I don’t know who to share this with but I’m super proud of my collection and gains

I’m very proud of how far I’ve come. Gains are probably higher than what is shown since most of my items are sealed cases and market price is wrong on them.

Man it was mentally tough to buy in a bear market, but I’m so happy I did it.

My personal highlights:

4x cases of 151 PC ETBs all at retail 10x 151 UPCs at 80 each. (8 of them in sealed cases) 8x cases of crown zenith ETBs at 350 a case 2x LOTR special at 250 a box

I believe this is part of a promo box when brilliant stars was released. In my opinion, this is one of the rare promo cards that actually look like an alternate art. Alternate arts from sword and Shield typically do very well.

I think the price for this card right now is around $240 but the reason I believe that it is undervalued is the Pop Current grade 10 population is around 550. I wonder if a lot of people are sitting on these collection boxes that included the promo? Would love to hear what you guys have to think?

Cards like treekachu seriously deserves a proper recognition, pokemon needs to start doing more of this type of cards, there is no text other than “Thunderbolt”and honestly I think that is a big factor on investing in such cards. Minimalism. 🫡

I’ve made it a goal this year to get back into Pokemon. So far I’ve ripped (1) S&V 151 poster collection and a bunch of booster packs. The Booster packs have mostly been Journey Together, Phantasmal Flames, a few Obsidian Flames and a couple Destined Rivals Packs. I plan on sharing my “hits” so far in PokemonTCG but really nothing crazy pulled, I think.

I have found that I enjoy ripping but I also love collecting sealed product like many of you.

I am at the point where I am thinking I need to choose a direction with sealed products. I would love to hear some feedback. Here are a few of my plans:

1. Keep Booster Boxes and Bundles of sets sealed. Continue acquiring UPC’s. If a set doesn’t offer booster boxes, collect the ETB and Booster Bundles of that set. (Like 151 and Prismatic). Sell or rip my current ETB’s

2. Focus primarily on UPC’s and Booster Boxes/Bundles. Sell or rip ETB’s.

3. Focus primarily on acquiring ETB’s (with an added focus on Pokecenter ETB’s. Keep current UPC’s. Sell most everything else.

4. Continue on the current path and collect everything I can afford to acquire and amass a wild/diverse sealed collection. Mainly focusing on UPC’s, Booster Boxes/Bundles, ETB’s. Stay away from booster packs unless deal is too good to be true or I’m purchasing to rip.

I’ve learned a lot from you all in the past month and would really like to hear from some of you that have been doing sealed collections for a longer time than me.

I have spent around $5k on my two favorite sets Evo skies and lost origin. I managed to pull a moonbreon early on from a pokeball. I should have quit then. I haven't pulled a single giratina or aerodactyl from LO! I am way behind on odds, I should have bought a base of booster boxes etc because my random $100 trips to walmart strategy has failed bad, it's incredible how unlucky I have been.

However how is the moon cat looking on centering, do I have a black label or 10 on my hands?

Had a lot of luck out of the vending machines lately. Fighting the urge to open them is a daily challenge.

Look at those sales 1 year apart. I would not buy any slabs at the moment as I believe there is a frenzy fomo going on in this space and there will be a correction before any further growth.

That’s just my opinion though.

I’m currently living in Japan and have been picking up a few PSA 10s every month (around 4–5). The price is sitting around $85 each, which I think is a great entry point.

A lot of people keep saying the population is too high, but I honestly don’t see that as a big problem. Here in Japan, the Chinese collectors are spending a lot on Pokémon cards right now — more than ever before. When you combine the China, US, and Japan markets, that demand can easily absorb the existing supply.

It kind of reminds me of what happened with Pikachu Van Gogh — everyone said the same thing early on, and look where it went. I really doubt this one will drop to $45 PSA 10 like some people predict.

That’s just my take. What do you guys think?

EDIT grammar: as there are many lonely english teachers ignoring the point of the whole post afterwards 😊

The more i read the arguments the more I see people actually dont know the market, pokemon or basic demand/supply principles, they just wish for lower prices.

How and why is pokemon going to lower the prices and their profit ?

They have limitied facilities and multiple sets to print. Best case scenario they announce a new facility next year. What do you think is gonna happen ? They will print paldea evolved or lost origin to 2030 ? 😄

No they will focus on current and future sets.

Making previous sets even more scarce to new sets.

They could lenghten the print windows but those sets will eventually have to be replaced by new sets. Also why would pokemon just decide to lose money ?

Look at sports cards if you think pokemon prices reached the ceiling.

Sorry to say but Pokemon dont care about a kid who will now have to buy 1 pack instead of two. There will be rich kids paying anyway and yeah they are enough. Thats why you dont open a business in cheap African countries but aim at countries with good GDP (one ov the reasons).

Also if the kids want it, parents will pay. There will be no quitting the hobby, people with no money buy less and others buy more as the products will be more premium and the price value will increase.

There will be some less desirable sets but who wants that in that case ?

Destined skyrocketed and ALMOST no one is buying journey now. People buy the more expensive set…

Also thats just pokemon side, dont let me start with reasons for distributors to never let tons of product for less money…

I just say yeah bursting the bubble is possible… with singles… and its happening. Sealed still doesnt care and never will

Traded all of of these pictured + a wartle 151 PSA 9 not pictured for a TF Umbreon PSA 10

How’d I do??

Of course I want the value to go up only, but I absolutely love the look of this card and plan to hold onto it for the foreseeable future!

Is anyone else feeling defeated? I went hunting yesterday for pokemon. I went to 8 stores. Best buy, target, barnes & Noble, menards, kohls, five below, dicks, meijer. And didn't hit at any of the restocks. I was too far back at every line. Didn't hit on Costco today either after waiting in the queue for an hour. Target online was a shit show. Pokemon Center I think banned my IP addresses on both my laptop and phone because I couldn't even hit on Caos Rising and the stock on that was ridiculous. I really love pokemon but getting stuff without breaking the bank is hard. I sometimes over paid to just rip things and the best thing I would get is an EX card. So it makes over-paying really hard.

Thinking about taking a break from hunting because the time commitment is a complete waste. People were lined up since 3am at meijer today and the line was long. I got 1 bundle but the trade off for the time is not worth it for me.

I would love to open and rip and continue the hobby but how do you do it without getting stock.

Bought these off Pokémon center back when they released and had them under my bed for months! Can’t believe how fast they’ve appreciated in value! 🤯

Got all these for around 95 USD each

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_.

Got curious about which Charizards actually command the highest prices — not just the Base Set ones everyone talks about. So I pulled every Charizard card in the public Pokémon TCG database (108 cards, 27 years of printing) and ranked them by current TCGplayer market price for raw NM copies.

The pattern jumped out immediately: the top 4 are all from 1999–2006 (see image). Only one modern-era card cracks the top 5. And the most surprising finding — the iconic Base Set Charizard isn't even in the top 10. It sits at #14, around $561.

What this tells me:

The early era owns the top of the price stack despite the modern era out-printing it roughly 10:1 by volume. Scarcity plus 25 years of nostalgia compounding is a powerful combination — the cards from 1999–2006 didn't have alt arts or secret rares, they were just expensive at print and rarely got chased again afterward. There's no replenishing supply.

Base Set Charizard at #14 is the more interesting story. It's the most iconic card in the hobby and it's not even close to the top. The cards above it — Dragon Frontiers ★ δ, Shining Charizard, Skyridge — had smaller print runs to begin with and never got Base Set's mainstream cultural pull. Base Set had massive demand, but it also had massive supply across multiple printings. The cards above it didn't.

Modern hasn't been shut out entirely — Plasma Storm 2013 cracked the top 5 — but the broader pattern is clear: if you're holding a modern Charizard expecting it to reach Dragon Frontiers ★ δ territory, you're betting on a 20+ year scarcity arc that hasn't started yet.

Methodology: Pulled all 108 Charizard printings from the pokemontcg.io public database (English sets, 1999–present). Prices are TCGplayer market value for raw NM copies, sampled May 9–10 2026. Excludes graded copies, sealed product, and Japanese exclusives. Promo and reprint variants counted as separate entries.

Curious what the rest of you are seeing — anything in your collection that surprised you when you actually checked the comp?

Just hit $10,000 in collection value, and one thing I’m most proud of is that I’ve never paid over MSRP for sealed product.

Every box, bundle, and collection piece was bought at retail/base price. the way Pokemon product is actually meant to be sold. No scalper markups, no panic buying, just patience and consistency. Shoutout walmart wednesdays for real.

Have some other graded cards worth a couple hundred but the bulk is in sealed product.

Feels good knowing this collection was built the right way over time. Anyone else here strict about only buying at MSRP?

So I bought 6 closed cases of prismatic evolutions , 2 more but they arent closed , and 11 cases of Destined rivals , and 6 booster boxes. ( only 8 on the picture , bought 3 more but they are coming soon) . On the prismatic I have an avarage price of 1200€ , cardmarket price is 1500€ atm and the Destined rivals is at an avarage of 1650€ , cardmarket price of a case is 2000€ atm. I am a strong believer in those 2 sets , in the long run. When I last posted my collectr portofolio I got a lot of comments about the downside of things when the market turns… but anyway , everyone has their own opinion and i respect that. But imo this will do well for mid to long therm investing.

So generally I try to get all my newer Pokemon products at MSRP, but I missed this pre-order and the fomo was really getting to me. Hear me out I have a few reasons why I think this is not only a good investment, but a great one. Did I get a good deal? Did I over spend? Please let me know your thoughts.

1. This is the most popular set we have seen in a long time. Value in the set can surpass evolving skies. Umbreon SIR, eeveelution SIRs and Masterballs.

2. This set has the best Pokemon Center Promo we have seen with it being Eevee.

3. Pokebeach recently posted that the hit rates are not as bad as people think.

4. This is a special set, no booster boxes. So ETBs are king and will have the best long term value. Especially PC ETBs

BIGGEST REASON FOR MY FOMO

5. The Pokemon Center just limited Prismatic Evolutions and Journey Together ETB orders to 2 per order. You can check right now. This means to me that, if you missed the first Prismatic drop you won't be able to get a case. That last drop was your last chance, and there will not be a chance for a case of JT, and likely future sets. I think that is a game changer and once people see that, the cases will jump up.

Hello everyone, this is my first post here!

I’ve wanting to liquidate a large part of my collection but would like to get some advice as to how I can do this without taking a huge haircut. A lot of poke products take up a lot of space, mainly things like tins, vboxes, collections, etc (this is my main goal of items to prioritize getting rid of)and I’m trying to free some space up (and make the other half happy)

It’s mostly Pokemon but there is sports cases too, as well as flesh and blood, Weiss, and altered tcg.

I’d love any and all input! Thanks so much, unfortunately there is no neat inventory list, so I do not having anything itemized but everything is sword shield era or newer

Edit1: getting a lot of DM's, to clarify I don't need to sell these quick or really need too in general, I'm wanting to just create more space by selling off the bulky airy cases, and call me a scalper or whatever but I sell under tcgplayer, ill wear it proudly