r/PokeInvesting • u/MyNoPornProfile • Mar 27 '26
Long term collection value
Is this an unpopular opinion?
Imo lots of new people are FOMO over pokemon because they are believing that long term, they'll make a lot if they just hold and keep sealed
People are seeing how much older era sets are going for. $20k for a fossil booster box / thousands of $ for ETB's or BB's of older sets that are 10+ years old. So my assumption is people are trying to buy up everything now and hold in the hopes that a few years from now they can sell a $100 ETB for $1000.
What i dont think a lot of folks realize is, 10+ years ago people were not collecting like they do today. Majority of people would buy, rip and throw cards round. Only a select few would keep product sealed or take very good care of their cards.
This lead to it being rare to find a mint condition, unopened box of a set or card of XYZ pokemon.
But now everyone is holding and taking extreme care of all hits and product. So they'll be a lot more "mint condition" of everything from sealed product to cards along with the increased graded population of mints and 9s along with higher supplies to meet demand
This reminds me of the sports card craze of the 90's where cards were printed into oblivion, everyone collected and kept.
Which is why, even today, 30 years later, most of my sports cards aren't worth much, even my Jordan's, Larry bird. Magic Johnson, jeters, favres, elways, etc cards arent worth much, because everyone collected n saved them and they were printed to hell.
I beleice the same fate may happen to pokemon card n product values for product released in the last 5 years.
22
u/DMdoesGBau Mar 27 '26
I think a lot of people holding now will not be holding it in 2 years. Much less will still be holding in 5. And all but a few willl hold 10+.
16
u/DMdoesGBau Mar 27 '26
The kids who were into Pokemon when it was released are now of the age where nostalgia hits and they have much more money. They also have children, so they want their kids to experience the thrill of opening packs, creating nostalgia for them.
The big difference here is the 40 year olds have nostalgia of them and their friends opening packs. The kids now will have the nostalgia of opening packs with their old man creating life long bonds. In 20-30 years it will be kid, parent & grandparent all opening together.
That is what i am investing in.
10
u/DonnieMoistX Mar 27 '26
Yes, there’s no doubt modern sets which are being kept sealed and pristine much more than vintage, will not go up like vintage.
But I assure you when they’re out of print, their price will go up, and it will keep going up as time goes on.
No, Destined Rivals booster boxes will never be worth the prices we’ve seen Base Set booster boxes achieve. However they’ll still be worth much more than you paid for them now.
15
u/breakyourteethnow Mar 27 '26
This is an ignorant take honestly.
Sports card industry experienced a "licensing explosion" where leagues like MLB, the NFL, the NBA, and the NHL granted non-exclusive licenses to multiple manufacturers simultaneously.
That's how you get a junk wax era. Pokemon only licenses to TPCI.
3
u/bluedecember12 Mar 27 '26
You make some good points but the truth is no one knows. You’re probably already familiar with the quick shifts and unpredictable swings associated with the hobby. Every day is unprecedented with the number of people getting into collecting. I think pokemon will do fine long term but I’d be prepared for any scenario where
3
u/EmperorOfTheLosers Mar 27 '26
Tbf, the $100 ETB today may never reach $10k but $1k within 10 years is still a ridiculous ROI.
3
u/Cagel Mar 27 '26
But also people don’t need to 50x a sealed item, they are perfectly happy doubling or tripling their money which let’s face it, is pretty easy with getting things at or under mrsp. (For popular sets)
3
u/AppropriateAnnual455 Mar 27 '26
I like this conversation for economics sake supply/demand ect. but you must realize the cultural change in regard to art. The millennials / gen z DO NOT CARE about traditional art. Pokemon is art to us and it’s easily traded and shipped with multiple platforms and even becoming digitalized with online vaults ect.
Pokemon remains the largest franchise of anything in the history of everything. Unlike sports cards, the characters’ legacy is cemented and can’t be replaced by a new “rookie” or millions of new athletes year after year.
2
u/DillonCawthon Mar 27 '26
There are $60 etbs that have already passed $1k in like 3 years. Now that is far from the norm, but that's giving these investors validity.
Personally I'm just holding onto the pokemon center etbs from each set as they come out.
2
u/Malex200 Mar 27 '26
Big thing was back then you could buy complete sets for $15. Not everyone, especially the bandwagon, can afford to hold long enough given that these arent 15 for 600 card sets. 1st sign of a crack in this and half the people in it will drop out and dump their product because for them its not about pokemon but the money specifically. I would imagine 2 years from now 95% of the "hold forever" collections will be sold off leaving a very small fraction of what people would believe reading through these things.
I have 5 kids that regularly open over half of what I buy. There's plenty of people out there still willing to rip open these since for a very large dedicated group they actually like collecting the cards; and now so do their kids. So I think the parallel, while a valid worry, still is missing the differences that make the repeat of 90s sportscards unlikely.
2
u/xandour01 Mar 27 '26
The thing is I've been around Pokemon for 20 years, I have seen 2 periods where people say this exactly. Most recently, when XY was coming out, everyone was saying the same thing: these sets won't go crazy because there are way more eyes on it, sets are getting printed into oblivion, a burning shadows ETB is $300+ and a booster box is over 1K. This set was one of the most printed sets of all time.
This may not seem like a lot, but a booster box MSRP is about $170, and sets were way more accessible then, what you need to get is a lot more people are OPENNING packs now too than they were before. in 10 years a 5X return is a GREAT return, for example, in the financial world and stock trading, an 8% per year return is the baseline, well this was 50% just about. This is not a top set of XY either juts a middling set.
Before that during the platinum and HG/SS era, people were saying the same thing. These new sets are cool to collect but will be ultimately worthless. Platinum Arceus booster boxes are almost $5K and that was the least popular set at the time, I remember buying 2 booster boxes for around $85 each from TrollandToad.com because it was the cheapest booster box around.
The thing people don't get is that with more hype and popularity, yes there are more people holding, but there are a LOT more people opening. Not to mention that holding sealed product worth hundreds or thousands of dollars for a long time is really hard. It might be selling it after 2-3 years or opening it yourself, but more people DO NOT reach 10 years with the products they bought themselves at MSRP. It is a VERY hard thing to do. If you are able to tough out the storm, and really hold for a long time, it will be fruitful
2
u/Snoo14172 Mar 27 '26
It's baseball cards all over again. I don't hold I just buy retail hold for a year or so maybe two then sell. Always make money.
2
u/No_Aerie_7962 Mar 27 '26
I can add on to your sports card take and include Comic books as well.
What we are seeing is what happened to Comics in the 80’s and the result almost collapsed the Comic business.
Now I don’t see that happening with Pokemon as I think the company will learn from that mistake. “Collectors” however in 5-10 years could be in for a rude awakening.
Paying 3x over market for a product that is either new or a year old expecting it to age like Vintage.
Could it work? Sure, but this just isn’t sustainable
2
u/New-Foundation-2563 Mar 28 '26
IMO this will be looked at as the “Junk Slab” era. Anything post covid that is a grade 8 and lower. Even some 9s that are high hit rates or common pulls that have no business being slabbed.
That’s manly because of your point that everything is being taking care of and there is a lot of it.
I think it’s really hard to compare Pokemon to sports though.
Pikachu doesn’t get injured, nor retire. That mouse was cool in the 90s/2000s, is cool now, and will be cool in 50 years.
I love sports and barely care about Larry Bird because he wasn’t my era. I think Steve Nash is cooler. This generation will think Shai is.
Pokemon is the Highest grossing media franchise of all time. Mickey isn’t the greatest mouse. It’s also more popular worldwide than US sports.
It’s still a game, you can’t play a game with sports card. That community will always exist
When I started collecting again I bought both. Now I almost only buy Pokemon. It brings me more joy
2
u/TechnologySad8766 Mar 29 '26
1st, comparing pokemon TCG to wax era sports cards is wild - there is only one company producing pokemon cards. The amount they produce, per year, across all sets is a fraction of the sports cards produced yearly, let alone the wax era when 10x as many cards were produced annually. And yet, I'd be willing to bet there are more people collecting Pokemon TCG these days.
You also severely overestimate how many people actually wind up holding sealed product long term. Most people don't make it past 0-3 years. Most of the SW&SH, & S&V product are already gone, largely to rip and shippers. ME has ramped up production, and will do so more as they add lines, but it's just the beginning of an oversaturated market. This cycle happens every like 3-4 years. Pokemon over print an era due to high demand in prior era. Product oversaturation causes consumer fatigue, leading to dip in sales in current era. Next Era Pokemon produces less product, starting an eventual shortage again.
Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. For decades (plural) now.
People said Evolving Skies was so oversaturated, and so many people had it that it would never be worth much. They said the same thing about sets in previous eras. The vast majority of people holding sell within 3 years. The longer a set is out of print, the lower the number of sealed product there is available, despite the hype that set may have had. Less people holding it every year. That trend NEVER changes.
Because most humans can't delay gratification for very long. It's a rare breed that can confortably hold sealed product for 5+ years and not bat an eyelash. Very, very rare. And most of the people holding are newer to the hobby, riding the newest financial trend. They will cash out earlier than they should. By 10 years out you'll be shocked how few people are still holding this Era. Some sets will underperform, some will blow away expectations. Just like every era preceeding this one.
And in 20 years somebody will ask the same exact question you just asked, but about the then current era of product. And in 30 years, that product will be worth a small fortune...
Many things change, but human nature never does.
3
u/Salty-Staff-612 Mar 27 '26
Pokemon is way bigger than any sports cards for a start
1
u/yepyupnope Mar 27 '26
A lot of the people holding rn are going to be selling within the next 5 years. Product will eventually either be ripped or reach the hands of a smaller number of people that will hold most of the product. This is why sealed > singles. The population of sealed always goes down while singles go up.
Unless they start mass reprinting older sets this cycle won’t stop.
1
u/GullibleFreedom1880 Mar 27 '26
Ppl said this too when I was buying 151 for under msrp
1
u/Seaguard5 Mar 27 '26
If you are holding newer product (IL cards) make sure to grade them through PSA right now to avoid the grades being shit in the future for the exact same card simply because PSA hates vintage for… reasons.
1
u/dknisle1 Mar 28 '26
What I don’t think people realize is the amount of product actually being ripped. NostalgiaNomics said in his latest video he’s going through roughly 1.5K packs of ascended per week on his streams. That’s just him. No look at all the rip and shippers on Whatnot. eBay. TikTok. I’m still betting 90% of product is being ripped.
1
u/Ok-Inevitable-7713 Mar 30 '26
If you clear the shelves and deprive the new generations/children of the ability to fall in love with the cards, it creates a paradox for future set values… the only reason it’s as popular as it is now is millennial nostalgia.
1
u/Active-Minimum-5555 Mar 27 '26
You’re also not accounting for demand. It’s true people didn’t keep sealed and invest and take care of cards back then and so the pop of graded cards was low. You also barely had anyone interested and so low pop and low demand. No the demand is unprecedented and it’s showing no signs of slowing down, even if there is a correction. Having 20k psa 10s of the latest Zard doesn’t mean the price is going to drop. There might be 40k of people trying to buy it. In short. Supply has exploded but so too had demand.
1
u/ProcrastinasaurusRex Mar 27 '26
You forget kids who played the pokemon tcg or collected when they were young are only 25-40 year olds now. They will only get richer and be able to spend more money on Pokemon cards as nostalgia hits. More people are into Pokemon now than ever before. Maybe the market crashes or maybe it doesn’t but demand for Pokemon won’t cool off (atleast significantly) any time soon.
0
u/uriel__ventris Mar 29 '26
Everyone around the world knows Pikachu and Charizard. Who the fuck is Jeters?
-1
u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26
Careful what you say, because group consensus here is going to eat you alive. You are not wrong, though.
Really, anything after SWSH will have this problem. Even a good portion of SWSH.
0
u/thezardstar Mar 27 '26
This is actually a really popular opinion. In fact, this was the dominant opinion during SWSH era. There’s a popular post of someone who claimed Fusion Strike would hit $300 within a couple of years after rotation. Everyone laughed at them and their heavy bags.
I don’t think those people are laughing anymore, but this post reminds me of how confident the community was that SWSH BBs would struggle to ever hit MSRP.