Pokemon's Incredible Boom
Updated · TCG Insider
My favorite question to date is a well asked question: How long can this Pokemon boom stay afloat? The answer? No one truly knows, but what I can do is provide some information to clarify multiple segments that are driving this craze.
What we have is a historic landmark of popularity regarding Pokemon. Every month Pokemon grows in popularity. Here are factors that you must be aware of to truly gauge what is happening. We'll cover part 2 soon.
- Print quality causes lower gem rates, larger amounts of products must be ripped (volume approach) to hit PSA 10 (PSA is the driver in most cards, BGS 10 & CGC Pristine have unique drivers, but tend to be more towards mid era). PSA 9 & 8 are valued at and lesser than ungraded. I'd argue it's due to the grade showing the card isn't perfect and won't 10.
- Pop counts of anything 9 or less are potentially wildly inaccurate due to cracking and resubmitting, card repair becoming a more prominent affair, and cross grading. This skews pop numbers +/- which does affect value
- Money coming into the market. I'm going to throw something out there: It's a cash heavy hobby. Emphasis on cash. It's also a very liquid hobby. There are influencers that are taking their profits and washing them through this hobby. Not a game I personally play nor want to play, but it's a thing. These people have serious stacks of cash and can afford to sit, which creates scarcity. Scarcity in a hobby where hundreds of thousands of people want the same product generates demand with momentum.
- Set volume. We're getting new launches literally every three months not including special product that just gets spit out. There are so many product variants available. The printing facility is already at cap production, so this reduces the actual full potential of product lines being available. For better or for worst.
- Age groups. The group that grew up with the OG 151 got their big swing with S&V 151. During launch? Product was available. Today? Prices are ungodly. The 151 crew has career level income now, and disposable income to boot. They want what they didn't get as children. This helps push the vintage era, mid era that had notoriously low print volume & gem rates, and modern era whenever you see the OG 3 plus Eevee's.
Food for thought before we close up for the day: If Johto & Hoenn receives the same treatment that Scarlet & Violet's 151 did, do you believe product will be so scarce we will see market start at 200% of MSRP? I'd argue higher.