2020 has been quite a year for reasons I don’t care and don’t need to explain. I want to ask how YOU changed personally and how it affects you in this hobby. Some things to consider:
• Maybe you sold some of your cards for life changing money
• Learned the lesson that you truly can’t have every card, EVEN IF they are in your price range
• Pokémon plays a larger or smaller role in your life
• You’ve learned to let go of a card you didn’t think you could let go
• You accomplished a goal which had taken large amounts of effort, time and money
For me:
1. I realized I can’t have every card I want, even if its under $100. I am the kinda collector who constantly feels the FOMO. Its kinda my drive. Obsession. I’ve changed though. I am more patient and comfortable with not owning cards just because I can afford them. I truly learned the lesson that I cannot own every card I want and to appreciate the cards I already have. If I entered the hobby today, I couldn’t afford a fifth of what I have.
2. A loss of respect for modern English product. I bought 10 ETBS of Champion’s Path and didn’t get a single card worth more than $10. Then I look at the Charizard 143, Shiny Star V and Kanazawa Pikachu Box. Wow. What a difference. I developed a strong adornment for modern Japanese and almost a distate for modern English. That set was a cash grab and lacked the tender love and care of Japanese offerings.
A willingness to sell. I haven’t sold anything yet, but I am more open to it than I used to be. I used to think I’d never sell. But set cards can be downgraded. I’d be willing to sell WOTC 1st edition for the Japanese version. It’s the same card and I can use the funds to buy other items which are more elusive.
Rekindled love for Diamond and Pearl era. I collected these cards in high school. High prices have driven me to other areas. Returning to them is a blast.
Please share how you have changed!!! I’d love to hear other people’s stories.
Great post. More of this sort of introspection is needed in this hobby.
1. I gained market perspective
Since re-entering the hobby in 2016, I’ve learned two big things. First, there will always be another set card. And second, is that it’s easy to get caught up in “keeping up with the Joneses”.
2. I learned to be okay with what I have
I love the chase. In fact, I love the chase so much that once I’ve reached the finish line I never took the time to stop and appreciate what I have.
I’ve realized that the emotional connection I have with my collection outweighs the ridiculous money I could receive from selling it.
2.
I’ve finally started to appreciate Japanese cards, and I purchased my first this year.
I refined myself through purchases that I didn’t care about and I refocused with Japanese promos. These get slept on so much and they’re the heart of the hobby
Learn to love other things and have broad interests
I think we easily get caught up in our collection goals and get pretty bad tunnel vision. That can often lead to missing out on other aspects of the hobby and lead to burning out or potentially just dropping the hobby as a whole. A lot of people have joined the hobby in 2020, I’d consider myself pretty much one of them since I joined in the tail end of 2019, so it’s normal to have gone 0-100 with Covid and lockdowns affecting our normal behaviour. Thus, long term/sustainable interest in the hobby needs to be carefully maintained, if you’re constantly checking for the newest listings on ebay…well that’s gonna kill your love of the hobby no matter who you are. I’ve grown to enjoy my collection and to let it grow slowly, adding pieces whenever I feel like there’s a need to. In addition, maintaining some low maintenance binders (modern/full art trainers) has been a good way to keep my interest in the hobby while not feeling any particular pressure to get a card right away. I’ve also started collecting hockey cards, something I did a tiny bit of as a kid and I’ve fallen in love with it (must run in the blood being a Canadian and all).
Not ripping products because that’s how you lose money/deal with scalpers
I want to first say I love ripping product. There’s no better feeling than pulling the cards you need by yourself. However, it’s absolutely a gamble everytime you do it and what’s worse is if you’re paying more and more to buy from scalpers because they cleared out the shelves. That’s one aspect I’m sad has increased in the hobby but it is what it is. I’m just happy that singles are still affordable and that’s the way I’ll continue to do things, bar occasional splurges to satisfy a craving.
If I don’t like something, just move on aka Investment talk
This’ll tie into a lot of things and I’m sure everyone here has seen a bit of it/a lot of it. Facebook groups, efour, youtube, etc. you name it and there’s been more and more talk about investing and the ilk. Everyone has their opinions on it, me I don’t mind it. I genuinely don’t but it does get tiring when posts on FB are filled with things like what’s the best investment, what should I buy to make money, etc. Look, everyone’s into this hobby for different reasons and that’s going to happen more and more the bigger this hobby gets. Sports cards are absolutely terrible for this and I’m still holding out hope Pokemon doesn’t get to that level. You can’t change the fact that people are joining for various reasons. Market talk is healthy for the hobby, rising $ figures is just crazy when you’re ultimately talking about cardboard. It’s a new world and you either survive in it by adapting or you die in it. Best lesson to take away is if you don’t like something, just walk away. Like people always say, if you’ve nothing nice to say then just say nothing.
TL;DR: Be nice to yourself, be smart with your money, and be nice to others.
Happiness isn’t some entity you just bump into, it’s a mindset. Not to seek validation for my accomplishments from outside sources, rather enjoy my journey and share my accomplishments with friends and family.
I transitioned from asking “why?” to “why not?”
There is always a different perspective to look at something, just because I don’t understand doesn’t mean it’s not valid.
Pokémon felt like doors wide open, come one come all kind of community. Reminding me love is blind, it’s never been the bells and whistles for me it’s the story behind it. Appreciating the story and the historical importance of these collection additions. Pokémon is truly a one of a kind hobby, while it shares many attributes to other entities.
It’s been a year for sure and a pleasure learning & hopefully providing a different perspective in discussion.
I realized I’m lucky to have picked up lots of my favorite cards cards graded 10s and 9s in the past years because there’s no way I would ever buy them graded with today’s prices (for example, various Rayquaza ex cards and so on). I probably have to settle on buying PSA 8s or worse grades going forward if I buy cards that have already been graded.
Not everything has to be graded. I’ll limit the amount of cards I’m going to grade going forward. Instead of grading most of the cards that I like, I created a binder where I’m going to collect them and I’ll only grade cards of my top favorite Pokemon and possibly some Promos here and there.
I’ve heavily reduced the amount of graded cards I’ve bought and I never thought Pokemon card collecting hobby would come to this point outside of WOTC era but here we are. It’s harder to collect graded these days, especially if you have just a regular normal paying job. I’ve thought about quitting grading completely but decided against it because I don’t want to get all those cards again in a binder that I already have graded.
-dblast is a genius investor picking up psa 7 base clefairys
-people buy anything as long as it´s graded
-people don´t do any research prior to purchasing
Just because I can sell something for an outrageous price (in my eyes), doesn’t mean I should. I sold over $3K worth of cards a few months ago and was on top of the world. Everything I sold were doubles, triples, etc. But then I found E4, and realized that the collector in me was shouting in my head to keep my collection. I just chose not to listen, and now I’m starting to regret a few of those sales. Basically, I need to be more introspective before I post something for sale.
I need to set clear goals for myself in regards to my collection.
I strongly prefer Japanese cards over English, especially in modern product. I’m not sure why, but English text seems to almost cheapen the look of the card.
There is so much I don’t know about Pokemon collecting. I thought I had a good grasp on the vintage sets prior to finding E4, but man o’ man was I wrong.
I got really lucky with Pokémon this year (as a lot of us did) by buying a few very popular WOTC boxes at the beginning of the year. I was able to pay off my car, credit card, diversify my other investment vehicles, as well as put some money back into Pokémon and grow my binder collection.
All in all it was a pretty fantastic year for me all round:
Got engaged;
Bought a house;
Picked up a complete 2009 Design Contest set marking a very significant Pokémon milestone for me.
In terms of my collection I now have all of the rarest Pichu cards in either PSA 10 or some other grade I’m happy with and I’m now able to focus on the main set cards. My plan had always been to pick up a PSA 10 1st Edition Neo Genesis Pichu after completing the 2009 Design Contest set but for some crazy reason that’s now significantly more valuable than it has been for the past few years.
In terms of Pokémon sales, upon moving into our new house my fiancée and I put together a furniture budget which was a list of all the furniture we wanted to get for the house over the next 12 months. Thanks to prices shooting up we were able to buy everything we wanted just 3 weeks after putting that together. It’s very bizarre to think that I basically traded 6 or 7 Pokémon cards for around £15,000 worth of furniture. I’ve made around 40x more this year than I made selling cards last year despite not really actively buying any new inventory during this time, which has been very nice.
In terms of Pokémon side-collections I’ve sold most of my other stuff off so that I can focus most of my efforts on Pichu. The other collections I had were great and all, but if someone is wanting to give me 50x what I paid for a card last year that’s not something I’m going to refuse. This year I’ve picked up several sealed pins (and pin sets), postcards, telephone cards, booster packs, plates, keyrings and all sorts of other Pichu-related memorabelia; significantly moreso than I’ve done on any other year.
Now I’m just waiting for Bitcoin to go up so I can comfortably buy a new family car outright ready for kids to come along.
In terms of collecting, I’ve had to vastly shift priorities away from the hobby and more towards my family. I’m very thankful that I was able to acquire most of my collection prior to this years crazy price increases. I’ll be honest and say that the tremendous increase in prices this year has limited my enjoyment somewhat. There’s still plenty of cards that I would like to pick up but buying a PSA/CGC 9 is oftentimes out of budget for me anymore. I know that I’m not entitled to any cards in mint condition so I guess it is what it is. Moving forward, I’m going to focus on picking up singles of modern cards that I enjoy
This year sure has been crazy, not only life in general were a lot has happened but in terms of this hobby as well. Early in the year I finished my first major collecting goal which was very satisfying. After that I felt rather aimless and was all over the place in terms of what I bought but gradually I’ve started to be more focused with my goals. I’ve started to put together various binder collections of modern cards which has been great fun when prices of a lot of graded cards has gotten out of my reach. I also decided to send in most of my remaining (non-bulk) childhood cards for grading which is going to be like a second Christmas next year when they hopefully return.
I definitely appreciate my collection more now but at the same time I’ve gotten more open to the idea of selling parts pf it in the future if I ever need to. It’s so difficult to try and predict what the coming years will have in store for this hobby but I will be along for the ride one way or another.
The only thing that really changed with me pokemon-wise is that I started collecting a modern set for the first time ever. Due to the strong desire to open booster packs (and unwillingness to open “vintage” things) , I opened alot of evolutions until they went out of print and booster box’s/packs prices rose.
So I decided I’d try to complete a master set of each English set that comes out from here on out, starting with vivid voltage. Ive opened about 90 vivid voltage packs so far and its been a blast! It’s awesome to see binder pages fill up spot by spot again like when I was a kid.
Evolutions was the first master set I ever completed pulling every card myself opening booster packs. It was super awesome! It took me 13 booster box’s… Hopefully vivid voltage does not take me that many…
This last year taught me so much about the hobby I can’t even put everything into words!
Don’t open packs just buy singles instead.
Modern is on fire but it looks like they are getting incredibly lazy.
I knew spending all the money I could building my collection was a great idea and still is!
Even with price increases I still don’t want to sell anything. Some modern like Shining Legends I’m starting to value the cash over the card tho. But that’s simply from seeing PSA 10 prices
PSA upcharges people ridiculous amounts and takes forever to grade everyone’s cards. I thought CGC was the answer but a 10 is basically near impossible thru them. Let alone a perfect 10. So still no idea what company I’ll eventually use to grade my massive collection.
Grades don’t matter as much as people make them out to be. There’s some very clean PSA 5-7 grade cards without crease’s so much cheaper usually.
This is a great community and I simply love reading about the cards I love!
Which sets have the lowest print runs
It’s better to make deals directly with trusted members.
E4 Secret Santa is a blast. Still havnt recieved mine yet but everyone got to see my horrible Phyduck drawing. And I’m pretty sure my person was happy with their gifts. I was very nervous about this. I wanted to give some more cards that i had spare but didn’t want to give cards that arnt mint. Might reach back out to pass on a little extra.
Sorry for the book I got carried away. In short wild year!
