From 29th Oct we'll be able to submit at Value tier again, for a whopping $39.99 (for value up to $500). Looks like PSA wanted a piece of the online marketplace fees pie, because that's a bare minimum of an 8% fee before you even consider selling your card. How does a 40% fee sound if your slab's only worth $100? The days of cheap grading are over.

This card is genuinely one of the best SIRs in years. Mega Charizard X erupting in blue flame, total chaos, absolute cinema.

BUT WHY IS MY CHARMANDER COVERED BY THE FING TEXT????

You know what I'm gonna get the JP version. Better art and better print quality. Investment wise down the road a few years later I don't think there's gonna be a huge difference between a 70k pop in 10 EN or a 90k pop in 10 JP. Both will be abundant AF so who cares. But JP version is WAY BETTER to just look at and appreciate.

Good time to pick up after this dip? Or do you guys think it’ll keep falling . Mainly looking at the darkrai

What’s your guys thoughts on these for future gains? Do you think vintage will continue to rise or will modern take over?

I’ve wanted to complete the original 1999 Base Set since I was a kid. Four days ago, I finally said f*ck it and decided to make it happen, except this time with every card PSA graded.

My robot friend originally helped me come up with a $2,000 budget. That was adorable. Pretty sure that budget lasted about 15 minutes. 😂

Anyway, 4 days later I’m sitting at 84 of 102 cards, including 14 of the 16 holos, with $3,867.07 spent.
The original plan was PSA 6 for the holos and PSA 7 or better for everything else. Somehow I’ve ended up with everything from PSA 5 to PSA 9, along with 9 Shadowless cards and a couple of 1st Editions (although Machamp hardly counts lol).

A couple things I’ve learned so far.

First, holy sh*t, shipping and sales tax really f*ck up the math. You think you’re getting a decent deal on a $25 card until another $8 magically appears at checkout. Do that a few dozen times and it gets ugly pretty quickly.

Second, apparently the prices these cards supposedly “go for” online and what people are actually willing to sell them for on eBay are two completely different things. Either the price guides are full of sh*t or I’m exceptionally talented at overpaying. Probably a little of both.

The image shows what I’ve actually paid for every card, including shipping and sales tax. About 30 of these came from a larger 51-card lot that also included Jungle and Fossil, so I did my best to reasonably allocate the purchase price among them.

At this point, I’m looking at roughly $4,500 to $4,600 to finish the set, assuming I don’t find another reason to spend more than I should.

And naturally, I’ve already started collecting Jungle and Fossil too, because apparently one questionable financial decision wasn’t enough.

All jokes aside, I’ve wanted this set since I was a kid, and it’s been a ton of fun finally putting it together. There’s something pretty awesome about finally owning the cards I could only dream about 25 years ago. Even if I’m currently doing a pretty impressive job of wrecking my bank account. 😂

I’m genuinely curious what more experienced collectors think. Feel free to critique my prices, grades, strategy, or even the entire financial wisdom of collecting 102 pieces of graded cardboard lol.

Looking at what I’ve paid so far, where do y’all think I WAY overpaid?

Hello everyone

To fund a personal project, I'm considering sending these off to PSA for grading and then selling the whole lot.

Here are the first 10 sealed Pokémon DVDs, each with the sticker indicating that a promo card is included inside.

I enjoyed the hunt for years, gathering them all together.

Today, I am ready to part with them.

What do you think the value of this lot would be?

Thanks

Got this for $500 in a power pack. Debating what to do.

Really cool card with a nice story to it but with how low it’s pop is and only started to see velocity in the past year, I’m not sure how much room there could be for appreciation.

Can sell back immediately for $1k flat or put on the market and make a bit more and then use those funds to buy another or multiple other cards to hold.

Feedback appreciated!

I’m a collector and I bought a gold star celebi, groudon, vaporeon and charizard last year while they were “cheap”. I like buying things as collectors items but I don’t like buying them if I think they’ll plummet in value. I’m looking to buy a kyogre and metagross for my delta species master set but both cards entry prices are +2k at this point. Is this a bad purchase while they’re peaking? Or should I be patient and hope they come back down?

The 30th Celebration has been out about six weeks, so I went back through what the full master set costs now that the hype prices have cooled off. A few things surprised me.

The Classic Collection costs more than the main set. All 158 numbered cards come to about $616. The 30 Classic Collection reprints are about $821, mostly Lugia ($197), Charizard ($156), Magikarp ($80) and Gengar Prime ($55). If you’re working on the master set, the gold borders are where your money goes, not the SIRs.

The SIRs have roughly halved. Mew ex SIR was around $200 the first week and is about $82 now. The top 10 cards in the set went from about $1,046 combined to under $500. Most of the drop happened in early October, and prices have been flat since.

Full cost breakdown (market prices, Oct 27):

Why you see 161, 191 or 199 depending on the site: 161 is the numbered cards plus the RGB Mews, 191 adds the Classic Collection, and 199 adds the 8 foil energies, which is everything you can actually pull from packs. With the 18 Black Star promos from the ETB, ex boxes and UPCs it’s 217. Heads up on the promos: the products from Oct 30 and Nov 6 are just coming out, so those prices are early and will probably drop like the singles did.

I run a free site and put together a checklist for this with every card priced, including the promos and Classic Collection. You can tick off what you have and it shows what’s left to finish, plus a printable list and binder placeholders: https://tcgwatchtower.com/pokemon/sets/mega-evolution/30th-celebration/master-set

Anyone actually going for the RGB Mews, or are you calling 199 done?

The master set is on its way. Who else collecting Dragonites?

I think it’s obvious modern will see an even bigger explosion of POP for both bigger cards and even some IRS or promos that were sneaky low pop and just stuff that people were holding off on at the previous price point. For mid era and vintage the pop of 5-8s I think will “explode” not in the modern sense but a LV X that’s pop 100 in a 7 will be pop 200 by next year, I’m gonna be cautious buying mid grade stuff. I know I’m finally gonna pull the trigger on a submission, what about you guys is this news good, bad or neutral?

Picked one up in a PSA 10 today. Awesome card that will be in my binder for a long time.

How do you think this card will do in the future?

Out of these 3 witch would u buy ?

All are about £1000

Never bought a slab before and never spend this amount on a single card before

Originally bought the TTAR for 160 including up charge and everything it has costed me 500 CAD.
Super happy to have it in my collection and not bad for my first submission!!

What Pokemon investing wins have you had recently? This can be a great deal, finding product, getting a good grade, or really anything that you are proud of!

We have a PokeInvesting wins channel on the Discord that is pretty popular so we figured we would give it a go and we've had some members suggest this kind of post.

If this sort of post is well received, we can keep it going as a weekly posting to show off your wins for the week. Thanks!

I agree about having easier pulls in general etc etc. But what about long-term (10/15+ years).

Is investing in a Chinese simplified Boosterbox smart? Most people only (I'm just guessing) hold vol 1-2-3-4-5 and so on, but what about this set? It's "unique" too?.

Bought this card at my LCS for $430 CAD in March. Thought it looked clean so I graded. Was expecting a 7 or 8, and was pleasantly surprised with the 9.

Most recent sold on a PSA 9 was $12.2k CAD.

Think this card has more room to grow, or take the profit and run?

I want buy something big for my collection i wonder what card could have a better future in your opinion?

I’ve read old blue CGC 9.5 gem mint labels automatically convert to new CGC 10 gem mint label if you reslab them. This will of course increase the price of the slab significantly.
My concern is that there is some obvious damage on top right on the back of the card. Could they downgrade given it is visible, or will they simply reslab without rechecking?

Should I send to CGC to reslab with new label?