Hydra Fun - monthly Pokémon blog
What’s happening in the Pokémon Market?
Everybody could notice that there was a real hype around Pokémon in 2020 when covid forced us to stay home and spent a part of our money differently. Meanwhile Pokémon was extra in the media because of the 25th Anniversary Celebrations and some wealthy celebrities also created extra attention by buying very special Pokémon cards for large amounts. Because of all this, lots of new collectors entered the market and then two important things happened:
- There was a shortage of Pokémon supply.
- Grading companies got overloaded, which resulted in long delivery times and later higher grading rates.
Due to this, a real hype originated and prices went up fast. At one moment the prices rose so fast, that lots of collectors and investors started selling there collections as for them it appeared to be a good moment to cash. Meanwhile, the shortage of new Pokémon cards endured while the sales by those collectors kept the hype going.
Then in 2021 the market was flooding with collectors offering their cards while the Pokémon supply problems were over. Meanwhile, lots of delayed grading cards where entering the market too. This caused Pokémon cards highly available on the market to drop in price. However, because of the shortages and high prices other cost in the chain where also raised. Marketplaces raised their fees, grading prices increased significantly and on top of that tax authorities enforced marketplaces and small webshops to file tax returns for their clients more often. This really shifted the playing field and made it a lot less profitable to trade rare or graded Pokémon cards.
When can we expect the Pokémon trading market to recover?
Of course it is hard to predict what is really going to happen in the future, but there are a few things we know. Firstly, the number of Pokémon fan’s, investors and collectors has increased still and the Pokémon TCG brand is more popular than ever. What we also see, is that Pokémon prices are still rising for rare cards, even now overall prices have dropped. Because of the raised grading rates, only the more expensive and rare Pokémon cards remained interesting for grading. This might cause another shift in prices and market offers. Nevertheless, it will not change the fact that Pokémon is more popular then ever and still many collectors are out their to find rare Pokémon cards or invest in Pokémon cards that are likely the increase in value over time. On the other hand, new grading companies have entered the Pokémon grading area and where PSA (Professional Sports Authentication) grading company has raised its tariffs up to $100 per card, the new grading companies fill the gap and offer grading starting from $20 per card now.
This said, its expected to see that the Pokémon market for collectors and Investors will grow and prices will start rising soon enough, probably only for different cards or in a slightly different way. At the end Pokémon TCG is more popular than ever and the number of collectors and investors is still increasing.
Perhaps a new hype will rise sooner then expected, when the new Pokémon Go TCG series is released next summer. This is a new special card set which is completely based on the Pokémon Go game and is released world wide in multiple languages at the same time.
J. Donders 6 February 2022.
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