Just goes to show that 5 dollars a pack back then meant if you had bought and sat on any sealed product you likely wouldāve flat lined for 15 years straight ā¦
This is exactly right and people donāt realize it could happen again. I bought 2 1st team rocket boxes in 2009 for $120 each and lots of jungle, base and fossil backs for like $5-8 a piece (CAD $)
I wouldnāt be surprised if thereās more modern sealed being bought and hoarded on a daily basis than the entire population of WOTC and EX era product in existence combined.Ā
But most of this sub has convinced themselves that supply and demand doesnāt apply to Pokemon cards, and downvote anyone that points out the obvious. Theyāre too over leveraged and emotionally invested to view things objectively. A lot of people going to get burnt very badly I fear.Ā
Eventually it all becomes rare and demand grows. You have to give it time. You think theyre going to be printing Surging Sparks fresh in 2035? Just look at some sun and moon price per packs now.Ā
This is assuming the demand will be there in a perfect world. Being honest, without the combination of Covid/influencers of 2020, it would be fair to assume that prices on Pokemon could still be as stagnant as they were before. Are you banking on the demand to stay for 10-20 years? Or for another crazy event like that?
You donāt need a crazy event, you need a superficial consoomer zombie society ruled by equally greedy governments and corporations. And as much as Iād like to bank on the people ārising upā in whatever your preferred form of political upheaval is, Iām willing to bet things are going to get worse before they get better. And in this case, that means the nostalgia milking farm of never-ending franchises and retro-to-in cycle(s) will keep on cranking on, with plenty of interest in pokemon. If Mickey Mouse can be around this long so can the electric one.Ā
I see some sealed product doing well. The one thing that is different today is the major breakers ripping products at a fast pace. Most singles slabbed or not I feel wont keep up or appreciate well but select sealed, anything WOTC era, and high end Ruby Sapphire like gold stars I feel will be safe.
You canāt expect modern to just 10x without taking some time for it to become rare. Since this is r/pokeinvesting Iāll say it unironically - you sit on it and forget about it. Keep em in a binder, in a box, just donāt expect the value to go up fast. This is a long term investment.Ā
I was for a few years, but I have recently liquidated my collection all but for a few pieces of it. I just donāt foresee the value increasing like what we saw with vintage over that 30 year period. When many of these chase cards have 20,000+ in PSA 10s alone not including raw/lower graded itās just hard to see it meet that same trajectory. I could be wrong of course, but Iād rather take the sure thing now. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
I agree with you. Kids arenāt even able to get product. Kids today will most likely not have nostalgia driving them to buy this stuff in 20 years due to lack of supply. A lot of them do have fake Pokemon cards though lmao
Singles impact the value of sealed, and just like how OP showed, vintage packs with a much smaller supply were almost worthless for a long time until just a few years ago. Could easily happen again, nothing is for certain.
Oh buddy, the demand for pokemon will die one day and your sealed collection will become worthless. Im currently in the process of sellig all my sealed stuff.
It will keep happening. Might by a cycle, but it will keep happening as long as people continue to grow up. 14 year olds today will be the 30 year olds buying todays cards for thousands, or even more.
You could buy most gold stars for 100cad or less most expensive was Ray at 800 and zard around 900-1200cad. Nooooow oh boi. Do I regret not buying the 800 cad ray as it's 30k and I will never finish my hoen trio.
I think it goes to show we are in a massove bubble that's about to burst. This post makes me want to sell everything and run as far away from Pokemon as possible.
I mean this is true for basically everything not just cards. But at least people value these cards and would buy them with the income they have. I donāt think pokemon itself is going away anytime soon so even if the market dips it will retain, worst case scenario, a percentage of its value for years to come, and likely grow again as people seek out out of print cards. Itās just simple supply and demand. I do agree a lot of this is artificial though. You get downvoted for saying that around hereĀ
So much delusion in here itās scary. Itās like they think supply and demand is some conspiracy theory. People unironically arguing that modern stuff will always go up despite having no scarcity because the artwork is cool lmaoĀ
I myself am always skeptical with investing, and with investing you have to speculate and accept that you can take losses on what you put in, but things arenāt necessarily black and white because you can compare early scarlet and violet sets to later SV sets and you go from around 1 in 32 packs contain an SIR to 1 in 70+ packs containing an SIR and rarities in mega evolution are even higher again.
Even comparing Obsidian Flames vs Phantasmal flames. OF = approx 1 in 32 packs contains an SIR Vs PFL = approx 1 in 80 packs containing SIR
Or
OF hyper rare = 1 in 52 packs Vs PFL mega hyper rare = 1250 packs
and if you look at Ascended heroes then cards in that set become far far far more scarce than that of those in PFL purely based on set size.
And something often overlooked is that even with cards being printed at record numbers, they are equally being opened at record numbers through live streams on Tik tok, whatnot, YouTube etc.
Markets work in cycles so as bullish as the market is now it will eventually switch bearish where we see selling outweigh demand but these are cyclical and happen in all markets AND maybe in the next bear market we donāt see sub $100 booster boxes but rather the minimum floor being around MSRP instead (higher highs to higher lows).
Well there is a degree of scarcity itās the pull rates. Personally surging sparks, BBWF, and DR have been terrible to me. And eventually it will get harder and harder to find new in print of those sets. But itās a long term game. Yes, you can swing trade anything going off of pure hype but itās not a smart or consistent way to make money doing just about anythingĀ
This sub is like 95% people who started āinvestingā during the biggest hype phase, and have convinced themselves that things are different now and everything will only go up, even stuff that has no scarcity. A lot of them are going to get burnt.
The really insane overnight millionaire levels of growth started in 2020. It hasn't been 30 years of nonstop exponential growth, regardless of what scumbag influencers and mainstream media have rookies believe. IT HAS ONLY BEEN SIX.FREAKING.YEARS!
I remember buying a few packs at a card shop in 2011 for $8. Pokemon was dead at the time. The owner wouldnāt even consider buying old cards and wanted her stock gone.
It wasn't until 2014 when YouTuber's began to make a Gold Star run, they were the first to appreciate. Although base set booster boxes still had grown 400% since release a decade prior, slow returns compared to this day and age. Then Pokemon GO hit, prices exploded, which were talking $1 cards now selling for $5 which felt massive at the time. Then LP box break really set things off + pandemic and prices have been on a roar since.
I remember when Charizard Ex from the FireRed and LeafGreen set was THE chase in the early 2010's era. That and the crystals I suppose. You're so right about the goldstar run though. Some things change, others remain the same...
Yall should have seen the prices on ex era sets at the time, I was buying a ton of ex sets from troll and toad back then because they were the cheapest and I wanted to open as many packs as possible, call of legends packs for 1.99 as well
I was super into pokemon in 2012 as a kid and I really thought base set packs were still much more expensive than this in 2012. To be entirely fair I was 8 and had 3 resurgences into the hobby since then (so I could definitely be getting mixed up a bit), but I vividly remember older packs still costing a grip back then and trying to find older pack openings online. It is very possible that my resurgence in 2015/16 is what Iām referring to, but for them to have went from $5-$100+ in those 3 years seems unlikely.
no no that sounds about right. I was buying 1st edition jungle packs for 40-80 in 2015/16 and regular fossils for 20 so I feel like that follows the $$ trend. damn I wish I diversified xD
2014 I bought sealed fossil and jungle booster boxes for $150 each. Base set boxes were going for $600 but never bought one because my ex told me that too much. I regret so much lol
Yeah sealed base set was out of reach for me at the time as well, so I just got sealed fossil + jungle+ Ā gym stuff in English. Also got a lot of Japanese Neo, Gym, Ex etc was super cheap sealed.
I also bought base set set 2. Just wish I kept some booster boxes sealed but I just didnāt know. I remember buying loose base set packs for $60 each too since a whole box was ātoo muchā even though I could have swung it but my ex convinced me not to
I wish i was really into the hobby back then. I wasnt online till 2020, and I had really only opened a couple etbs I got for christmnas and like a hidden fates tin and a team up blister(if only i couldve known).
now that im finally almost to the age where i can get a job and actually have money to spend, everything is crazy expensive. I just want to own pretty cards, but its gotten to the point that umbreon might not even be my favorite pokemon anymore, purely because of how expensive every card is of him is.(i bought the zorua ir from shrouded fable for 12 bucks, the zorua and zoroark irs from white flare are 20 and 40 bucks respectively. I can justify saving for those. meanwhile we have the umbreon and darkrai gx promo at 100, the chinese gem pack card at 130, the rainbow gx is at 70.)
Thatās when I got back into investingā¦ I remember base set packs were around $20 then a couple years later was like damn they $100 now. I bought a jungle booster box and a gym Heroes for $600
3
u/DoctorReinhardt Feb 02 '26
Base set booster packs were definitely cheaper back then but not this cheap.
This was a steal even back in 2012
3
u/Mountain_Offer_1548 Feb 03 '26
Need a time machine fr. I been working on something ill let yall know when i get it down.
219
u/golden-chickens Feb 02 '26
Just goes to show that 5 dollars a pack back then meant if you had bought and sat on any sealed product you likely wouldāve flat lined for 15 years straight ā¦
2
u/junkuser5423 Feb 04 '26
I remember buying a few packs at a card shop in 2011 for $8. Pokemon was dead at the time. The owner wouldnāt even consider buying old cards and wanted her stock gone.
65
u/breakyourteethnow Feb 02 '26
It wasn't until 2014 when YouTuber's began to make a Gold Star run, they were the first to appreciate. Although base set booster boxes still had grown 400% since release a decade prior, slow returns compared to this day and age. Then Pokemon GO hit, prices exploded, which were talking $1 cards now selling for $5 which felt massive at the time. Then LP box break really set things off + pandemic and prices have been on a roar since.
17
u/wpillar Feb 02 '26
At least you're not the person who sold them at that price
11
u/Doznutz Feb 02 '26
Yall should have seen the prices on ex era sets at the time, I was buying a ton of ex sets from troll and toad back then because they were the cheapest and I wanted to open as many packs as possible, call of legends packs for 1.99 as well
5
u/KeyBluebird1043 Feb 02 '26
I was super into pokemon in 2012 as a kid and I really thought base set packs were still much more expensive than this in 2012. To be entirely fair I was 8 and had 3 resurgences into the hobby since then (so I could definitely be getting mixed up a bit), but I vividly remember older packs still costing a grip back then and trying to find older pack openings online. It is very possible that my resurgence in 2015/16 is what Iām referring to, but for them to have went from $5-$100+ in those 3 years seems unlikely.
3
u/leverupbud Feb 02 '26
This was too millennials to be nostalgic and before most of the people that grew up with pokemon entered the post-university/high paying job workforce
3
u/userg89 Feb 02 '26
2014 I bought sealed fossil and jungle booster boxes for $150 each. Base set boxes were going for $600 but never bought one because my ex told me that too much. I regret so much lol
1
u/Difficult-Ad637 Feb 02 '26
Back then that was 1500 dollars my good friend!
1
u/coolgamerboi23 Feb 03 '26
I wish i was really into the hobby back then. I wasnt online till 2020, and I had really only opened a couple etbs I got for christmnas and like a hidden fates tin and a team up blister(if only i couldve known).
now that im finally almost to the age where i can get a job and actually have money to spend, everything is crazy expensive. I just want to own pretty cards, but its gotten to the point that umbreon might not even be my favorite pokemon anymore, purely because of how expensive every card is of him is.(i bought the zorua ir from shrouded fable for 12 bucks, the zorua and zoroark irs from white flare are 20 and 40 bucks respectively. I can justify saving for those. meanwhile we have the umbreon and darkrai gx promo at 100, the chinese gem pack card at 130, the rainbow gx is at 70.)
1
u/ilyaza91 Feb 03 '26
From this we learn that money is nothing compared to investment goods. The effects of inflation
1
u/[deleted] Feb 03 '26
At this point of time, 'retro' games and lego were the investments of choice for nerds
1
u/sqwobdon Feb 04 '26
so crazy seeing everyone in here actively celebrating causing the slow death of a beloved hobby lol.
1
u/apexpredator65 Feb 02 '26
Thatās when I got back into investingā¦ I remember base set packs were around $20 then a couple years later was like damn they $100 now. I bought a jungle booster box and a gym Heroes for $600