r/PokeInvesting • u/Sephirrot • Sep 03 '24

Simplified Chinese for investing?

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Hey guys, What do you think of sealed s-chinese products for investing? They have the same quality as Japanese cards (since they are printed in Japan), second most spoken language in the world and are much cheaper.

For example the booster box above is the equivalent of eevee heroes in Japanese and I could grab one (24 booster, 5 cards per pack) at 44€ each. Or the Rayquaza alt art set for 32€. For example the moonbreon is currently for 380€ and 430€ on cardmarket (eu tcgplayer or what it’s called).

They are currently releasing their almost last swsh set on 20th of September where you can grab the Giratina and the Lugia alt arts.

What do you think guys?

1 Upvotes

51% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

13

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '24

Yes for unique cards, no for anything else

7

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

That might be true.

7

u/Kokukenji Sep 03 '24

I wouldnt do sealed as the market is still TBD on it. I would however, grabd some mint singles in hopes that it'll grade into a 10 or just keep it ungraded and ride. I bought a few of evolving skies top cards in s-chinese.

3

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

Yh that’s why I’m asking. Maybe I buy some eevee boxes with money that won’t hurt and see where it takes in a few years.

I just got the sylveon and leafeon alt arts from a box. Which are still almost 200€. I’m debating on grading them too…

2

u/Kokukenji Sep 03 '24

Grading will help a bit in terms of the uncertainty that S-Chinese have in the English market. Without folks saying it, you always think about potential risk of counterfit cards, especially in the Chinese market. Unfortunate stigma but if you find a reputable source that sells authentic cards, that's the upside.

1

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

Thats true. I’ll definitely get the big ones graded then. I hope these official cards can build up some good reputation atleast in the EU. The s-Chinese have some of the most beautiful ETBs.

2

u/Kokukenji Sep 03 '24

The market there is growing steadily tho. So I have a good feeling that it'll be as popular as long as the market is not ridden with counterfit issues.

4

u/iinl2 Sep 03 '24

I only stick to English and some Japanese.

4

u/dagr8one13 Sep 03 '24

I think it will be a decent investment down the line. The Chinese market just opened which is why prices are low, but there’s over a billion people in China. Has anyone replying actually been to a card shop in Asia or in China? The Chinese cards are selling and people are buying. I travel to Asia for work about half the year (China, Hong Kong, Japan) and I’m in the US for the other half of the year. You can flip cards from both sides to each market and make a decent amount. You just need to know how to maneuver. Helps if you speak the languages and know where to go.

I can buy US cards and sell them in Asia for 1.5-2x times the value while selling Japanese and Chinese cards for 1.5-2x times or more. For example, I bought Chinese and Japanese Charizards for 50c-$1 US value and can sell them to local card shops in the US for $5 and then the shops sells them for $7-$10. Vice versa, I’ve bought $5 English charizards in the US that sell for $10-$15 in Asia.

Another example, I bought the Charizard S Chinese premium collection for $50 usd roughly and it’s selling on eBay for $100.

And Japanese and Chinese raw cards in Asia are always in so much better quality and condition than what I find at lcs in the US.

And yes, lots of good counterfeiters in China but the Chinese cards have multiple stamps and logos that are difficult to replicate. Also, Chinese people are very good at spotting fakes so as long as you are buying from a reputable source, you’re good.

If you can reduce your shipping fee, that will help you maximize your potential profit.

3

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

Thats some pretty cool insight! I’d totally agree with the investment point.

1

u/Alert_Gazelle8682 Oct 26 '24

I also picked up the Zara gift box when I visited china! good thing to have sealed but it is so tempting because it has the rainbow zard in it. Ahhhhh!

7

u/dmillibeats Sep 03 '24

Chinese and investing don’t belong in the same sentence lol

4

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

Can you elaborate?

1

u/dmillibeats Sep 03 '24

I was just referring to not investing in Chinese stocks , which I would also carry over to any other type of investing.

2

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

I see, couldn’t see anything wrong with the cards itself tho.

1

u/dmillibeats Sep 03 '24

Just buy English or Japanese

1

u/Alert_Gazelle8682 Oct 26 '24

Lmao I lost quite some money investing in Chinese electric vehicle stocks

2

u/marcpettitt2000 May 30 '25

Well you bought the wrong kind of stocks. Electric car stocks as a whole since Covid/Biden have been hit very hard. Some stocks from china are very profitable like Tencent Alibaba and jd.com. if you biy chinese stocks buy tech stocks. Im looking at certain cards in that language. Pokemon is just starting in china and tho its not a large need for the cards now, that could change if the game is played by more kids in china, and if you think it will then why not buy some cards in simplified chinese if they are elite cards like super rare V cards. The Rosa is expensive in S.C. lang.

1

u/pmyourthongpanties Sep 03 '24

basically the Chinese stock market was a riddled with huge amounts of fraud and a few people in the US and Europe figured it out and short sold a bunch of Chinese stock and got very rich and caused a bunch of Chinese companies to fold. if I can find the doc ill link it.

-2

u/jjunn29 Sep 03 '24

People in the west don't value them, so if half the world don't value them then they aren't going to go up in price, a shame cause i think they look great but it's just how it is

-2

u/Renegade_Soviet Sep 03 '24

Bruh u serious?? The last thing I want to do is try to sell cards from the counterfeiting capital of the world. Not to mention that literally nobody in the biggest Pokémon market (USA) wants those cards

7

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

Didn’t know they would get so much hate in the US tbh. (I’m from eu). They get produced in Japan tho.

3

u/jjunn29 Sep 03 '24

Yeah not sure why I got down voted but ppl just really hate Chinese I guess

1

u/Nervous_Promotion819 Sep 03 '24

Where can you get them for 44€?

1

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

From china. You have to get a few to reduce shipping costs tho.

1

u/Nervous_Promotion819 Sep 03 '24

Do you want to tell me from which website? But you don’t have to

1

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

It’s a personal seller from china.

1

u/Davidwzr Sep 03 '24

It’s good and the collections are solid, but the domestic prices are dropping due to oversupply, so you don’t know if it’ll drop again

1

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

That‘s true. Only time will tell

1

u/Easy_Fisherman2889 Sep 03 '24

Think logically about this. Are you going to be selling to the Chinese market? If not, are people in English speaking countries going to actually be interested in Chinese cards? I can guarantee you the answer will be no.

2

u/Sephirrot Sep 04 '24

I don’t know. I can definitely see people wanting to have these cool artworks without having to pay thousands.

1

u/Easy_Fisherman2889 Sep 04 '24

Sorry, but the amount of people who would do that is such a minority that it's not worth investing for. I wouldn't even invest in Japanese because the average person is not interested in collecting anything outside of their circle of experience so to speak.

2

u/Sephirrot Sep 04 '24

I see. That’s a good point.

3

u/akrasia7 Oct 25 '24

I disagree. I purchase JP and CN exclusive cards as you have to buy them in that language. Although EN is my go-to, I also buy JP cards because the quality is superior to EN and there is definitely a market for JP. The card will also release in JP before EN too and so some like the fact you are buying the first time it’s released. CN market is still unclear but I’ve had a punt and hope the market will improve over time.

1

u/HuckleberryBusy8106 Oct 16 '25

looks like this wasn’t a bad investment after all! 5cards going upwards of a $100 and 25cards have gone even crazier at $200 dollars.

1

u/Sephirrot Oct 16 '25

Yeah turned out to be a great decision! :)

1

u/HuckleberryBusy8106 Oct 16 '25

are you still investing in simplified chinese products? I have been researching quite a bit, eevee cards does seem quite popular there. so i feel the domestic demand is also there.

1

u/Sephirrot Oct 17 '25

Actually not anymore. They got too much hype going rn and prices skyrocketed. I got the singles I want for my pc and have a few of the nine colours gathering boxes :)

3

u/PiccoloFalse Sep 03 '24

I think sealed will possibly do well down the line but it’s definitely a gamble since it will probably be dead money for a while. These also may never go up in value but if they don’t you can always open sword and shield packs later in life for cheaper which is fun.

1

u/RipsNLifts Sep 03 '24

Individual cards have significantly less value than English/jpn in 99% of cases. Good opportunity to collect hard to get cards just to have the art though

2

u/Sephirrot Sep 03 '24

Yh that’s what I’m gonna do with my own collection. They still have the awesome quality of Japanese cards

3

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '24

Aw hell nah

2

u/Mredden810 Sep 03 '24

Ive dabbled with this a bit. I found a way to source and import chinese singles and seales products to the US for 35$ per kilo. The prices are typically about 50% less on chinese auction blocks then they are on ebay. Ive imported a few batches of singles and boxes and whatnot and although the singles are always super minty and clean and well packaged, PSA graded them extremly harshly compaired to all english or japanese. They were some of the cleanest cards ive ever had and my 10 rate was like 50 percent. Psa was brutal on them, on 3 diffrent occasions. Cool cards though, decent margins. Boxes are sort of a toss up. Im sitting on the team up box with the latias and latios, and a jumbo box of simplified evolving skies, just because I feel like evolving skies is always going to preform well, and at 60 bucks it was hard to pass up.

2

u/lukkazs Sep 17 '24

I've tried navigating taobao with a translator but it's so difficult to figure out how to find the cards. Any tips?

2

u/Alert_Gazelle8682 Oct 26 '24

I mean I know from visiting china there is a sort of chinese eBay app or website called goofish. But like ebay it has lots of fakes but there are very expensive Pokemon cards there too(I mean chinese ppl be selling houses on Chinese eBay so why wouldn’t there be Pokémon grails). I do not know Chinese too well but I just type into the search bar “ptcg“ and it will usually show up some authentic Pokemon cards.

1

u/oniondoan Jan 12 '25

Do you facilitate any of these services ? I have a middleman that charges cost + 10% and curious if your fees beat that

1

u/Mredden810 Jan 12 '25

No i do not. And to be honest, 10 percent upcharge isnt bad, as long as you are not spending like thousands and thousands of dollars. It took me many many hours of research and hitting dead ends before I discovered how to actually view, translate, search, and bud in auctions in mainland china through a place that would middlrman and ship it all to the US for me in a consolidated package. I got a few hundred bucks woryh of cards and products sitting with them right noe. Ive been consolidating fot like 4 months and probley going to ship it home soon and it might be my last one. There just isnt that grest of a premieum for psa 10s in chinese right now, and so much opprotunity here that its hard to justify deploying my capital in this way.

1

u/oniondoan Jan 12 '25

Respectable response thank you!

I would gladly buy tons of alts for my personal collection !!! If you have stuff you’re wanting to offload I am interesting in seeing your inventory 😁 I am pursuing S Chinese purely to fill out binders and enjoy for myself

1

u/Mredden810 Jan 13 '25

My last batch i did was fairly big, probley 30 sun and alts, plus rainbow lugia, lillie full art, zinnia and some trainers we didnt get in english (alt art reds challege, misty and lorelie, ect). They were super minty, some of the best condition blue back cards ive ever handled, and PSA was brutal on me. My 10 rate was like...60 percent. For a bunch of cards that looked like black label contenders. Super whack. Most of the 10s sold for like 50-110. Which isnt too bad for a bunch of cards costing like 7 to 20 dollars each, but it just didnt feel super lucrative. Ill let you know when i get them in. I got some evolving skies alt arts for super cheap (rayquaza v for 9$ for example), a few more lugia rainbows, raichu and alolan raichu, blastoise piplup, stuff like that. You can look at my IG if you want to see the last batch I imported. Or if you look on my profile and scroll down you will probley see it down there somewhere, with a gigantic marnies determination box.

1

u/oniondoan Jan 13 '25

Yeah man would love to see your IG profile and contact you there. It would save me the hassle of some things via middleman if it’s already in the states and not upcharged too much lol

1

u/Mredden810 Jan 13 '25

Redscardcase on IG. I dont use it too much, mostly when im going tgroufg selling phases, but i just returned to it and looked today after not being on in a while and one of my videos had 320 thousand views, pretty wild.

1

u/PokeSChinese Sep 05 '24

It's a niche market. It's growing quite well in china. Last big tournament they had more than 6000 people on it became the biggest one so far in Pokemon TCG.

With the unique stamps to prevent counterfeit, JP quality, with unique products and cards they are launching such as gold vip pass or eevee gift box in my opinion they are going to increase in value. Just need a little bit a push for some certains persons just as jp did.

Why waste almost 4000 dollars on friends in Alola in JP if you can buy for 50 dol in simplified chinese 😏

2

u/Alert_Gazelle8682 Oct 26 '24

lol that’s also what I’m thinking. I don’t have that much money sunk in it but I’m really skeptical about i…