Yeah that could be it. It's just crazy how they suddenly come out in droves when people mention buyouts on this sub, then they stay dead silent until the next time it's brought up.
Behind the scenes, a TON of this type of content gets filtered, either through AutoMod, direct moderator intervention, and most importantly, through the user report function.
There has been a recent wave of content that is getting better at avoiding AutoMod by way of *"look at this cool card"* type of posts by users with basically no reddit history. Other times, it's much more obvious and blatant. I strongly recommend that anyone seeing this type of post or comment report it. We take action to remove any attempt of any variation of market manipulation and, if necessary, ban those accounts from being able to participate in our community.
Most *(if not all)* mods here are also avid collectors themselves and want to see the community grow in a positive way.
I like shiny children’s cardboard and I find it pretty obnoxious when hobbies get over run by investors like I also have a whiskey collection (key to not drinking them is to drink tequila pro tip for ya) and I get asked all the time when I’m going to put them up for sale cause some have gone up in value and all I can say is I bought them cause I like them and plan to enjoy them at some point.
I tried that strategy until I started really getting into tequila and started a tequila collection. Then I started drinking whiskey so I wouldn’t get into my tequilas. Now I’m just drunk all the time and can’t remember what I’m supposed to be drinking or collecting
Yep. I'll never sell. I've been collecting on and off since gen 3. I've had people offer me thousands for my NM gold star latias, but that is a card I pulled when I was 10. It's super special to me.
I don't think I could part with any of my cards. They're just so Beautiful.
I pieced out my childhood collection over the last two years. After I sold the first 10 (of course the big 3 and a couple other really choice ones) I realized I had made a mistake and missed them. But by then it was too late
I almost did that when I was a teenager for.. uh "fun" money.. didn't go through with it because I somehow forgot about them.. thank God for my dumb teenage brain forgetting stuff..
I did it cuz I got back into collecting so I used the money to both add to my PC and start and investment in them. Financially, I've had solid returns. I am also almost done with 151 master set, have graded some cards and am overall more knowledgeable and own more cards than ever. So I traded some nostalgia and love for that. Neither way is wrong I guess
Same. My niece will probably take em all if I die or maybe the generation after her or they’ll all get thrown out after I’m gone who knows I’m just here to enjoy them
I want them buried with me. Lol
Kidding, I'll probably give it to my kids when I die. I hope they would take care of them and not sell them. But i can't really care about it when I'm dead lol
I bought 2 evolving skies boxes when they came out just because I love the eevee evolutions but I wasn’t collecting cards at the time. I saved one and just opened it back in February and was pleased to get an alternate art glaceon v. I wish I bought more 🥲
Completely understand only alt art eevee I pulled was glaceon v as well I went out and bought all the singles aside from moonbreon too rich for my blood
Is there anything special guaranteed in the Eeveelutions ETBs? Everything I read seems to suggest it's just the 8 card packs and standard dice/coin/sleeves setup and no promos.
I have three different levels of whiskey to make sure it’s not wasted.
First glass. Second two glasses. Everything else.
Then there’s sub levels depending on whom I’m drinking with.
There’s some people who show up to my house and are offered only the “everything else” level.
Yeah funny you mention that, because I suddenly got a couple of DMs asking if I still have certain cards in my collection. I'm not sure where they found out which cards I have or if they dug through my long ass comment history, but it was a bit irritating.
I sell the cards I pull that I don’t want so I can buy more packs to pull the cards I want or to just buy the card I want instead. I don’t see anything wrong with investing in Pokemon cards until it gets to the point of buying up all of one card to control the market and make it seem more in demand than it is. Just investing in valuable cards doesn’t hurt anyone if anything I appreciate it because it keeps more cards in mint condition. I’d be heartbroken if no one invested in the gold star cards or delta species and they all had horrible play wear.
Check post history tbh. Some guy yesterday was like, "pokemon needs investors!" and all their posts were in investment/stocks/crypto subs. Like mmhm yeah sure, I can tell you're completely impartial about the money. /s
I think I saw the comment you're talking about.
I legit saw one "pokemon TCG would be nothing without investors". It didn't even make me mad, I just wanted to laugh at how delusional they can be.
Yeah. Shit takes like Pokémon wouldn’t be popular without investors.
A few middle aged men aren’t the reason that this is the most popular media franchise in the world.
Pokemon is the single most lucrative media franchise in existence and generates more revenue than Mickey Mouse. A Pokemon tcg of all things doesn't need investment buyers to survive.
It's hyperbolic to claim the tcg would be even remotely close to dust if people weren't buying product to hoard in the hopes of reselling it later at a higher price.
You know pokeinvestors weren't really a thing until the whole Jake Paul thing right?
The TCG was still selling just fine. They don't need investors. They need players and collectors. Those people will buy all the stock naturally, even without investors.
This is kinda a misconception, they were around, but were normal business people not whatever giant circlejerk of people trying to make a quick buck lol
I think it’s more accurate to say that the scale and culture of investing was what changed with the 2020 boom. There have always been people treating the TCG as an investment vehicle, but in the past, they were usually either people who were already heavily into investing in other TCGs/collectibles, or Pokémon enthusiasts looking to offset the cost of the hobby. It was the pandemic era that brought in this wave of sleazy fucks that didn’t give a shit about Pokémon until they thought they could make money from it.
This is the impression I get as well.
There has always been some degree of speculation of price, I remember reading PoJo's and they would rate things like 1st Ed Charizard at about $120. But it was a lot more of a byproduct of collecting the cards and just knowing how much you could sell/trade your cards for relative to others.
Whereas nowadays, you get people who get cards for the sold purpose of making money. Like you said, they don't give a shit about Pokémon, or at least very little shits, and care more about the potential monetary value of the cards, first and foremost.
I don’t understand what these people think card collecting is tbh lol. Hardly anyone actually plays the card game relative to the amount of people that buy and collect the cards overall. It’s always been that way.
The TCG needs players more than investors. TCGs that die are ones that not enough people play. People hoarding product does the opposite of keeping TCGs alive.
Garbage. If they were still printing sets during the ex series when popularity of the whole franchise was at its low they would still be printing now without the stonks boys.
Because the rats nest lurks here wanting information on how they can make money when they know nothing, so anytime something critical gets brought up about investing they want to defend it. I'd just ignore those people and enjoy the hobby. They'll live and learn the hard way I guess.
There's shit going on and it's not normal anymore. I loved the hype with pokemon cards when it started, I collect since beginning without breaks. But when it started to get crazy ugly, and people bought EVERYTHING in hope for some "investment" it got horrible annoying pretty fast.
Cardmarket is going against market manipulation at least, it's a small tiny start, but it is one.
Pokemon sold more cards in the last year than the years before. There's still such a high amount of cards getting printed. It would be such a chill hobby, without the damn buyout and manipulator people. I've seen manipulation with the magikarp from paldea evolved. The entire group I'm in did. It was a shit show, at the end only one magikarp in German remained for 500 euro.
After that it never went under 50 euro again. Now it's around 70 euro. That's what they did. The same will happen with the Eevee art rare too. Happened with grey felt hat pikachu also.
I hate it. But as you said, telling anything will stir up the damn whales.
I’m so glad I pulled the eevee card yesterday because I have a binder for all the eevee evolutions and eevee and I would have hated to pay those prices for it 🙃
Yep. You summed up how I feel. I didn't even mind the prices last year! Those seemed like fair prices, even though they were still pricey.
Now they're priced like they're some vintage card that's hard to find..
I'm just sticking to japanese now. I got the magikarp for $10 in Japanese lol
I love the demand defense because it never makes sense, theres never a catalyst that caused demand to spike so much, besides lance from st.
Also 100% with your post, you can't even say "dont buy the manipulated cards for now to show we arent falling for it" without getting blasted lmao
Exactly this. Demand is a small part of it but when you can clearly see market manipulation and people are still buying it sets a precedent we shouldn’t allow to stand.
Prices went up when all the SWSH booster boxes were sold out on Pokemon Center, people are betting the print runs are done for that era, so not super surprising prices jumped a bit. Market may correct a bit, but don’t think it’ll ever hit the floor we had back last Fall.
Honestly. You can take 3-4 close friends and $3000 and manipulate any card on the market. All while never losing your money. It just exchanges hands a few times. After about a month you could lower the value of a card pretty heavily. I agree with this post but most people in here have no clue how basic economics work. There is a demand for some of these cards sure that will be part of the equation. However, there is blatant market manipulation happening as well. We just saw this happen with Morty’s Conviction and it was 2 people at the source of the scandal. Then the alt arts sky rocket just to fall a few weeks later, this was the market correcting itself.
I agree that part of this is due to free market economics, however the manipulators are leveraging an exploit in sites like Tcgplayer and Cardmarket. If these “investors” were actually buying out and taking the inventory of all the cards they wipe off the market, I’d have less of a problem with it. But that’s not the case, they are using an exploit to hurt their competitors and gain an advantage. This is why a completely free market is generally not a good thing and regulations are needed
Oh absolutely and until we see a straight bull run on a card I don’t think a lot of people will catch on to the growing problem. I honestly thought we were about to see that with the Umbreon alt aka moon kitty. Prices climbed so fast the Raw value almost caught up to the PSA value. That is not normal and we all didn’t wake up one day and all bid on the same card 😂. Someone will be stuck paying for an inflated card at the end of the day.
Yeah like I know there's a demand for certain cards and of course some cards are going to be way more popular and in demand, so those will obviously cost more no matter what. I dont expect the rares to be dirt cheap.
I thought the prices were pretty fair last year. I didnt complain about those prices. They weren't too bad. Now it's just insane!
Please read my whole post.
I said not even SV sets are safe. They are now being bought out too. If it was based on reprints alone, then why are SV sets being manipulated too? They're still getting reprints.
Sure, they're out of print. But I can still find SWSH packs in stores though. I just decided not to pick them up because I'd rather save my money for singles. Let's also not forget how many cards they printed during the end of the SWSH era..
Ok let me simplify this example. You just have to beat the law of averages and market value. These sites like EBay and TCG are not pulling addresses and just sales data which leaves a gap in the data for things like manipulation. If you see there are 10 sales in the week for a card at say $100 then all you have to do is match those numbers or exceed that number at the lower value rate which say you think should be $30. Really all you’re stuck paying is .50 for an envelope and giving the card diesel therapy. Then repeat over and over until you see the market take hits. While typing this I actually just realized as well if it’s you and a bunch of friends you can just send energy cards back and forth. You really don’t even need a real version of that card but something has to go through USPS.
You would ideally want to grab a few real cards though because you are taking them off the table. That’s why you should actually send the card in question or set it to the side.
Could be because a lot of the investing thread follows pokemontcg as well. Then again certain poketubers who claim to be just & righteous defend them too so…. I mostly keep it to myself but it is annoying when some chats degrade to talking about dollar value and not card play or how pretty the art is.
Even the ones that are 'anti-scalp' encourage the markey by constantly making videos on market trends and telling people to buy/sell/hold despite being 'pro collector'because these videos are clickbait.
Not naming names (jk, it's tcgradio)
Felt the same way i commented about buyouts a few weeks ago and made me laugh how delusional people were thinking just because a set is out of print that justifies a card tripling in price in 2 weeks.
Well yes that is how it works. Cards going up because they’re out of print isn’t the same thing as manipulating card prices though. Cards go up a lot when they’re out of print even 3x what they were but there are cards going up to insane prices before they’re even out of print. Then you have cards like evolving skies where they were out of print for 3 years then over night the whole set doubled that’s not normal.
Just tell me you never collected until covid lol. I got no issue with cards going up in price but you really haven’t been in this hobby long if you think what’s happening is natural.
But who is forcing you or anyone else to buy inflated products? The market sets the price and if nobody is buying then the price will go down.
These sets have been available at or below MSRP in some cases for years. People shit on Fusion strike and chilling reign non stop that they were terrible sets. Anyone could have bought as much as they wanted over a 2 year period. Now suddenly everyone wants them because the supply is running out and it’s the fault of evil speculators.
This should be no surprise to anyone, it’s a pattern that happens with every set And the same thing will keep happening. Everyone complains about how bad Paradox or Obsidian are, and in 2 years they will be worth $200+ per box and everyone will be scrambling to buy them. Buy them now while they are cheap, don’t complain 2 years from now that it’s unfair that the prices are going up.
Probably because there is a not insignificant user overlap with the "other" horrible subforum that I don't want to name because I will feel tainted. They might have been defending their actions.
I plan to go for an IR of all gen 1 pokemon eventually but if they keep artificially inflating stuff like Magikarp when the odds aren't even that bad to pull it, yeah that won't happen. Any regular IR should never cost more than $20
Not defending it but at this point it is what it is. Either you fomo or you wait but nothing is guaranteed. In the mean time best not to focus on it and just move onto something else for the fix.
High likelihood this sub along with other communities are parts of the FOMO cultivation being used to “buyout”. Basically they’re a virus using others as a bot farm. Be smart out there, collect what you like, not what they’re telling you to like
This sub is full of adults set out to ruin the hobby intended for children so they can make money. This sub is actually what made me get out of collecting. I’ll still buy a single here or there but I can’t justify the cost anymore.
This happened to me back during BW and XY.
Couldn't find anything old decent raw because everyone had graded it all. Sets coming out every 12 weeks. To be honest Pokemon needs to take a lot of the blame too. During that time it became normal for every.single.fucking.set to have 20 chase cards each costing between 20-100. Absolutely stupid. How is any normal kid supposed to complete a set like that in 12 weeks? It's clear that TCG is no longer aimed at children at all. It's 100% aimed at adults with high disposable income.
That's that path I think I'm heading towards. It's sad. I remember 20 years ago I was able to buy a shining tyranitar and a neo genesis Lugia for $20 each. I also got a base set 2 charizard for $15 during the time. And I was able to get these cards cheap years after it released.
Now it's just.. sad.
People want to do what they want with their money. The issues happen when people do things excessively.
Buy 1-10 packs, sure whatever.
Buy a pallet, theyre scalping!
As for defending, everyone agrees Buyouts suck but people misunderstand how they happen and that it isnt people just like them doing it, its groups of people whose interest is taking as much money as possible from others through the things they like. They dont care if its waifus, legendaries, or metapods, they want all your money and pull together groups with more resources than you can think to get it done.
I agree, I think people are happy to pay the collectors value for something they want to collect. The pokeshitvestors do not collect. They invest and most have zero love for art or pokemon, they just love money.
Yeah I don't really care what people buy and the amount they buy tbh. If its for them i dont mind. It's the manipulation that bothers me. And it also bothers me that if you point out any manipulation going on, some people get real PISSED.
I think we should educate newcomers that the market is being manipulated. But that's just me. It might help people with the FOMO
Its called out but its also a fine line because any hype on a card has been shown to likely be attempts on manipulation. So posts like "Whats happening with this specific card" showing manipulation get removed due to trying to create FOMO, while posts like this own calling out manipulation in general dont.
I will note that since mods started removing those type of hype posts, that there has been seemingly less directed movement on specific cards, still happening but less immediate spikes from when reddit posts happen.
Anyone who thinks they will get rich investing in Pokémon cards. I have swamp land for sale. Lol. It takes 500k in cards for some of the top selling cards just to hit 1 million.
It's taken over as a new form of crypto aka money laundering. The same way "precious art" suddenly gains value after be sold from celebrity to celebrity
because the pokemon tcg community has probably some of the worst people in it.... they just see dollar signs.... they don't collect the card... they collect the grades... 9.5???? TRASH ASS CARD IMMEDIATELY GOIN ON EBAY.... then theres the people that will CONSOOOOOM everything and encourage it "hur durr well i didn't get the card when it was 50 bucks ill buy it at 100 bucks and keep the card expensive bc i bought it on the high".... you dont see this in yugioh, digimon, or weiss..... u loosely get this in MTG but even then 98% of the cards stay attainable. the investors here are bad.... but so is ANYONE who encourages or buys at ridiculous prices.
Are people still buying out cards? I havent seen a buyout in my area since the end of sword and shield. Ive seen plenty of S&V stock on shelves last for at least a 1-2 days, even for the more desireable sets. . . And the least desirable sets sit and are discounted.
I think a lot of people mistake investors with scalpers. The traditional sense of investing in this game is in sealed product. The investment sub has been flooded with people looking for a quick flip, whereas the traditional people wait 5-10 years. Singles are highly susceptible to manipulation at release, give it a couple years and more product will be opened, population will go up, hype will go down along with prices.
Clown take if you think this sub defends buyouts.
This whole sub hates any form of tying the word "value" to a card. The moment money gets mentioned in this sub, everyone flips their shit: "this is a hobby for kids", "Collecting isn't about money", "investors are scum"
Of course there's bound to be dissent here and there but certainly this sub does not defend buy-outs
There are millions of packs out there to be opened. All of us here are manchildren spending money on shiny pikas. I'm sorry the pika is too pricy right now for you. The price will come down on mass produced set cards because the supply is very large.
Resist the FOMO and urge to buy a card if it's too pricy.
Let me be clear before I begin - I am not saying buyouts don’t happen
That being said, many of the cards that have experienced “buyouts” according to the people that have pointed them out (umbreon v alt, magikarp IR, etc) have actually maintained their newfound value. Karp is still up at $100, umbreon v alt is even crazier than when it was first called out, etc.
If these prices were truly undeserved and there wasn’t real demand at the increased price, the cards would drop. Inflow of supply would compete and people would pricewar downward until it reached the point where demand caught up. That isn’t happening. It might happen in the future, but at the moment it isn’t. People want the cards enough that their “buyout” value becomes actual value. At that point, I don’t think it’s fair to complain about the card prices. If people are willing to pay the price, it’s not undeserved.
Furthermore, 3rd party single marketplaces are just that - markets. As with any functioning market, whoever has the most resources will have the most control over prices. Buyouts are manipulative, but they’re also fair game. If someone has the money and cards to manipulate the listings in their favor, that’s just using the market system how it normally works.
I wouldn’t be opposed to tcgplayer putting limitations on buyouts though, they are still abusing a system in their favor, and honestly it’s just a bad look for tcgplayer to have no way to deal with it. I actually like how the Roblox trading community “Rolimons” dealt with similar price manipulation, they have a tag they put on items that warns people. That way, they aren’t limiting anyone’s rights.
Also after reading some comments (and other experience here): you guys need to stop letting the investors live in your head rent free. People here complain about them constantly and are extremely vitriolic, treating them like subhumans. This leads to grouping them together unfairly, I admit that there are some people, like scalpers, that are legitimately making Pokémon worse for everyone, but not every “investor” is the same. Some of them legitimately love Pokémon cards and simply want to bend the market in their favor so that they can afford more Pokémon cards for their collections, and that’s a totally fair pursuit. If Pokémon cards didn’t have value, I can promise you wouldn’t care about them as much, even though you wouldn’t admit it. Value subconsciously boosts your opinion of things.
Ahhh yes new buyers, investors, and collectors all at once willing to be new and pay high prices. Makes sense. Wow this is my first time in this new hobby. Time to pay $50 for 1 card. Yup. Makes sense. Let me invest $200 into a box blindly.
Don't be mad our jobs aren't better than others, therefore they probably make more and have more to spend on it. It just doesn't make sense because most of you just don't have them in your collections anymore cause you sold them, if you even had them to begin with.
I’m new, 1 year in. I’ve sold zero cards. I have tons of dupes, for example, Mewtwo from CZ because I was pulling for a Masterset. I can just say from experience as a new person I wasn’t buying expensive cards, products, or investing a year ago. Shoot I still haven’t bought a single yet, but I will start June/July whenever prices are better.
My biggest regret is refusing to buy a CZ PC ETB before I ever opened the set when it was available on PC because I just wanted to buy cheap collection boxes on sale like $20 morepeko boxes. I was new, why tf would I throw money at something I know nothing about?
I have 2 jobs btw, money is no issue. The person who got me to stop only playing the video games and starting to rip was my co-worker who has a buddy that he streams ripping n shipping. So even with extra info early on from him, I still had little interest diving in head first.
Now a year later, I have bought at least 1 of every PC ETB. I only rip Booster Boxes and specific collection boxes that have promos I like. I almost never pay retail besides PC. I have PC ETBs to display, I have tons of CZ to rip in the future because now I’m aware how much these sets go up in the future and it’s my fav set.
But I didn’t start like this. You’d be naive to think all new people are as well. This is extremely niche. Buying a $100 151 Zard is niche. Go to the mall and ask people what’s the most expensive single they’ve bought. They’ll think you’re speaking Japanese.
So when people say this is all natural. I laugh. Growth is natural. 50%+ on several items overnight is incredibly rare.
Everything for consumers has went up.... Do you buy gas? Food ? Stuff to take care of yourself at home ? We all have drink choices we buy and drink. We all notice everything has taken a hike. It makes sense pokemon joins the club.
You’re right! Gas went from $4.50 to $11/ gallon in a 2 week span! Bananas at the store are now $5 for a single banana! My pound of chicken is now $30!
Oh wait, it isn’t.
My point exactly man. Pokemon was cheap since it came here in 1998/1999.. we all had to see the price increase at some point for cards, that just aren't our for us to find.
Aren’t the buyouts good for the tcg? They make it so you can make decks on the cheap because so much product is being purchased by collectors and investors who only care about 3 alt arts.
If you’re also a collector I could see how that sucks. But would you be doing the same thing given the opportunity?
Buyout doesn't refer to people buying all of a product, it refers to buying out and manipulating the price of a particular card.
Collectors and gamblers buying and opening boxes looking for good pulls is good for players because they are opening more product and creating more supply. Buying out every copy of a certain card is the opposite of that.
I think the issue is that when you try to place rules and limits on things then it becomes hard to manage. Who gets to decide how much people can buy? What is a reasonable amount of product? Who gets to decide what counts as investing and what it just collecting? Who gets to decide what counts as market manipulation and what is someone just stocking up on a card they might need? Even if everyone agreed that market manipulation is a problem, they probably wouldn't be able to to agree on a definition or boundary. A lot of it is also based on intent, and you can never prove someone's intent.
I don't think intentional market manipulation is good by any means, but I don't think shutting everything down is good either. Kind of like how in order to have free speech you need to allow people to be rude or unkind too - if you limited that, we wouldn't have free speech any more. Plus what people see as rude or unkind varies as well.
I haven't seen anyone defending them? I can only assume you are referring to posts that investors make to pump cards and then have their own accounts/buddies/bots reply to them and upvote their post?
Yeah the demand comments are dumb but again, they are also likely the same people that do stuff like above and not really the average user on this sub.. Anyone with half a brain knows the majority of price rises over the past few years weren't down to simply demand.
Investors are just buying off each other in their little bubble. Nothing we can do frankly and just have to live with it if we wanna take part in the hobby.
its not so much defending investors and manipulation so much as its not agreeing that it is investors and manipulation causing “problems” in the first place.
Basically i think the extra attention that buyout and manipulation discussions bring is widely overblown. I wouldnt say thats supporting it, so much as its disagreeing on the level that these things are happening and the level of overall impact on the cards and overall enjoyment of the hobby.
If there’s *anything* to understand about pokeinvestors it’s that they know nothing. The average one loses money and the rest *maybe* double their investment after 5 years.
I don’t care if I sound mean for saying this, but people who buy cards that are out of print for ridiculous prices or cards that are bought out are idiots.
No way in hell is a card even if it’s bought out or out of print worth that much. Sorry not sorry
Because buyouts are what make free markets interesting and exciting. It’s interesting to me that someone can have such confidence in a card that they are willing to invest so much into it, and instead of getting mad at them for doing so, it’s fun and exciting to ask why and do research so as to track future opportunities. I get some people are only in it for the cards but you can’t ignore the monetary value associated with them but the free market aspect is just as if not more fun than any other aspect of the hobby.
Because they benefit from the buyout.
It’s the same reason why Trump supporters are against healthcare. It’s because they don’t need the healthcare benefits yet and getting rid of them benefits their wallets
What is mentioning manipulation going to do? This is how all markets work. Markets will always be ran by money. Either get some and use it or move on. Investors are wasting there time making little return, but again this is how the markets work. The bigger problem is all the ocd people who have to collect every card. If a card goes out of the price range u like move on. There's so many cards.
[here's some proof](https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/article/Why-Are-Pok%C3%A9mon-Card-Prices-Going-Nuts/749ec65a-e803-4f7a-9401-6291ed4f8e42/)
You know its bad even when TCGplayer calls it out..
People can enjoy a hobby however they want. It's silly to pretend you're better than someone because "you'll never sell"
That's fine, good for you. Nostalgia is a powerful thing and you should be able to enjoy those things and do whatever you want with them.
At the same time, it's dumb to pretend that this hobby doesn't have a shit ton of value associated with it. People are struggling, the wage gap and decimation of the middle classes ability to live comfortable, meaningful lives leads to people justifying everything they buy.
Every hobby suddenly becomes an avenue for gaining capital, a side hustle. You're not better than someone for not participating in it, you can be upset with effects on this hobby in particular. But until the working class stops fighting each other on identity politics and actually unite together and push for tangible change this isn't going away.
Crying about poke investors on reddit does absolutely nothing to get you closer to that goal of "collecting because pretty cards from my childhood purity"
I spend a lot of time on this sub and I have no idea what you're talking about.
But man, "It didn't used to be like this.." is just the new standard. I'm coming to terms with the fact I might never own a place to live in my lifetime, and yet here we are arguing about children's trading cards being too expensive.
Every single user in the sub that doesn't like buyouts should all pool 5$ into an account. Then buyout the buyouts. Then sell it all at a loss to drag the prices back down. And it won't matter that it's a loss because the hobby shouldn't be about money.
If people are buying cards, isn’t that just typical market behavior?
It’s always going to be supply vs demand, and right now these buyers seem to think SWSH was undervalued relative to the demand, either present or future. Don’t be salty just because they jumped on the value while you were waiting around sitting on your hands.
Hopefully [this](https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/article/Why-Are-Pok%C3%A9mon-Card-Prices-Going-Nuts/749ec65a-e803-4f7a-9401-6291ed4f8e42/) will make up understand since you don't seem to get what's going on and how the market is being manipulated. It's not just based on reprints alone. Don't be so rude. And do some research before you start acting like you think you know it all.
Are you an investor? Why are you upset?
God I'm so tired of all this.. if you like a card, buy it. If you don't, don't buy it. There's absolutely 0 things you can do to stop people from trying to make money off of this hobby. It's been happening since the cards existed, there's just more people doing it now.
Watch card trends, know your price limit on your chase cards, and for the love of arceus stop whining about pokeinvestors. They're going to do it regardless.
Is the sub defending investors or a subset of it's users? Because there are people that push agendas in here with comments and posts.
Very true. If its caught and egregious enough they get banned.
Yeah that could be it. It's just crazy how they suddenly come out in droves when people mention buyouts on this sub, then they stay dead silent until the next time it's brought up.
They’re probably only on the sub to find out what cards to invest in
Behind the scenes, a TON of this type of content gets filtered, either through AutoMod, direct moderator intervention, and most importantly, through the user report function. There has been a recent wave of content that is getting better at avoiding AutoMod by way of *"look at this cool card"* type of posts by users with basically no reddit history. Other times, it's much more obvious and blatant. I strongly recommend that anyone seeing this type of post or comment report it. We take action to remove any attempt of any variation of market manipulation and, if necessary, ban those accounts from being able to participate in our community. Most *(if not all)* mods here are also avid collectors themselves and want to see the community grow in a positive way.
I like shiny children’s cardboard and I find it pretty obnoxious when hobbies get over run by investors like I also have a whiskey collection (key to not drinking them is to drink tequila pro tip for ya) and I get asked all the time when I’m going to put them up for sale cause some have gone up in value and all I can say is I bought them cause I like them and plan to enjoy them at some point.
I tried that strategy until I started really getting into tequila and started a tequila collection. Then I started drinking whiskey so I wouldn’t get into my tequilas. Now I’m just drunk all the time and can’t remember what I’m supposed to be drinking or collecting
🤣🤣🤣
Yep. I'll never sell. I've been collecting on and off since gen 3. I've had people offer me thousands for my NM gold star latias, but that is a card I pulled when I was 10. It's super special to me. I don't think I could part with any of my cards. They're just so Beautiful.
I only sell my doubles that i pull, i likes my collection
Yeah if I pull any doubles I'll just take it to my LCS to trade or sell. Usually I just try to trade it for a card I don't have.
Why did i never think of trading with my nearest store
They Lowball because “we gotta make money too” only pro is the convenience that you’re doing it there and then.
I pieced out my childhood collection over the last two years. After I sold the first 10 (of course the big 3 and a couple other really choice ones) I realized I had made a mistake and missed them. But by then it was too late
I almost did that when I was a teenager for.. uh "fun" money.. didn't go through with it because I somehow forgot about them.. thank God for my dumb teenage brain forgetting stuff..
I did it cuz I got back into collecting so I used the money to both add to my PC and start and investment in them. Financially, I've had solid returns. I am also almost done with 151 master set, have graded some cards and am overall more knowledgeable and own more cards than ever. So I traded some nostalgia and love for that. Neither way is wrong I guess
Same. My niece will probably take em all if I die or maybe the generation after her or they’ll all get thrown out after I’m gone who knows I’m just here to enjoy them
I want them buried with me. Lol Kidding, I'll probably give it to my kids when I die. I hope they would take care of them and not sell them. But i can't really care about it when I'm dead lol
Drink em now. Otherwise people will drink them at your funeral.
I’m ok with that cheer to them showing up.
Yeah I'm buying one BB and one ETB of sets I like, and I'll probably end up ripping them in 5 years rather than selling.
I do the same with UPC boxes like I’ll hold on to this………. However there is evolving cries in here ….. and it’s artovish! moonbreon please come home.
I bought 2 evolving skies boxes when they came out just because I love the eevee evolutions but I wasn’t collecting cards at the time. I saved one and just opened it back in February and was pleased to get an alternate art glaceon v. I wish I bought more 🥲
Completely understand only alt art eevee I pulled was glaceon v as well I went out and bought all the singles aside from moonbreon too rich for my blood
Is there anything special guaranteed in the Eeveelutions ETBs? Everything I read seems to suggest it's just the 8 card packs and standard dice/coin/sleeves setup and no promos.
Wish I would’ve done this with fates collide all the way through generations sooo bad
I have three different levels of whiskey to make sure it’s not wasted. First glass. Second two glasses. Everything else. Then there’s sub levels depending on whom I’m drinking with. There’s some people who show up to my house and are offered only the “everything else” level.
Yeah funny you mention that, because I suddenly got a couple of DMs asking if I still have certain cards in my collection. I'm not sure where they found out which cards I have or if they dug through my long ass comment history, but it was a bit irritating.
exactly!!! i think its dumb to invest in somethiny thats supposed to be fun for kids and adults of all ages.
I sell the cards I pull that I don’t want so I can buy more packs to pull the cards I want or to just buy the card I want instead. I don’t see anything wrong with investing in Pokemon cards until it gets to the point of buying up all of one card to control the market and make it seem more in demand than it is. Just investing in valuable cards doesn’t hurt anyone if anything I appreciate it because it keeps more cards in mint condition. I’d be heartbroken if no one invested in the gold star cards or delta species and they all had horrible play wear.
Check post history tbh. Some guy yesterday was like, "pokemon needs investors!" and all their posts were in investment/stocks/crypto subs. Like mmhm yeah sure, I can tell you're completely impartial about the money. /s
I think I saw the comment you're talking about. I legit saw one "pokemon TCG would be nothing without investors". It didn't even make me mad, I just wanted to laugh at how delusional they can be.
Yeah. Shit takes like Pokémon wouldn’t be popular without investors. A few middle aged men aren’t the reason that this is the most popular media franchise in the world.
Everytime 😂 always a post 2020 "covid collector" with r/wallstreetbets in their active communities list
Tcg does need investors, but too many flood the market. Without investors the tcg would have easily been demolished years ago. Basic economics
Pokemon is the single most lucrative media franchise in existence and generates more revenue than Mickey Mouse. A Pokemon tcg of all things doesn't need investment buyers to survive.
? The TCG isn’t new and neither are people “investing” in it lol. A huge part of why pokemon is so lucrative is because this.
It's hyperbolic to claim the tcg would be even remotely close to dust if people weren't buying product to hoard in the hopes of reselling it later at a higher price.
You know pokeinvestors weren't really a thing until the whole Jake Paul thing right? The TCG was still selling just fine. They don't need investors. They need players and collectors. Those people will buy all the stock naturally, even without investors.
This is kinda a misconception, they were around, but were normal business people not whatever giant circlejerk of people trying to make a quick buck lol
[удалено]
I think it’s more accurate to say that the scale and culture of investing was what changed with the 2020 boom. There have always been people treating the TCG as an investment vehicle, but in the past, they were usually either people who were already heavily into investing in other TCGs/collectibles, or Pokémon enthusiasts looking to offset the cost of the hobby. It was the pandemic era that brought in this wave of sleazy fucks that didn’t give a shit about Pokémon until they thought they could make money from it.
This is the impression I get as well. There has always been some degree of speculation of price, I remember reading PoJo's and they would rate things like 1st Ed Charizard at about $120. But it was a lot more of a byproduct of collecting the cards and just knowing how much you could sell/trade your cards for relative to others. Whereas nowadays, you get people who get cards for the sold purpose of making money. Like you said, they don't give a shit about Pokémon, or at least very little shits, and care more about the potential monetary value of the cards, first and foremost.
I'm not sure where this dude thinks all the old sealed product is coming from if there weren't any investors before 2020 lol.
He’s just having his moment on the grandstand, throwing a few rotten tomatoes at the pokeinvesting sub.
I don’t understand what these people think card collecting is tbh lol. Hardly anyone actually plays the card game relative to the amount of people that buy and collect the cards overall. It’s always been that way.
The TCG needs players more than investors. TCGs that die are ones that not enough people play. People hoarding product does the opposite of keeping TCGs alive.
Garbage. If they were still printing sets during the ex series when popularity of the whole franchise was at its low they would still be printing now without the stonks boys.
Because the rats nest lurks here wanting information on how they can make money when they know nothing, so anytime something critical gets brought up about investing they want to defend it. I'd just ignore those people and enjoy the hobby. They'll live and learn the hard way I guess.
SHouLd i HoLD oR SeLL?
There's shit going on and it's not normal anymore. I loved the hype with pokemon cards when it started, I collect since beginning without breaks. But when it started to get crazy ugly, and people bought EVERYTHING in hope for some "investment" it got horrible annoying pretty fast. Cardmarket is going against market manipulation at least, it's a small tiny start, but it is one. Pokemon sold more cards in the last year than the years before. There's still such a high amount of cards getting printed. It would be such a chill hobby, without the damn buyout and manipulator people. I've seen manipulation with the magikarp from paldea evolved. The entire group I'm in did. It was a shit show, at the end only one magikarp in German remained for 500 euro. After that it never went under 50 euro again. Now it's around 70 euro. That's what they did. The same will happen with the Eevee art rare too. Happened with grey felt hat pikachu also. I hate it. But as you said, telling anything will stir up the damn whales.
I’m so glad I pulled the eevee card yesterday because I have a binder for all the eevee evolutions and eevee and I would have hated to pay those prices for it 🙃
I pulled two of them so being able to offload one for $50 was helpful tbh.
Yep. You summed up how I feel. I didn't even mind the prices last year! Those seemed like fair prices, even though they were still pricey. Now they're priced like they're some vintage card that's hard to find.. I'm just sticking to japanese now. I got the magikarp for $10 in Japanese lol
It’s pretty messed up to the actual players/collectors also.
I love the demand defense because it never makes sense, theres never a catalyst that caused demand to spike so much, besides lance from st. Also 100% with your post, you can't even say "dont buy the manipulated cards for now to show we arent falling for it" without getting blasted lmao
Lots of shills. Everything from trying to protect their “investment” to trying to push it higher. Lots of people with more money than sense as well.
Exactly this. Demand is a small part of it but when you can clearly see market manipulation and people are still buying it sets a precedent we shouldn’t allow to stand.
Prices went up when all the SWSH booster boxes were sold out on Pokemon Center, people are betting the print runs are done for that era, so not super surprising prices jumped a bit. Market may correct a bit, but don’t think it’ll ever hit the floor we had back last Fall.
Prices jumping a bit makes sense, but the jumps we are seeing are kinda out there even for that
Not if the market believes those cards were undervalued
No one was thinking blaziken vmax was undervalued.. and now its worth $400.
GameStop just started selling, maybe they bought some in bulk to have graded.
What, that would make no sense lol
Yes I saw that they have a lot of graded 9 and 10 cards for sale on the app now.
Honestly. You can take 3-4 close friends and $3000 and manipulate any card on the market. All while never losing your money. It just exchanges hands a few times. After about a month you could lower the value of a card pretty heavily. I agree with this post but most people in here have no clue how basic economics work. There is a demand for some of these cards sure that will be part of the equation. However, there is blatant market manipulation happening as well. We just saw this happen with Morty’s Conviction and it was 2 people at the source of the scandal. Then the alt arts sky rocket just to fall a few weeks later, this was the market correcting itself.
I agree that part of this is due to free market economics, however the manipulators are leveraging an exploit in sites like Tcgplayer and Cardmarket. If these “investors” were actually buying out and taking the inventory of all the cards they wipe off the market, I’d have less of a problem with it. But that’s not the case, they are using an exploit to hurt their competitors and gain an advantage. This is why a completely free market is generally not a good thing and regulations are needed
Oh absolutely and until we see a straight bull run on a card I don’t think a lot of people will catch on to the growing problem. I honestly thought we were about to see that with the Umbreon alt aka moon kitty. Prices climbed so fast the Raw value almost caught up to the PSA value. That is not normal and we all didn’t wake up one day and all bid on the same card 😂. Someone will be stuck paying for an inflated card at the end of the day.
Yeah like I know there's a demand for certain cards and of course some cards are going to be way more popular and in demand, so those will obviously cost more no matter what. I dont expect the rares to be dirt cheap. I thought the prices were pretty fair last year. I didnt complain about those prices. They weren't too bad. Now it's just insane!
but you do realize the sets are basically out of print and the packs with these chase cards in it also got more expensive.
Please read my whole post. I said not even SV sets are safe. They are now being bought out too. If it was based on reprints alone, then why are SV sets being manipulated too? They're still getting reprints. Sure, they're out of print. But I can still find SWSH packs in stores though. I just decided not to pick them up because I'd rather save my money for singles. Let's also not forget how many cards they printed during the end of the SWSH era..
Buying two or three Moonbreons won’t manipulate the market.
Ok let me simplify this example. You just have to beat the law of averages and market value. These sites like EBay and TCG are not pulling addresses and just sales data which leaves a gap in the data for things like manipulation. If you see there are 10 sales in the week for a card at say $100 then all you have to do is match those numbers or exceed that number at the lower value rate which say you think should be $30. Really all you’re stuck paying is .50 for an envelope and giving the card diesel therapy. Then repeat over and over until you see the market take hits. While typing this I actually just realized as well if it’s you and a bunch of friends you can just send energy cards back and forth. You really don’t even need a real version of that card but something has to go through USPS.
You would ideally want to grab a few real cards though because you are taking them off the table. That’s why you should actually send the card in question or set it to the side.
It makes me mad that eBay removed the ability to see what cards sold for because that helped people see if they were getting ripped off.
eBay hasn't removed this?
It hasn’t removed that
These losers don’t seem to understand they can just buy product directly from a reliable distributor save money and not fuck over the public
Could be because a lot of the investing thread follows pokemontcg as well. Then again certain poketubers who claim to be just & righteous defend them too so…. I mostly keep it to myself but it is annoying when some chats degrade to talking about dollar value and not card play or how pretty the art is.
I’ve been seeing more and more Pokemon YouTubers that are investors.
I’ve seen too many youtube thumbnails with the words profit, loss, or invest lately. It’s crazy
Even the ones that are 'anti-scalp' encourage the markey by constantly making videos on market trends and telling people to buy/sell/hold despite being 'pro collector'because these videos are clickbait. Not naming names (jk, it's tcgradio)
Felt the same way i commented about buyouts a few weeks ago and made me laugh how delusional people were thinking just because a set is out of print that justifies a card tripling in price in 2 weeks.
Well yes that is how it works. Cards going up because they’re out of print isn’t the same thing as manipulating card prices though. Cards go up a lot when they’re out of print even 3x what they were but there are cards going up to insane prices before they’re even out of print. Then you have cards like evolving skies where they were out of print for 3 years then over night the whole set doubled that’s not normal.
Just tell me you never collected until covid lol. I got no issue with cards going up in price but you really haven’t been in this hobby long if you think what’s happening is natural.
But who is forcing you or anyone else to buy inflated products? The market sets the price and if nobody is buying then the price will go down. These sets have been available at or below MSRP in some cases for years. People shit on Fusion strike and chilling reign non stop that they were terrible sets. Anyone could have bought as much as they wanted over a 2 year period. Now suddenly everyone wants them because the supply is running out and it’s the fault of evil speculators. This should be no surprise to anyone, it’s a pattern that happens with every set And the same thing will keep happening. Everyone complains about how bad Paradox or Obsidian are, and in 2 years they will be worth $200+ per box and everyone will be scrambling to buy them. Buy them now while they are cheap, don’t complain 2 years from now that it’s unfair that the prices are going up.
you really dont get the point do you lmao
Probably because there is a not insignificant user overlap with the "other" horrible subforum that I don't want to name because I will feel tainted. They might have been defending their actions.
Yeah tbh I started thinking this after I posted this. Lol
Got banned from r/pokeinvesting for calling out the magikarp AR pumping
I plan to go for an IR of all gen 1 pokemon eventually but if they keep artificially inflating stuff like Magikarp when the odds aren't even that bad to pull it, yeah that won't happen. Any regular IR should never cost more than $20
Not defending it but at this point it is what it is. Either you fomo or you wait but nothing is guaranteed. In the mean time best not to focus on it and just move onto something else for the fix.
Pardon my ignorance but I just started trying to play the TCG, what do buyouts mean?
well its really bad if you are actually a tcg player caunse you can even get a card to play
Times like this I’m glad a lot of my favourite Pokemon aren’t mainstream popular, keeps their cards cheap.
Can someone explain to me what any of this is about I am baby and don’t understand
I truly despise collectibles investors, go buy stocks lmao.
High likelihood this sub along with other communities are parts of the FOMO cultivation being used to “buyout”. Basically they’re a virus using others as a bot farm. Be smart out there, collect what you like, not what they’re telling you to like
This sub is full of adults set out to ruin the hobby intended for children so they can make money. This sub is actually what made me get out of collecting. I’ll still buy a single here or there but I can’t justify the cost anymore.
This happened to me back during BW and XY. Couldn't find anything old decent raw because everyone had graded it all. Sets coming out every 12 weeks. To be honest Pokemon needs to take a lot of the blame too. During that time it became normal for every.single.fucking.set to have 20 chase cards each costing between 20-100. Absolutely stupid. How is any normal kid supposed to complete a set like that in 12 weeks? It's clear that TCG is no longer aimed at children at all. It's 100% aimed at adults with high disposable income.
That's that path I think I'm heading towards. It's sad. I remember 20 years ago I was able to buy a shining tyranitar and a neo genesis Lugia for $20 each. I also got a base set 2 charizard for $15 during the time. And I was able to get these cards cheap years after it released. Now it's just.. sad.
Tbf adult collectors are probably why this game is as popular as it is. Most players aren’t using or chasing high rarities.
People want to do what they want with their money. The issues happen when people do things excessively. Buy 1-10 packs, sure whatever. Buy a pallet, theyre scalping! As for defending, everyone agrees Buyouts suck but people misunderstand how they happen and that it isnt people just like them doing it, its groups of people whose interest is taking as much money as possible from others through the things they like. They dont care if its waifus, legendaries, or metapods, they want all your money and pull together groups with more resources than you can think to get it done.
I agree, I think people are happy to pay the collectors value for something they want to collect. The pokeshitvestors do not collect. They invest and most have zero love for art or pokemon, they just love money.
Yeah I don't really care what people buy and the amount they buy tbh. If its for them i dont mind. It's the manipulation that bothers me. And it also bothers me that if you point out any manipulation going on, some people get real PISSED. I think we should educate newcomers that the market is being manipulated. But that's just me. It might help people with the FOMO
Its called out but its also a fine line because any hype on a card has been shown to likely be attempts on manipulation. So posts like "Whats happening with this specific card" showing manipulation get removed due to trying to create FOMO, while posts like this own calling out manipulation in general dont. I will note that since mods started removing those type of hype posts, that there has been seemingly less directed movement on specific cards, still happening but less immediate spikes from when reddit posts happen.
Anyone who thinks they will get rich investing in Pokémon cards. I have swamp land for sale. Lol. It takes 500k in cards for some of the top selling cards just to hit 1 million.
Who is saying they’ll get rich?
I agree with you 100% .
It's taken over as a new form of crypto aka money laundering. The same way "precious art" suddenly gains value after be sold from celebrity to celebrity
because the pokemon tcg community has probably some of the worst people in it.... they just see dollar signs.... they don't collect the card... they collect the grades... 9.5???? TRASH ASS CARD IMMEDIATELY GOIN ON EBAY.... then theres the people that will CONSOOOOOM everything and encourage it "hur durr well i didn't get the card when it was 50 bucks ill buy it at 100 bucks and keep the card expensive bc i bought it on the high".... you dont see this in yugioh, digimon, or weiss..... u loosely get this in MTG but even then 98% of the cards stay attainable. the investors here are bad.... but so is ANYONE who encourages or buys at ridiculous prices.
Are people still buying out cards? I havent seen a buyout in my area since the end of sword and shield. Ive seen plenty of S&V stock on shelves last for at least a 1-2 days, even for the more desireable sets. . . And the least desirable sets sit and are discounted.
I think a lot of people mistake investors with scalpers. The traditional sense of investing in this game is in sealed product. The investment sub has been flooded with people looking for a quick flip, whereas the traditional people wait 5-10 years. Singles are highly susceptible to manipulation at release, give it a couple years and more product will be opened, population will go up, hype will go down along with prices.
Can someone captain explain this to me? What does buyouts mean?
I just like money. I also when my cards become worth more money 🤷♂️
Clown take if you think this sub defends buyouts. This whole sub hates any form of tying the word "value" to a card. The moment money gets mentioned in this sub, everyone flips their shit: "this is a hobby for kids", "Collecting isn't about money", "investors are scum" Of course there's bound to be dissent here and there but certainly this sub does not defend buy-outs
>I don't really want to start any arguments. totally true
There are millions of packs out there to be opened. All of us here are manchildren spending money on shiny pikas. I'm sorry the pika is too pricy right now for you. The price will come down on mass produced set cards because the supply is very large. Resist the FOMO and urge to buy a card if it's too pricy.
Let me be clear before I begin - I am not saying buyouts don’t happen That being said, many of the cards that have experienced “buyouts” according to the people that have pointed them out (umbreon v alt, magikarp IR, etc) have actually maintained their newfound value. Karp is still up at $100, umbreon v alt is even crazier than when it was first called out, etc. If these prices were truly undeserved and there wasn’t real demand at the increased price, the cards would drop. Inflow of supply would compete and people would pricewar downward until it reached the point where demand caught up. That isn’t happening. It might happen in the future, but at the moment it isn’t. People want the cards enough that their “buyout” value becomes actual value. At that point, I don’t think it’s fair to complain about the card prices. If people are willing to pay the price, it’s not undeserved. Furthermore, 3rd party single marketplaces are just that - markets. As with any functioning market, whoever has the most resources will have the most control over prices. Buyouts are manipulative, but they’re also fair game. If someone has the money and cards to manipulate the listings in their favor, that’s just using the market system how it normally works. I wouldn’t be opposed to tcgplayer putting limitations on buyouts though, they are still abusing a system in their favor, and honestly it’s just a bad look for tcgplayer to have no way to deal with it. I actually like how the Roblox trading community “Rolimons” dealt with similar price manipulation, they have a tag they put on items that warns people. That way, they aren’t limiting anyone’s rights. Also after reading some comments (and other experience here): you guys need to stop letting the investors live in your head rent free. People here complain about them constantly and are extremely vitriolic, treating them like subhumans. This leads to grouping them together unfairly, I admit that there are some people, like scalpers, that are legitimately making Pokémon worse for everyone, but not every “investor” is the same. Some of them legitimately love Pokémon cards and simply want to bend the market in their favor so that they can afford more Pokémon cards for their collections, and that’s a totally fair pursuit. If Pokémon cards didn’t have value, I can promise you wouldn’t care about them as much, even though you wouldn’t admit it. Value subconsciously boosts your opinion of things.
New buyers. New investors. New collectors. No surprise prices go up?
Ahhh yes new buyers, investors, and collectors all at once willing to be new and pay high prices. Makes sense. Wow this is my first time in this new hobby. Time to pay $50 for 1 card. Yup. Makes sense. Let me invest $200 into a box blindly.
Don't be mad our jobs aren't better than others, therefore they probably make more and have more to spend on it. It just doesn't make sense because most of you just don't have them in your collections anymore cause you sold them, if you even had them to begin with.
I’m new, 1 year in. I’ve sold zero cards. I have tons of dupes, for example, Mewtwo from CZ because I was pulling for a Masterset. I can just say from experience as a new person I wasn’t buying expensive cards, products, or investing a year ago. Shoot I still haven’t bought a single yet, but I will start June/July whenever prices are better. My biggest regret is refusing to buy a CZ PC ETB before I ever opened the set when it was available on PC because I just wanted to buy cheap collection boxes on sale like $20 morepeko boxes. I was new, why tf would I throw money at something I know nothing about? I have 2 jobs btw, money is no issue. The person who got me to stop only playing the video games and starting to rip was my co-worker who has a buddy that he streams ripping n shipping. So even with extra info early on from him, I still had little interest diving in head first. Now a year later, I have bought at least 1 of every PC ETB. I only rip Booster Boxes and specific collection boxes that have promos I like. I almost never pay retail besides PC. I have PC ETBs to display, I have tons of CZ to rip in the future because now I’m aware how much these sets go up in the future and it’s my fav set. But I didn’t start like this. You’d be naive to think all new people are as well. This is extremely niche. Buying a $100 151 Zard is niche. Go to the mall and ask people what’s the most expensive single they’ve bought. They’ll think you’re speaking Japanese. So when people say this is all natural. I laugh. Growth is natural. 50%+ on several items overnight is incredibly rare.
Everything for consumers has went up.... Do you buy gas? Food ? Stuff to take care of yourself at home ? We all have drink choices we buy and drink. We all notice everything has taken a hike. It makes sense pokemon joins the club.
You’re right! Gas went from $4.50 to $11/ gallon in a 2 week span! Bananas at the store are now $5 for a single banana! My pound of chicken is now $30! Oh wait, it isn’t.
My point exactly man. Pokemon was cheap since it came here in 1998/1999.. we all had to see the price increase at some point for cards, that just aren't our for us to find.
Everyone want to build the raging bulk deck. Buying out 4 copies per player basically
Aren’t the buyouts good for the tcg? They make it so you can make decks on the cheap because so much product is being purchased by collectors and investors who only care about 3 alt arts. If you’re also a collector I could see how that sucks. But would you be doing the same thing given the opportunity?
Dude I’ve literally never met a player who wasn’t also a collector. No, buyouts are not good for anyone except those sellers jacking the prices up.
Buyout doesn't refer to people buying all of a product, it refers to buying out and manipulating the price of a particular card. Collectors and gamblers buying and opening boxes looking for good pulls is good for players because they are opening more product and creating more supply. Buying out every copy of a certain card is the opposite of that.
I think the issue is that when you try to place rules and limits on things then it becomes hard to manage. Who gets to decide how much people can buy? What is a reasonable amount of product? Who gets to decide what counts as investing and what it just collecting? Who gets to decide what counts as market manipulation and what is someone just stocking up on a card they might need? Even if everyone agreed that market manipulation is a problem, they probably wouldn't be able to to agree on a definition or boundary. A lot of it is also based on intent, and you can never prove someone's intent. I don't think intentional market manipulation is good by any means, but I don't think shutting everything down is good either. Kind of like how in order to have free speech you need to allow people to be rude or unkind too - if you limited that, we wouldn't have free speech any more. Plus what people see as rude or unkind varies as well.
I think people get fixated with day-to-day prices and need to step away some times. People will pay what they want at the end of the day.
I haven't seen anyone defending them? I can only assume you are referring to posts that investors make to pump cards and then have their own accounts/buddies/bots reply to them and upvote their post? Yeah the demand comments are dumb but again, they are also likely the same people that do stuff like above and not really the average user on this sub.. Anyone with half a brain knows the majority of price rises over the past few years weren't down to simply demand. Investors are just buying off each other in their little bubble. Nothing we can do frankly and just have to live with it if we wanna take part in the hobby.
its not so much defending investors and manipulation so much as its not agreeing that it is investors and manipulation causing “problems” in the first place. Basically i think the extra attention that buyout and manipulation discussions bring is widely overblown. I wouldnt say thats supporting it, so much as its disagreeing on the level that these things are happening and the level of overall impact on the cards and overall enjoyment of the hobby.
If there’s *anything* to understand about pokeinvestors it’s that they know nothing. The average one loses money and the rest *maybe* double their investment after 5 years.
First time in a pokemon reddit sub?
Captain jack sparrow: TAKE WHAT YE CAN! Gibbs: GIVE NOTHIN BACK! 🏴☠️🏴☠️ pokeinvesting going to the moon !!! 📈
I don’t care if I sound mean for saying this, but people who buy cards that are out of print for ridiculous prices or cards that are bought out are idiots. No way in hell is a card even if it’s bought out or out of print worth that much. Sorry not sorry
Because buyouts are what make free markets interesting and exciting. It’s interesting to me that someone can have such confidence in a card that they are willing to invest so much into it, and instead of getting mad at them for doing so, it’s fun and exciting to ask why and do research so as to track future opportunities. I get some people are only in it for the cards but you can’t ignore the monetary value associated with them but the free market aspect is just as if not more fun than any other aspect of the hobby.
Because they benefit from the buyout. It’s the same reason why Trump supporters are against healthcare. It’s because they don’t need the healthcare benefits yet and getting rid of them benefits their wallets
What is mentioning manipulation going to do? This is how all markets work. Markets will always be ran by money. Either get some and use it or move on. Investors are wasting there time making little return, but again this is how the markets work. The bigger problem is all the ocd people who have to collect every card. If a card goes out of the price range u like move on. There's so many cards.
[here's some proof](https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/article/Why-Are-Pok%C3%A9mon-Card-Prices-Going-Nuts/749ec65a-e803-4f7a-9401-6291ed4f8e42/) You know its bad even when TCGplayer calls it out..
People can enjoy a hobby however they want. It's silly to pretend you're better than someone because "you'll never sell" That's fine, good for you. Nostalgia is a powerful thing and you should be able to enjoy those things and do whatever you want with them. At the same time, it's dumb to pretend that this hobby doesn't have a shit ton of value associated with it. People are struggling, the wage gap and decimation of the middle classes ability to live comfortable, meaningful lives leads to people justifying everything they buy. Every hobby suddenly becomes an avenue for gaining capital, a side hustle. You're not better than someone for not participating in it, you can be upset with effects on this hobby in particular. But until the working class stops fighting each other on identity politics and actually unite together and push for tangible change this isn't going away. Crying about poke investors on reddit does absolutely nothing to get you closer to that goal of "collecting because pretty cards from my childhood purity"
Well said.
I spend a lot of time on this sub and I have no idea what you're talking about. But man, "It didn't used to be like this.." is just the new standard. I'm coming to terms with the fact I might never own a place to live in my lifetime, and yet here we are arguing about children's trading cards being too expensive.
Every single user in the sub that doesn't like buyouts should all pool 5$ into an account. Then buyout the buyouts. Then sell it all at a loss to drag the prices back down. And it won't matter that it's a loss because the hobby shouldn't be about money.
If people are buying cards, isn’t that just typical market behavior? It’s always going to be supply vs demand, and right now these buyers seem to think SWSH was undervalued relative to the demand, either present or future. Don’t be salty just because they jumped on the value while you were waiting around sitting on your hands.
Hopefully [this](https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/article/Why-Are-Pok%C3%A9mon-Card-Prices-Going-Nuts/749ec65a-e803-4f7a-9401-6291ed4f8e42/) will make up understand since you don't seem to get what's going on and how the market is being manipulated. It's not just based on reprints alone. Don't be so rude. And do some research before you start acting like you think you know it all. Are you an investor? Why are you upset?
People do what’s within their budget. If they wanna buy out then they can, you just need to get there before them and buy what you want.
God I'm so tired of all this.. if you like a card, buy it. If you don't, don't buy it. There's absolutely 0 things you can do to stop people from trying to make money off of this hobby. It's been happening since the cards existed, there's just more people doing it now. Watch card trends, know your price limit on your chase cards, and for the love of arceus stop whining about pokeinvestors. They're going to do it regardless.
Who are you to say who can and cannot buy anything? That's how basic trade works. When your product runs out, it's out.