[HN Gopher] All Hail King Pokemon
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All Hail King Pokemon
Author : nomoreplease
Score : 63 points
Date : 2021-05-19 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.inputmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.inputmag.com)
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| I would be suprised if the most valuable collection of Pokemon
| cards was worth only $10M.
|
| I personally know multiple people with card collections in excess
| of $10M. They are using it as a form of investment and it's been
| their best performing asset class in the last several years.
|
| While those collections are not of Pokemon cards, I'm sure that
| there must exist people who see Pokemon cards as an investment
| too and are similarly wealthy.
| aloukissas wrote:
| For those in Pokemon cards, you should check out the Whatnot
| Slabathon [1], where we've been auctioning some super rare, PSA-
| graded cards on the app all May!
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFe8tseC85Y
| aphextron wrote:
| Getting some real 1999 vibes here
| kevinventullo wrote:
| As an adolescent in the late 90's, my friend group played the
| Star Wars version of this, Star Wars CCG. At the time I had cards
| worth $40-50 and thought if I held onto them for decades they'd
| be worth thousands. Looked them up recently and they're going
| for... $20-30. Oh well.
|
| Interestingly, unopened packs seem to fetch a fair amount,
| certainly more than their "expected value", which aligns with my
| experience trading loot boxes on Steam.
| hsndmoose wrote:
| > Interestingly, unopened packs seem to fetch a fair amount,
| certainly more than their "expected value"
|
| Yeah it's a phenomenon seen in a few different CCG markets
| actually. Roughly 2 years after a set's release the Sealed box
| price and the EV start to drift apart.
| njdullea wrote:
| When the first thing someone asks is why isn't a collector
| cashing in they clearly don't understand what motivates a
| collector in the first place.
| throwaway287391 wrote:
| Why am I hearing so much about Pokemon cards in the past few
| weeks? Are they having a resurgence? What prompted it?
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| They've always been mildly popular with a smaller crowd but
| recently it's all Twitch and Youtube. One streamer bought
| something like $10,000 worth of pokemon, others followed suit
| and now everyone's into it again.
| capableweb wrote:
| Hence, people are spending money on a new thing so
| cryptocurrency markets are going downwards.
| Avalaxy wrote:
| There is nothing else left to invest in.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| What amazes me is that Charizards can sell for so much when they
| are so worthless to the game. In MTG the most expensive card
| Black Lotus is basically broken and can be used in some formats
| and so actually desired by players. Charizard from the the
| original Pokemon base set is bad now. His HP is laughably low,
| his attack throws away tons of energy and it's a 3rd stage
| evolution making it slow and hard to get out. Even the buffed
| 2016 Pokemon Evolutions version isn't much more playable.
| MathYouF wrote:
| Me and every friend I had in elementary school played with
| pokemon cards. We never once played the actual card game, just
| the gameboy game. The cards were closer to stuffed animals than
| utility items. If you played a card game it was YuGiOh because
| it was so simple.
| swang wrote:
| Black Lotus only can be played in Vintage, and even then it is
| restricted (1 card total in main/sideboard). It is more of a
| collectible because of its pure rarity more than anything now.
| ufo wrote:
| At this point a black lotus is so expensive that I wonder how
| many people can still afford one, and are OK with shuffling
| one into their deck.
| [deleted]
| tasogare wrote:
| I remember being kid and other kids telling back then, when the
| card game was released, that a charizard was worth 500 francs
| (around 75EUR) and I didn't really believed them. Funny how it
| raised to even crazier prices.
|
| Someone gave me a free Ponyta, which I traded against other
| cards, growing my collection without buying any pack. One day I
| was with only three cards remaining but managed to trade again
| them for a bigger collection. My brother did the same, also
| with a free starting Ponyta. A year or so later, I bough two
| packs of the Fossils extension. A guy stole my whole collection
| in junior high school and I wasn't able to bring it back. I
| still hate him to this day.
| monocasa wrote:
| Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. I bet most of them are ending up
| framed on walls or what have you by people who wanted it in
| middle school. And I bet there's way more of those people than
| people playing the game.
| ufo wrote:
| I've heard that Pokemon TCG card prices are more related to
| collectability and less related to in-game strength, when
| compared to Magic the Gathering. Some of the most sought after
| cards are first edition printings, or promotional cards.
| rogerdb wrote:
| I don't think it's too surprising - cards from this era are
| primarily collector items, so among equal rarity cards, the
| most "iconic" ones are the ones that demand the highest price.
| Charizard had a pre-existing (and continued) level of
| popularity that made it the obvious most desirable card, even
| if it's not particularly playable. MTG didn't have the existing
| IP, so the cards that became iconic are more based around their
| playability, rarity, and associated mythos. Not too many people
| are dropping $20,000+ for a lotus to play it in vintage, but
| the prices continue to rise because of increasing
| collectibility. For what it's worth, Ancestral Recall is
| arguably a stronger card of equal rarity, but it's worth
| substantially less on the basis of being less iconic (if only
| slightly).
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Even though the Black Lotus value is mostly as a collector's
| item, in game, it has the advantage of being extremely
| versatile. As someone said, all decks are better with a Black
| Lotus. It is the most expensive because everyone wants it in
| their deck, no exception, and more than a one if it wasn't
| restricted (initially, it wasn't).
|
| Ancestral Recall may be more powerful but it requires blue
| mana, which may be an issue in a non-blue deck, of course you
| can use a Black Lotus for that...
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > As someone said, all decks are better with a Black Lotus.
| It is the most expensive because everyone wants it in their
| deck, no exception, and more than a one if it wasn't
| restricted (initially, it wasn't).
|
| > Ancestral Recall may be more powerful but it requires
| blue mana, which may be an issue in a non-blue deck, of
| course you can use a Black Lotus for that...
|
| It's true that everyone wants it with no exceptions. That's
| not good enough to make it the most expensive card, though;
| that's due to prestige.
|
| If you look at the decklists for a recent Vintage event
| (here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-
| standings... ), you can see the top 16 decks play 16 Black
| Lotuses, just 11 Ancestral Recalls... and 16 Mishra's
| Workshops, which accounts for 80% of the decks that aren't
| playing Ancestral Recall.
|
| There's no such thing as a "non-blue deck" in Vintage. Even
| the Mishra's Workshop decks can easily generate blue mana.
| (The Bazaar of Baghdad deck in 15th place can't, but its
| whole strategy revolves around not needing to generate mana
| at all.)
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Is there a standard list of highly valuable MTG cards? I have
| a couple thousand cards from the mid-90s and while I'm sure
| they are probably worthless, I can't bring myself to just
| dump them even though I haven't played in 20 years.
| herodoturtle wrote:
| I'm chuckling to myself because we're literally in the same
| boat.
|
| I still have my collection from the 90s, which I obsessed
| over as a kid.
|
| I just used the fellow HN user's link in this thread to
| check the value of some of my cards.
|
| Turns out my black and white vampire angel deck is worth a
| chunk of change!
|
| And at the time I remember being teased for using outdated
| Beta cards because I was too poor to buy newer packs.
|
| Thanks for the trip down memory lane ^_^
| fencepost wrote:
| You could do worse than taking a look at relevant videos
| here (https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCTp-
| iVOtTrKau0skmfZlo5Q).
|
| A lot of it will come down to the value of your time. You
| can sell directly yourself but deal with headaches and
| scammers, or you can sell to someone like Rudy for what
| will likely be ~50% of prices you'll see online. Part of
| that is that most of your cards will probably be considered
| in "played" condition, either light or heavy.
| 16mb wrote:
| You can check mtggoldfish
| https://www.mtggoldfish.com/index/vintage#paper
| rogerdb wrote:
| Depends on your definition of "highly valuable" - from that
| time period, there's a very short list of cards worth
| >$1000, quite a few in the $100-$999 range, and a ton in
| the >$10 bracket. What they're actually worth depends a lot
| on the particular printing and what condition they're in.
|
| If you wanted a starting point, Scryfall is a useful tool
| for looking up cards (though they're missing pricing data
| for some early cards, presumably due to scarcity of
| transaction data). Here's something to get you started
| (cards printed before 2000, sorted by price, displayed as a
| price list): https://scryfall.com/search?q=unique%3Aprints+
| sort%3Ausd+dat...
| hsndmoose wrote:
| https://www.mtgstocks.com/lists
|
| IMO you'd get a lot of mileage from the "Reserved List" or
| "Vintage Staples" but site is decent for a general price
| lookup as well.
|
| Feel free to shoot follow-up questions. There are a few
| cards that went from trash to treasure since you've been
| out of the game. Lion's Eye Diamond probably the most
| extreme example, but basically anything on the Reserved
| List has gone insane in the past few years.
| herodoturtle wrote:
| Heya, mind if I jump in here - this comment has piqued my
| interest.
|
| I've got an old collection from the early 90s as
| mentioned in my comment further up.
|
| Are my black bordered cards indeed Beta?
|
| I'm going through this list you shared for the Beta
| edition cards and some of these prices are ridiculous.
|
| I'm pretty sure I'm misinterpreting something.
| scubbo wrote:
| > Are my black bordered cards indeed Beta?
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/bsvg6h/an_upda
| ted... is the best way for you to answer "what set is
| this Magic card from?"
| aardvark179 wrote:
| Your cards are almost certainly worth a lot less. Maybe
| they are beta, but they probably aren't nearly as good
| condition as you would like to think.
| herodoturtle wrote:
| I'm sure you're right.
|
| I played these cards to death and didn't really care for
| their condition aside from just sticking them in plastic
| sleeves.
|
| Anyway this was a fun little trip down memory lane.
|
| Maybe they'll be worth something in another 20 years?
| hsndmoose wrote:
| Even "pretty bad" condition Beta is still worth a pretty
| penny. Lots of people just want to have complete sets, or
| play "1994" League which allows only cards from that era.
| There will definitely be a market if you do indeed have
| Beta :)
| Animats wrote:
| There's a lot of money to be made exploiting people with no life.
| gen220 wrote:
| I gave you an upvote on a charitable interpretation, because I
| think it's actually a humbling observation: how much money some
| motivated individuals are willing to spend on objects with no
| bona fide "value".
|
| That is, things that are not edible (food) and do not produce
| something edible (fire, farming tools, soil), that do not
| shield you from the elements or help produce such goods that
| do.
|
| We all possess things that are basically irrational to possess.
| Many even pay for the opportunity to possess and protect things
| with no boba fide value.
|
| For me, it's books and records, in spite of easy access to the
| library and the internet. For others, it's clothes, exotic food
| ingredients, streaming services/TV, season passes, and Pokemon
| cards.
|
| I used to think like this, judging people by their value
| functions. But as I've gotten older, I increasingly find it
| unfair to knock people for the irrational things they choose to
| possess, as long as it brings no unreasonable harm to others
| (i.e. it's OK to shame the person who invests their life
| savings in Pokemon cards, using it as a vehicle for
| speculation, but I still think it's wrong to say they have no
| life).
| mberning wrote:
| I think about that often. I know many people that are pretty
| much losing at life that have voluminous collections of junk.
| Anime figurines, comics, video games, movies, etc. It's a sad
| pathology.
| mountainethos wrote:
| Thinking often about how your mode of living is superior to
| others' is a sad pathology.
| phoe-krk wrote:
| Just so you know, Pokemon Trading Card Game is still alive and it
| has a pretty good online client[0] (that runs well on Wine). Poke
| me if you'd like a game someday.
|
| [0] https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/play-online/
| christiansakai wrote:
| It is more fun to play in person!
| phoe-krk wrote:
| I agree! It's much harder to play in person due to the
| pandemic though.
|
| There's a bonus though: each new physical deck and booster
| pack that you buy is also redeemable online, so you can buy a
| deck or two, redeem their codes in the online version, and
| immediately start playing them there.
| tasogare wrote:
| Yes but that require buying cards. Sometimes I want to do it
| to make friends, but that would require a decent time and
| money investment. And while I saw few girls playing it at the
| university, I think it's mostly kids playing, so it would be
| a bit weird too (in addition to being a visible foreigner).
| ipsum2 wrote:
| You don't have to buy cards. In high school people were
| playing with cards printed at home, and put into card
| sleeves. I assume no on photoshopped their card to change
| the stats.
| tasogare wrote:
| Store hates people playing with proxies. It's obvious
| illegal in tournament. That would make me stick out even
| more. So no. But I'll ask acquaintances around if some
| are playing the game.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Proxies are only illegal in official tournaments. For a
| long time the major M:tG Vintage tournament wasn't even
| run by WotC, and proxies were allowed.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| "Why isn't he cashing in?"
|
| Probably the #1 question you should pose unsophisticated people.
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