay fees, shipping, taxes, and the hassle of dealing with sealed product that investobros will go over with a jewelers loupe and tell you it’s resealed if they spot a 1mm hole in the shrink wrap.
Let’s be generous and say someone buys at the $60 settling price and sells for $95 now. You lose $12.35 due to eBay fees, let’s say a standard $10 shipping charge, and we’ll not even consider possible losses due to modern sealed eBay buyers or capital gains taxes (because people flipping ETBs wouldn’t pay them anyways).
The actual ROI is closer to 6%–but when you consider that the annualized rate of inflation from 2020 to 2023 is 4.8%, you’re getting down to a 1% annualized ROI on your Champion’s Path ETB.
