Are Pokemon Cards the new collectible like comics? 3 3

[WolverineX]

1 hour ago, Bronty said:

Lots of sealed NES that were more common are doing amazing actually.   The trick was not being a sucker and buying loose when the difference between the loose and sealed was paltry. 

I don't really know the terms but loose means opened?

[Bronty]

45 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

I don't really know the terms but loose means opened?

Loose means “loose cartridges”.   Opened and missing everything but the cartridge.   The analogy doesn't work so well, but think of that as "good."

CIB means "cartridge, instructions, box" or "complete in box".    Another imperfect analogy would be "fine" condition.

Sealed/unopened imperfect analogy is "near mint".

 

Edited October 20, 2020 by Bronty

[Bronty]

11 hours ago, FlyingDonut said:

You bought then. You shouldn't have. You should have bought in 2000 when no one wanted the stuff.

based on your recommendation I was literally about to buy a bunch of pokemon and especially yu-gi-oh when they started blowing up.    Too little too late but my attention was elsewhere.

Did you stash some away?

[october]

12 hours ago, FlyingDonut said:

You bought then. You shouldn't have. You should have bought in 2000 when no one wanted the stuff.

I bought then because I was twelve. In 2000 I was a sophomore in college and my priorities weren't exactly hoarding junk I wanted 8 years prior. 

Edited October 20, 2020 by october

[october]

2 hours ago, Bronty said:

Ultimately you also need a lot of appreciation for and attachment to the material itself too or you’ll always sell too early..

That's the final rub, and not just that you will sell too early, it's that you don't want to sell at all. The comics I own that have increased in value 10-40x over what I paid I don't want to cash in on because I am too attached. I would have pulled the ripcord long ago if they were just "investments" gathering dust in a closet. 

It really takes a perfect storm. You have to A) buy cheaply before/after anyone else cares B) accurately predict it will be hot decades from then C) be one of the few people to recognize the opportunity D) hold onto what you bought despite having little/no emotional attachment and/or manage to part with it at the correct time if you do. 

[Bronty]

45 minutes ago, october said:

That's the final rub, and not just that you will sell too early, it's that you don't want to sell at all. The comics I own that have increased in value 10-40x over what I paid I don't want to cash in on because I am too attached. I would have pulled the ripcord long ago if they were just "investments" gathering dust in a closet. 

It really takes a perfect storm. You have to A) buy cheaply before/after anyone else cares B) accurately predict it will be hot decades from then C) be one of the few people to recognize the opportunity D) hold onto what you bought despite having little/no emotional attachment and/or manage to part with it at the correct time if you do. 

Yeah.   In order to say no to 40x, you have to have been willing to say no to 10x.    Then 15x.    Then 20x.   Then 30x.    etc... all the way up and down the timeline.       Anybody looking to just make a few bucks cashes in at 10x or, to be frank, more like 2x.   "Hey, I doubled my money!"   They never get to a position where they can say no to 40x.

I've cashed in a few things for lifestyle improvements, but it just makes getting anything else out of me harder going forward.     I still have daily WTF price shock moments though.    I was offered 15K today for something I mentally valued at 4k today, maybe 2k two years ago, that I paid $100 or less ($75?) for ten years ago.   I'm sure I was low on my mental valuation, but again, when you pay something like $75 and you haven't dragged it of of a box in five years, its easy for that to happen.     Aaaand I'm going to say no to the offer.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Bronty

[FlyingDonut]

1 hour ago, Bronty said:

based on your recommendation I was literally about to buy a bunch of pokemon and especially yu-gi-oh when they started blowing up.    Too little too late but my attention was elsewhere.

Did you stash some away?

I did - based on what my son wanted I bought some stuff which has now blown up. I realize of course that my accuracy in forecasting things that are blowing up right now - Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Gundam Wing - is a direct result of having 12 year old son in 2007, so that helped. I have a bunch of unopened boxes that have just gathered dust for years.

Edited October 20, 2020 by FlyingDonut

[Bronty]

Just now, FlyingDonut said:

I did - based on what my son wanted I bought some stuff which has now blown up. I realize of course that my accuracy in forecasting things that are blowing up right now - Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Gundam Wing - is a direct result of having 12 year old son in 2007, so that helped. I have a bunch of unopened boxes that have just gathered dust for 15 years.

nice work!

[FlyingDonut]

4 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Yeah.   In order to say no to 40x, you have to have been willing to say no to 10x.    Then 15x.    Then 20x.   Then 30x.    etc... all the way up and down the timeline.       Anybody looking to just make a few bucks cashes in at 10x or, to be frank, more like 2x.   "Hey, I doubled my money!"   They never get to a position where they can say no to 40x.

I've cashed in a few things for lifestyle improvements, but it just makes getting anything else out of me harder going forward.     I still have daily WTF price shock moments though.    I was offered 15K today for something I mentally valued at 4k today, maybe 2k two years ago, that I paid $100 or less ($75?) for ten years ago.   I'm sure I was low on my mental valuation, but again, when you pay $75 and you haven't dragged it of of a box in five years, its easy for that to happen.     Aaaand I'm going to say no to the offer.

There's the stuff that is fungible and movable and is now worth 10x what I paid for it because of laziness and ennui and I haven't flipped them fast enough and I'm really happy that because of my slothfulness I've now made a higher multiplier on smoething.

Then there are things I have that have gone up in value at multiples that are insane but those are things that are MINE and I don't want to move them. Its not a comic book, but I bought a first printing 1977 Bill James Baseball Abstract years ago and paid a pretty penny. I wonder what that would go for now? There are only 75 of them. 

[Bronty]

3 minutes ago, FlyingDonut said:

There's the stuff that is fungible and movable and is now worth 10x what I paid for it because of laziness and ennui and I haven't flipped them fast enough and I'm really happy that because of my slothfulness I've now made a higher multiplier on smoething.

Then there are things I have that have gone up in value at multiples that are insane but those are things that are MINE and I don't want to move them. Its not a comic book, but I bought a first printing 1977 Bill James Baseball Abstract years ago and paid a pretty penny. I wonder what that would go for now? There are only 75 of them. 

Interesting.    I guess that makes sense because you deal a lot at shows right?   So you have YOUR stuff and "inventory."

For my part I don't want to sell any of it, but I'll sell whatever you want to buy if the number is high enough that it truly can't be denied and helps pay for something (or three somethings) else that I like better.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Bronty

[FlyingDonut]

Just now, Bronty said:

Interesting.    I guess that makes sense because you deal a lot at shows right?   So you have YOUR stuff and "inventory."

For my part I don't want to sell any of it, but I'll sell whatever if the number is high enough that it truly can't be denied and helps pay for something else I like better.

Yes - there's my stuff and "inventory" - and "Inventory" is just fungible stuff that comes and goes in and out. I'm a small fish but I know that's the same with lots of other people.

[october]

1 hour ago, Bronty said:

Yeah.   In order to say no to 40x, you have to have been willing to say no to 10x.    Then 15x.    Then 20x.   Then 30x.    etc... all the way up and down the timeline.       Anybody looking to just make a few bucks cashes in at 10x or, to be frank, more like 2x.   "Hey, I doubled my money!"   They never get to a position where they can say no to 40x.

I've cashed in a few things for lifestyle improvements, but it just makes getting anything else out of me harder going forward.     I still have daily WTF price shock moments though.    I was offered 15K today for something I mentally valued at 4k today, maybe 2k two years ago, that I paid $100 or less ($75?) for ten years ago.   I'm sure I was low on my mental valuation, but again, when you pay something like $75 and you haven't dragged it of of a box in five years, its easy for that to happen.     Aaaand I'm going to say no to the offer.

Same boat. I was offered over $40k recently for a comic I paid $3k for a decade ago...but it's meaningless. I turned down $5k, then $15k, then $25k, and I will turn down $50k. I'll hold it til it's worth $3k again and I still won't sell it. Good luck to my kids. I would never, NEVER have held onto it for so long if I didn't love it. It would have been long gone, just like my FF 52 9.6, my Batman 171 9.6, my Flash 139 9.6, etc, all sold pre movie explosions at 1/10th their curent going rate because it was just stuff to me. Didn't care about them enough to do anything other than cash out as fast as I could.  

Edited October 20, 2020 by october

[Bronty]

2 hours ago, october said:

Same boat. I was offered over $40k recently for a comic I paid $3k for a decade ago...but it's meaningless. I turned down $5k, then $15k, then $25k, and I will turn down $50k. I'll hold it til it's worth $3k again and I still won't sell it. Good luck to my kids. I would never, NEVER have held onto it for so long if I didn't love it. It would have been long gone, just like my FF 52 9.6, my Batman 171 9.6, my Flash 139 9.6, etc, all sold pre movie explosions at 1/10th their curent going rate because it was just stuff to me. Didn't care about them enough to do anything other than cash out as fast as I could.  

I agreed with you until the 'hold it until its worth 3k again'.   You lost me there

But yeah.    I generally agree.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Bronty

[Icculus308win]

😂 

[WolverineX]

20 hours ago, FlyingDonut said:

I did - based on what my son wanted I bought some stuff which has now blown up. I realize of course that my accuracy in forecasting things that are blowing up right now - Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Gundam Wing - is a direct result of having 12 year old son in 2007, so that helped. I have a bunch of unopened boxes that have just gathered dust for years.

Wait, gundam wing is getting rare? I have some unbuilt models....

[stynxno]

#poketok has been all over this for a few months. I wonder if that has been a big part of its explosion during the pandemic. 

[Mephisto]

Break out and grade that 90’s drek!

 

[WolverineX]

7 hours ago, Mephisto said:

Break out and grade that 90’s drek!

 

Whoa,  I need to see if I have those

[WolverineX]

8 hours ago, Mephisto said:

Break out and grade that 90’s drek!

 

Wow some of my Fleer xmen 94 cards are actually worth something...

Look at this on eBay
https://www.ebay.com/itm/164423710411

[DavidTheDavid]

The Pokemon brand has a large, consumer-minded audience cultivated now over now than one generation. This gives the brand continued longevity.

The brand is popularly recognized, beyond the base of fans who follow or spend it. This gives the brand broad reach.

Pokemon has successfully crossed into multimedia marketing, making extraordinary sums across all the segments of the entertainment industry. Add in branded apparel and other merchandise, and it's a cash engine. This gives the brand tremendous financial resources.

But are they the next comics? While we can point to this Pokemon card or that one is having extraordinary value, there is no Pokemon card that is a cultural marker in the way that the Superman number one or Batman number one is. Comic books directly mythologize humans, and thus tell their stories.

Pokémon, on the other hand, can never have that cultural weight because it is a commoditized product at its inception, born first from the marketing department and then realized in design. It's cultural worth comes more in what popular culture itself does with Pokemon. In other words once artists and writers and illustrators start manipulating it, then it matters. But at that point it's already been relegated to a recycle culture, even one based and creativity.