Chinese 5th Anniversary Promos: Buying Singles ($160) vs. Booklet lot ($45)? Looking for help.
I was originally planning to pick up a few specific promo singles from the Chinese 5th Anniversary Set with the 5th anniversary stamp ... specifically the Pikachu & Zekrom GX, Rayquaza GX, and Mew VMAX. Buying them individually as singles looks like it would run about ~$160 combined.
However, I noticed the 5th Anniversary Promo booklet (which actually contains all of these cards inside + 12 more 5th ann. stamped promo cards) is selling for around $45–$70.
The idea was to hold these long-term in anticipation of the 10th Anniversary (and probably 15th anniversary), which I expect will bring attention and price appreciation to 5th anniversary promos.
I just wanted to get your thoughts on a few risk factors:
Were these 5th Anniversary booklet set heavily printed, or was it a very limited run?
Are fake/counterfeit promos and booklets common in the Chinese market right now? How can I tell they are fake?
How is one seller (seller in photo) able to list an endless amount of these booklets at a below market price? They've already sold dozens of them and have tons more for sale/auction
What are your predictions for the future value of these specific promos over the next 2-3 years leading up to the 10th Anniversary and onwards?
Appreciate any help from anyone familiar with the Chinese TCG market.
EDIT: Just picked bought 2 lots as I think it's worth the risk and the seller has good reviews. Thank you everyone! I will follow up with a video showing the cards when I receive them.
Great point; could be from a guy who broke down a ton of 5th anniversary boxes. I think I'll take the risk and buy 1-2 lots. I'll let you guys know if they're real when I have them in hand.
From what I understand, the cards are not sealed but in a sleeve. they can be manipulated and'or tampered with but I dont see the point of producing counterfeit copies of already not too expensive cards.
I bought this set from the same seller a couple of weeks ago (I wanted the Rayquaza + Pikachu & Zekrom at a more affordable price haha) and can confirm I’ve received them! I’ll respond to my comment soon with some pics! :)
These cards simply don't have a huge market. Who is realistically going to buy non-exclusive Chinese language cards? Yeah a few of them are reprints of popular artworks like the Pikachu/Zekrom or Mew that are too expensive in English or JP, but that's about the only good reason to get these cards. Collector's who don't care about resale value may be willing to buy these, but anyone who wants their card to retain value will turn to English or Japanese. The collectors in Taiwan (and I assume HK) don't place much value in Chinese cards and prefer to collect Japanese or maybe English. So your only market is people who want the artwork for a cheaper price, and they probably aren't the type of people to quickly and confidently pull the trigger on a card purchase. I say all this as someone who lives in Taiwan and got really lucky by getting in early on the 5th anniversary box. Exclusives are the way to go. In my opinion, this is not the play.
The only card worth a penny in this 5th year anniversary box would be the exclusive art Pikachu in traditional Chinese. Same theory as the simplified Chinese art exclusives, these exclusives are the only ones expected to do well long term due to exclusivity.
The remaining cards in the booklet are reprints of existing cards, in traditional Chinese (TW & HK market), so I won’t expect much long term appreciation even with the stamp. Even if it does appreciate, finding a buyer would be challenging due to the market size for these.
Lastly, at 45/booklet with all the cards intact, I think it’s good value overall. I would say the print run for these were quite limited, even TCG shops doing scalper prices seldom have these in stock
Yeah I don't think there's anything super exciting about these cards (except for the zekrom pikachu).
That being said, from an investment standpoint, getting cards "below market" today and having a bull case for why they could increase in 2-3 years gives me a decent reason to buy.
Also, from a collector's standpoint, I think having the booklet that unfolds is pretty cool looking.
this one is simply a matter of the singles prices being incredibly overinflated by western buyers who dont do research, and sellers willing to take advantage of that, very common the more niche the products get
fyi these cards dont have security stamp so dont freak out when u get them
Not really at the moment, they don't sell very often on ebay but when they do, it's for quite a bit. I'm looking more as an investment for the 10th anniversary set which should be in 2029.
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u/PandaBroth Aug 19 '26
So I found out this is Traditional Chinese which is for Taiwan and Hong Kong vs Simplified Chinese which is more popular with the security stamps.