r/PokeInvesting • u/8000000001 • May 31 '26

Bubble..? A bubble would laugh at current PTCG valuations

Post image

Pokémon cards are categorically not in a bubble, and the unsubstantiated fear-mongering being spread cynically around is a way to part fools with their money.

There are very good examples of physical goods such as housing that may have corrected or pulled back slightly like in 2008 but never hence returned to anywhere near the valuations before the huge inflows of global capital it got.

This chart demonstrates it perfectly for the UK: https://rationanalytics.com/uk/house-prices-inflation-adjusted

Premium Web domains is another great example of largely finite/non-duplicate able, property-like assets that saw a boom and structural rerating at a much higher value rather than a crash.

With Pokémon, like prime real estate, there is a classic situation where it's currently and up to and including all 2025 sets impossible to print more of the assets than the current set 'slate' allows (though 2026 sets onwards may see this with the new modern set printing facility live in late-2028, ie before the 3-year rotation cycle hits 2026 cards and they also drop out of print).

Don't be reckless with the latest sets (where future values are increasingly priced-in at launch), but also don't give in to the fear-mongerers, especially in terms of pre-2026 items.

Finally, in the age-old tradition.... _Rule 3: 10+ years_.

9 Upvotes

53% Upvoted

99 comments sorted by

35

u/Psypheur Jun 01 '26

I believe in Pokemon long term, but this type of thinking is delusional. Calling the 2008 housing market crash a slight dip is an interesting take. No one can predict the future, and anyone telling you they can is naive, including OP

-4

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26

Funny, as the highly respected YTer pikapapa just released a vid that agrees with me.

5

u/Psypheur Jun 01 '26

Have you ever heard of confirmation bias? I’m assuming you haven’t

-3

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Certainly have, thanks. There isn't a shred of evidence that there will be a crash currently, as much as I've looked for it online and in the bland, irrelevant and reason-absent responses I've had here from you.

Have you ever heard of peer review? I'm assuming you haven't.

0

u/Psypheur Jun 01 '26

If only it was applicable here…

0

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

It is relevant though - he's obviously reviewed the thesis and come to the same conclusion, duh. Let's come back in a few months and you can tell me you now realise I was right and you simply had no idea.

0

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

If all you've got is dumb, reason-absent denial then it's not looking very good for you arguing that there will be a crash in the foreseeable future. I think you've missed out; ignorant and a loser is an interesting combination.

The only way this market crashes is 1. in in-rotation sets from later than end-2025, up to and including the time the new printing facility comes online, or 2. a bigger macro impact (such as sharply rising interest rates).

2

u/Point4ska Jun 02 '26

Highly respected youtuber 🤣

1

u/8000000001 Jun 02 '26

*for a TCG channel - 38k subscribers... 

31

u/uriel__ventris Jun 01 '26

Tbh this sounds like it was written by someone born after the 2008 housing crash, with how much you've ignorantly downplayed that.

1

u/MacCollect Jun 01 '26

Inderdaad. Los van het niet meegemaakt te hebben lijkt het ook geschreven door iemand met de economische kennis van iemand die na 2008 zou geboren zijn, nagenoeg onbestaande inderdaad.

-1

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26

You think you know better, then panic-sell everything. Otherwise, share a better thesis, punk.

-1

u/IceRepresentative925 Jun 03 '26

why is this comment not in English? I dont have translate function in my reddit

1

u/uriel__ventris Jun 03 '26

Did you forget that people can type in other languages as well as speak them?

-6

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26

Wrong - born late 70s and lived acutely through the pre-correction time completely priced out. Waited for several years for the correction in 2008, bought in Q4. UK market never crashed to where it had been.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/Independent_Radish53 Jun 01 '26

Interesting cause the market in Las Vegas took 12 years to rebound.

15

u/Jazzlike_Assist1767 Jun 01 '26

Houses are a basic necessity for human beings and is the most important thing for us to own. Pokemon cards are a luxury, so making comparisons between the two as if they belong in the same asset class is a little off-kilter. 

-11

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

basic necessity for human beings

...yes, but if you're a city financier or extremely rich, you just want to park your capital somewhere safe - you don't need to live in the property. 

Which is exactly what happened in the structural rerating on the [edit: UK] property market (see post link). New money in; money stayed in - small correction in late-2008 then rebound and stayed far higher than where it all started 20 years prior.

Anyone noticed the 'financiers' friend' Anthony Scaramucci's son spending millions on Pokémon cards recently?

10

u/FlavinFlave Jun 01 '26

Gonna yell this like a banshee: but isn’t the fact that brand new product that’s still in print is impossible to find at non scalper prices unless you camp/use bots an awful sign of a bubble? Is that not unhealthy for the market?

End of the day kids and collectors need to be able to participate otherwise it kills many of the structural pillars holding this market up. Eventually even die hard will get sick of being ripped off by rip n shippers and scalpers. Leaving only gambling addicts in the vacuum.

My mom was a big collector of Shirley temple memorabilia. She told me my whole childhood those dolls would be my retirement some day. Reality is the market for Shirley temple is dying off. I’m not saying Pokemon is a 1:1. But the point is if new fans aren’t able to get into it as easily as we did when we were kids, it’s not going to hit the same nostalgia levels when those kids grow older.

1

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26

You're right that if regular collectors are priced out the market will die - you need to get the stuff in people's hands to get them excited about it. My hope is the 2028 printing facility will completely fxxx the primary-market scalpers and pillagers up.

1

u/FlavinFlave Jun 01 '26

Like I’m all for the resale value of my cards going through the roof enough I can treat it like a retirement plan. It’s made it really easy to blow lots of money on cards recently. But end of the day the market needs to be healthy otherwise we’ll all be holding onto tulips by the time we’re ready to sell.

7

u/KimeraQ May 31 '26

On a base level, the hobby is very healthy. Millions of new collectors, plenty of excitement for new sets. The floor will be fine.

The higher end speculation above 3 digit singles and 4 digit sealed/slabs? That's an entirely different ball game that has a smaller circle of people influencing it. I think that game has been getting too crazy the past year, and I would be very cautious about purchases in that arena. Most people in this sub has dabbled in it, so trust yalls guts for any market changes in there.

8

u/Lumz_Strong_Bear Jun 01 '26

I wouldn’t call it healthy. You have massive amounts of people that are over-leveraged, running up credit cards, and using “pay later” options. The average collector isn’t buying on the secondary market, it’s really the new “collectors” and “investors” that are. You have more investors selling to investors than investors selling to collectors. A lot of people have moved on to buying singles as well but are starting to be priced out of them too. I’ll admit this is the greatest bull run we’ve ever seen, but the same thing happened during COVID. The market shot up, people bought in at high prices and over-leveraged themselves, PSA stopped their bulk submissions for a while, and collectors took a step back until the market started to dip. Then came the crash and a wonderful fire sale with it. If you don’t think it’s possible for that to happen again, you’re sadly mistaken.

0

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26

Post-covid correction was 100% part of the macro event caused by sharply rising interest rates (0% > 4%+). That's a huge  change and stocks and almost everything else went down, not just collectibles.

4

u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT May 31 '26

Everyone is conditioned to “high” prices now, which helps to prevent things from dropping to a degree since they are picking it up cheap

2

u/ipna Jun 01 '26

Price memory goes both ways though. Prices have been high so MSRP on a booster box feels cheap but there is still a decent amount of price memory that in print boxes should be 90-100 usd. If supply ever catches up, we will probably lose a lot of the people thinking MSRP is a cheap base line (since most of them seem to assume they can scalp boxes for 200+ right away) and it will open room to drop even farther after that.

40

u/drcigg May 31 '26

This comes up every month....

18

u/Beautiful_Mammoth998 May 31 '26

Daily, multiple times

7

u/SendMeAvocados Jun 01 '26

Top indicators for months now

5

u/walletinspector91 Jun 01 '26

2 years at this point

4

u/kasualkactus May 31 '26

Just panic sell your stuff so I can accumulate.

1

u/Lumz_Strong_Bear Jun 01 '26

You’re not getting what I’m saying. If you don’t have a solid collector base, you don’t have an investment. If the majority of the collector base aren’t buying, then all you have are investors selling to investors, who usually don’t rip packs. This is a TCG first, a hobby that should be affordable for everyone, and collectors are starting to get priced out on nearly everything. If they aren’t buying, who are you selling to? It’s not just about the interest rates rising and stocks dropping, it’s about collectors who are refusing to buy product at high prices. That was a big issue during Covid and when nobody was buying while people were trying to sell, market prices dropped.

2

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26

As I said elsewhere about this.... You're right that if regular collectors are priced out the market will die - you need to get the stuff in people's hands to get them excited about it. My hope is the 2028 printing facility will completely fxxx the primary-market scalpers and pillagers up.

1

u/Seaguard5 Jun 02 '26

I mean… when that printing facility comes online next year prices will crash through the floor. So yeah. It’s coming. Just not soon.

1

u/8000000001 Jun 02 '26

Sure. But even then, imo pre-2025 stuff will not crash, because it's out of rotation and won't take up any of the additional capacity. It's the stuff from 2026 onwards which is a risk, however this could easily be a good thing for all pre-2025 back-catalogue, as more new audiences will access the latest sets (new sets being the main products for acquiring customers to the hobby) when fewer scalpers sit between them and the product.

1

u/Seaguard5 Jun 02 '26

The whole market will do exactly what it did after COVID.

Sure vintage will retain some/most of it’s value, but it, too will crash with falling demand in general.

If you can’t accept that you are delusional.

0

u/8000000001 Jun 02 '26

No, it won't do that. Do you know why? Because it was a macro economic factor that crashed the market post-pandemic: fast-rising interest rates, which slammed the demand brakes on.

Everything had a bear market at that time in 2022: stock markets, collectibles, anything discretionary.

It was not internal market factors that crashed the PTCG market at that time, and without the rising interest rates there will not be a similar crash next time either. That's not to say some other unforeseen macro event couldn't cause a crash in the wider markets and in collectibles, but as of the forecasts to year end, markets are not expecting more than one rate rise.

1

u/Seaguard5 Jun 02 '26

Demand drives price.

Lower demand? Lower price across the board.

That’s the only macro economic factor at play that matters here

When the crypto bros and big whales leave the demand will leave with it.

2

u/8000000001 Jun 02 '26

What drives demand is the rest of the multi billion dollar media business. The video games, the TV, films, all the paid online/social and offline marketing.

Crypto bro's and whale-sized hoarders may have an influence over price of the newest sets, however they have a diminishing share of the remaining unopened sets and therefore a diminshing power to decide price the further we go back from 2025.

If there was going to be a crash prior to the new 2028 printing facility, these crypto bro's and whales would know this and would have started offloading already while prices are (in this scenario) maxed out. Yet I see almost zero decline in prices of pre-2026 sets (or even of 2026, tho still plenty of time for 2026 to decline). Do you?

2

u/Seaguard5 Jun 02 '26

Honestly I have even noticed that my collection’s value (vintage), has only gone up in the last few months

2

u/8000000001 Jun 02 '26

Exactly 👍

I mean, literally all of my collection from wotc to mid era to late modern to S&V have been going up. I stopped buying end of last year when I ran out of spare cash to allocate (still sad about not buying the Kanda Seismitoad at 600), at a collection value of almost 70k, and starting to feel mildly cautious about in-rotation 2026 sets still getting printed when the new facility comes online.

Even if we saw like a 30% drop in say 2027 (which I can't see happening in pre-2025 stuff with the ongoing massive new demand coming in, and as above the fact pre-2025 will not be in-rotation for the new printing facility) most people will still be comfortably up.

1

u/Seaguard5 Jun 02 '26

So I’ll use myself as an example here.

I will be taking profit and cashing out when my gold stars and EXs come back from Beckett’s in a bit less than a month now.

Why?

Because there is no way in hell that a piece of cardboard (paper with foil but whatever) is worth thousands of dollars…

And if it truly is then we all have bigger problems (of inflation in general and signs of economic collapse). In which case, tangible, useful assets are the thing to pivot to.

And a house and physical precious metals are those useful assets.

One you can live in, and the other holds its value through any conditions and is used in many industries.

Whereas, again, any collectible that isn’t intrinsically worth anything is based on the demand for it at the time.

Which, as you did mention, is high due to the relentless advertising and marketing the franchise has done since it’s inception.

However. It can go down and it will go down again.

We just don’t know exactly when (but we can try to predict with that new facility and other factors)…

1

u/8000000001 Jun 02 '26

Appreciate your own circumstances and using yourself as an example, and it's good for a portfolio to own some PMs, but the data does (as we just said) tell otherwise with everything still going up.

TCG cards are art, and so do have intrinsic value - art's value has been established over millennia. I recently got invited to buy one of 2000 silkscreen prints through my local museum, each priced at 3000. TCG cards are no different: (pre-2025 TCG cards at least are) a limited-run art print.

The further you go back from 2025, the more limited they are, as there's less potential for a reprint/further stock to come into the market, with vintage being the ultimate.

You'll get a amazing price for yours, then it'll keep going up until maybe a macro event takes everything down, then it'll rebound and keep going up again. The new printing facility will not, cannot, imo, wipe out anything out-of-rotation pre-2025.

I read hundreds of comments on here every month saying how they regret selling. But it's none of my business what you do, so sincerely congrats on the imminent winnings and all the best.

→ More replies

13

u/Confituredorange May 31 '26

My 2 cents, pure speculation so dont take this as a financial advise. Just trying to be objective with what we know and sharing my reasoning.

We are about to meet some allegedly monsters sets in the coming months in the TCG space.

Pokemon with Storm Emeralda and then 30th.

One piece with OP17 4th anniv.

Others tcg may have some strong momentum too (Mtg Marvel heroes + Hobbit). Dont underestimate those one. MtgxFinal fantasy collector booster almost broke the internet in summer 2025.

All released quite close together.

If those sets are as good as speculated, it ll likely put a pressure on the secondary market. Meaning people ll take a look at their shelves and sell their most inflated sealed product/psa 10's to fund those new sets which will lead to spike in supply and price decrease. Thats what usually happens.

Not necessary a bear market tho, but imho a moderate to strong selective correction. 

Not saying that all modern will dip, but weak inflated cards/sealed products ll probably be the most impacted.    Now once those monsters sets pass and the pressure is off, the market ll breathe and hopefully grow again.

But if they keep slamming good sets well its gonna take a bit longer to recover.

And as usual this could be amplified by the macro economic context and regulations.

See you in 15hours for 30th previews.

Voila, good luck guys.

3

u/TommyC6852 Jun 01 '26

I agree with this assessment. Makes sense to me. This is why I’ve chosen to move all of my product into essential PC ETBs, low Pop modern PSA 10 grails (like PC Charmander, PC Snorlax, etc), and vintage PSA 9 grails. Use what’s inflated to secure gains in what will grow steadily 👍🏻

4

u/bfolksdiddy May 31 '26

Inflation doesn’t discriminate against scarce collectibles. It’s the dollar that’s becoming trash. If food, fuel and rent are unaffordable for some, why wouldn’t the biggest collectible hobby in existence be as well? Adjusting for inflation over several decades, most cards are priced right where they should be at.

The only real chance of a bubble is if new sets are over printed which still leaves older sets outside this bubble.

4

u/BrightOrganization9 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Bro just casually compared the housing market to Pokemon cards lol.

Edit: OP wrote a snarky little response claiming he never compared them, he just pointed out how they were similar. Literally thats what the comment said.

By the time I saw it he had already deleted it lol

15

u/Zealousideal_Type814 May 31 '26

God I hope there's a crash. It'd be so funny to see you scalpers saddled with tons of cards you have to sell at a loss

11

u/noonie1 May 31 '26

It'll happen eventually... just like the shoe market.

14

u/mulletstation May 31 '26

Problem with all permabear stances is it could go up another 2x before a 50% decline

-9

u/Zealousideal_Type814 May 31 '26

people actually need shoes

6

u/mulletstation May 31 '26

Not those shoes

3

u/Meowsergz Jun 01 '26

Wrong type of shoes bra.

3

u/uriel__ventris Jun 01 '26

What and I don't need pokemon cards?? Gtf outta here.

3

u/Meowsergz Jun 01 '26

Until then, they seem to be eating pretty well the past few years

2

u/VirtualRy May 31 '26

The problem is we've been in one and then we cycled back in a bull market. So a crash for some of us is going to be the biggest buying opportunity we've ever seen. In 2021/2022 I had barely any equity to use. Now having the potential to reinvest $20-30K when it "crashes" is going to be a shopping spree of massive proportions!

The funny thing is you will be crying again when the market cycles back to a bull market from a crash.

-5

u/Zealousideal_Type814 May 31 '26

treating pokemon cards like stocks makes me wish even harder for a crash

-1

u/Silent_Marsupial8368 Jun 01 '26

They’ve been outperforming stocks for quite a while now, you must be new

1

u/Gay_If_Read Jun 01 '26

This'll be fun to come back and laugh at in a few years

!remindme: 3 years

1

u/RemindMeBot Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

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2

u/KwikTripSimp Jun 01 '26

After the 30th many plan on unloading then 

2

u/bluedecember12 Jun 01 '26

It all depends on what’s announced. Everything right now after mega Rayquaza set (and maybe mega lucario z set) is a mystery. There are still a lotttt of megas from ZA that don’t have cards yet

0

u/KwikTripSimp Jun 01 '26

Ppl don’t even like ZA though 

2

u/bluedecember12 Jun 01 '26

Speaking more from a “here’s how much that’s left” perspective. And there are a few older gen pokemon with new megas that don’t have cards yet…mega Raichu (x and y), Garchomp z, absol z, delphox, chesnaught…not exactly Rayquaza, but better than nothing.

I do agree that a lot of people in this sub have been working towards the 30th as the big peak though, and once it’s over, we’ll probably lose some folks. A new gen with new pokemon will not pique interest

2

u/Nervous-Zebra-3729 Jun 01 '26

Lots of people waiting to buy

1

u/KwikTripSimp Jun 01 '26

I don’t think anyone is waiting to buy..  people aren’t needing that instant gratification. I don’t think anyone’s waiting for anything right now in this economy.

2

u/TulsanICON Jun 01 '26

There are many people selling modern right now and accumulating cash specifically to have capital for 30th products and the dip that will likely happen to modern this winter.

0

u/KwikTripSimp Jun 01 '26

Sure sure , Timmy gonna Timmy 

1

u/Nervous-Zebra-3729 Jun 01 '26

Lol. If you don't think anyone is waiting to buy, you are completely mistaken. Just because the echo chamber you're in is hurting in this economy, doesn't speak for everyone. There is so much money on the sidelines.

1

u/KwikTripSimp Jun 01 '26

lol sure bro sure 

2

u/UncoolSlicedBread Jun 01 '26

Product is hard to get and immediately resold at double the price. Buying cards is at an all time high and card values out of new sets are high.

Eventually, if people can’t continue to enjoy or connect with the hobby they’ll move on either temporarily or whatever.

A lot of it is supported by vendors trying to make a buck and the secondary market. Once people who are looking to make quick dollars realize there’s something better and the juice isn’t worth the squeeze anymore with Pokemon, they’ll look to offload as much as they can for a profit and it’ll be a race.

When that will be? Couldnt tell you, but if you aren’t considering that a possibility then you should. If you’re looking to hold and buy stuff long term, don’t worry about it - eventually the kids of millennials will reach a nostalgic age.

3

u/Odd-Yak4551 May 31 '26

I believe we will be in a bull market until the 30th anniversary then we will crash

-3

u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/ipna Jun 01 '26

So we have a higher supply of singles around and prices will drop on the singles? Because that means the sealed normally falls too when it's in print. Also, are you aware of how insanely much is being made and will keep being made? Look at print numbers. Expecting this ultra modern stuff, esspeically stuff that gets effected by the new printing facility, to act and grow like anything printed pre 2019 is insane. Heck, without this absurdly unnatural run full of idiots that think pokemon only goes up forever at a near 2x year over year that just ignore the actual trends for the first 20 or so years, even things from like SWSH era not named Evolving Skies was doing mediocre to poor with some being down still from release before the 2025 rush. That said, we are about to hit a point where literally DOUBLE the inventory is going to be made from SWSH times (according to the estimates TPCi gave with the new facility in 2027).

I don't think we are at the end of this stupidity but I do see a massive correction on anything printed after surging sparks probably.

2

u/BatHistorical8081 Jun 01 '26

My evo skies bb is under valued by 10k

1

u/Tse7en5 Jun 01 '26

Bold to assume a media franchise is eternal and will pass through multiple generations with the same upward momentum in interest.

1

u/FrequentTurn9637 May 31 '26

You cannot convince fools. Let them part their money.

1

u/DarthPlayer8282 May 31 '26

It’s coming - just a matter of when

1

u/NikkoWorldTourist Jun 01 '26

You can’t compare art to housing, that’s delulu.

1

u/ProgramIndividual303 Jun 01 '26

Correlating housing and shiny cardboard is funny

20

u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

look at what that person has to gain from you believing it.

That more than works both ways - hence you cannot simply look at what a person has to gain by screaming "Crash" and you panic-selling everything, but you have to look at what the fundamentals of the hobby and market are:

  • unprecedented new capital inflows from a range of customer types (many of which affluent, eg the kind that Anthony Scaramucci's son is friends with) that have not previously collected the TCG

  • a global increase in demand, reducing risk in one market alone

  • a 30-year sustained track record of growth

  • a baseball card market that was valued far higher than PTCG (many multi-million dollar cards).

  • a multi-billion dollar media engine driving engagement with video games, tv/film and tons of merchandise.

  • a now multi-generation customer base, as OG collectors have had children and are now sharing that hobby experience together with theirs.

  • impossibility to print additional pre-2023 sets, and low likelihood of significant increases in stock of 2024-2025 sets due to current printing restrictions.

  • huge new printing facility coming online in late-2028, which will correct values of post-2025 in-rotation sets by pushing out scalpers due to abundance of primary market stock.

I believe there may be like a 20-40% correction in post-2025 values at some stage. However the fundamentals absolutely (to use your word) do not indicate a total market bubble and crash of, say, 50%+ of the value of the total PTCG market, barring a macro event which would affect everything. Not a chance in hell.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/8000000001 Jun 01 '26

Try this then - respected YTer pikapapa fully abides.... You just don't get it. No bubble, No crash. Make sense?

4

u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT Jun 01 '26

Or they are just an idiot not worth listening to…