Pokemon Collectors Are About To Make A Huge Mistake

[00:00:00]I legitimately think that collectors and investors alike are about to make the biggest mistake in Pokémon in maybe the last four or five years.

[00:00:16]And before we get to what that is, we have to talk about why it's going to happen.

[00:00:23]We basically have solid confirmation now from multiple sources that Pokémon has waved the white flag on maybe all of the Scarlet and Violet era, but definitely SV5 through SV8 including Prismatic Evolutions and including Shrouded Fable.

[00:00:48]If you do not have SV5 Twilight Masquerade through SV8 Surging Sparks in your collection or your investments if you do not have Shrouded Fable which I think is a great buy. If you do not have Prismatic Evolutions I don't think the time is to wait anymore. It's It's time to pick them up if you're able to or if you want to trade um or if you want to sell some stuff to buy them, if you want them for your sealed collection, if you want even singles um I don't think anything from the Scarlet and Violet era that goes out of rotation in less than a year is a bad buy right now.

[00:01:31]We've gotten confirmation now from multiple people with distro access. Um I just finished Eli and Alex's uh PokeMart USA's podcast earlier. Um and you know SV era is basically done.

[00:01:48]Um there might be some bundles trickling out uh of I think maybe Prismatic or um some little tins or something. I forget what they said. But But basically, distribution has confirmed there is no more Scarlet & Violet coming for the foreseeable future.

[00:02:05]And also, there is no Ascended Heroes coming in the foreseeable future. That's a little bit of a different conversation um because of the rotation date.

[00:02:17]Same thing with Destined Rivals and Fantasma Flames and >> [snorts] >> um those sets that go out in 2028. I I think there is still some some possibility of those down the road, but definitely not in the near term.

[00:02:29]And it was also confirmed that Chaos Rising, Perfect Order, and Pitch Black, um what comes comes at the beginning, right? The first wave, second wave, whatever we get, whatever the Perfect Order second wave gets here, and the Chaos Rising, and whatever they do for Pitch Black, that's going to be it for that. That's basically been printed or about to be printed. Um I also heard that Chaos Rising was like off the printers and packed in like a week or two. Like the the the timeline that they're working on right now is so short to try to get product to everybody.

[00:03:07]And the reason that they have turned off the Scarlet & Violet era, and that they are basically um making these smaller sets, is so they can print the 30th anniversary.

[00:03:22]And they've been printing the 30th anniversary, and it's probably all they're going to be printing for the next 3 months, 6 months, 9 months. We don't know how long.

[00:03:34]But basically, every line, every box, every department is going to be working on the 30th anniversary from now until it comes out and after.

[00:03:47]>> [snorts] >> And that's where we get to the mistake that I believe a huge portion of the hobby is going to be making.

[00:03:59]If what we think is going to happen happens and UPCs come out of the gate at $400 to $500, ETBs come out of the gate at $250 to $300, loose packs are going for 20 bucks, 15 to 20 bucks, maybe 22 dollars, we don't know. I'm sure some ripping shippers will be selling them for 30 bucks, you know, the week before release.

[00:04:28]If these prices are going to be as crazy as we all think they're going to be, I think the biggest mistake that any collector or investor could make is buying the 30th anniversary at release and the weeks after release.

[00:04:48]If Pokémon is really printing, we're going to see what their max capacity is for an individual set.

[00:04:56]They are basically going to be printing this set as heavily as they could possibly print a set.

[00:05:04]It might be the most printed set in Pokémon history. It's very possible.

[00:05:09]Um I don't know if it's true. I guess it's it's possible that they do have like 400,000 square feet of the new facility up and running already cuz it would they bought some um or leased or whatever some existing building. Um so with that extra 400,000 square feet, that's I believe is for packaging.

[00:05:30]If they can um you know, streamline that a little bit and you know, they have just the printers running 24/7 for nine Let's say 12 months straight.

[00:05:41]Let's say they started printing it two or three months ago and they keep printing it into 2027. So, basically let's say they print it non-stop for a year. They don't focus on anything else, which is makes sense of why we've not gotten any more ascended, but you know, all these staggered releases, all this all the stuff, the smaller sets.

[00:06:02]The amount of supply that is going to be out there could actually meet demand for the first time in 2 years. Basically, it'll be exactly 2 years cuz, you know, Twilight Masquerade, Stellar Crown, Surging Sparks were right at the two 2-year mark for all that stuff when the 30th anniversary is going to be coming out.

[00:06:24]And I think it will be a huge mistake to FOMO into the 30th anniversary at release. And the more I think about it, the more we see what's coming because it doesn't matter that this information is out there. A huge portion of the hobby will never hear that, right? You know, a couple thousand people will watch this video. A couple tens of thousands of people will watch, you know, Alex and Eli and watch um the business channels that talk Danny Phanta up and that talk about allocation. You know, tens of thousands, maybe 100,000 people will watch those videos.

[00:07:01]But there's millions of people that won't be watching those videos and don't have the inside scoop on distribution and how much um time the Pokémon Company has been dedicating to the 30th anniversary all this time.

[00:07:19]And it might be waved releases. It might be Who who knows? It might be three waves.

[00:07:25]It might be four waves. The the products might be staggered like they were for ascended, but I think the amount of supply that they are going to dump on us for this release is going to be unprecedented.

[00:07:38]Um I think it might actually quench some demand for the first time in a long time.

[00:07:45]And you look at Ascended Heroes, right?

[00:07:48]And I forget what it came out the gate at. I want to say 15 to 18 dollars like in like at at the beginning.

[00:07:57]And then once the ETBs ETBs came out, once the bundles came out, and everything started to trickle out, we saw packs hit like the 10 11 12 dollar range. Um so even Ascended with with very low supply, a very weird waved release, um packs did drop for for a short time for a short time. And um you know, now packs are up to what 16 17 bucks, uh maybe 18. Uh I know just recently they went on a little bit of a run and some other products are going on a run, but not the ETBs, which is strange. Uh so you know, we we've kind of seen it with a with an S tier, you know, amazing generational set just recently, which it seems like the 30th anniversary is is going to be at. I imagine we'll have some more leaks here in the next couple weeks and just get more and more hyped.

[00:08:44]And uh but even with this information out there, you know, I really think that UPCs you know, MSRP 200 dollars, you know, GameStop's probably going to be charging 400. Um I think market will be around probably pre-release 4 450.

[00:09:00]And then I won't be surprised if they hit 500 at some point. ETBs I think will be somewhere between 200 and 250 probably at release. Um and uh man, as as a hardcore sealed collector, as someone who wants to rip a ton of packs of this set, I'm going to wait.

[00:09:23]You know, there's so many people this is the main point that actually I wanted to make. There's so many people that are war chesting for this set and that are just waiting to spend that money, right? There's we're going to we're going to have the summer slow down, yada yada, people are selling, yada yada.

[00:09:40]So, there's going to be a lot of people that have some cash because they're specifically saving for the 30th anniversary. Chaos Rising is a bad set.

[00:09:48]Pitch Black is a bad set. Perfect Order was a bad set. I don't like these sets.

[00:09:52]I'm saving my money. Whatever, you do you. Um and these people are going to have hundreds of dollars saved up, thousands of dollars saved up, tens of thousands of dollars saved up.

[00:10:05]And it's going to be absolutely burning a hole in their pocket.

[00:10:11]And I think a lot of people are not going to care to spend two to 250 for an ETB off the gate. They'll think it's not going to go down from here. It's only going to go up. A lot of new people will be entering the hobby during an anniversary year, during an anniversary set. The advertisements are going to be pumped up. Pokémon's going to be pushing um all kinds of stuff.

[00:10:32]McDonald's I I heard that the McDonald's release is still going to happen this year, which we thought that it wasn't cuz it's always February, March.

[00:10:41]But, um I saw a leak that uh rumored Happy Meal rest of the year leak or whatever. And apparently, we It looks like we probably will be getting the McDonald's promos and stuff um like in September or October.

[00:10:56]That's huge. You know, like that's millions of people that will be exposed to Pokémon again that that maybe um will come into the hobby.

[00:11:05]Um because FYI, they sell a lot of Happy Meals still. Uh America is uh not that healthy and not well or wherever you are.

[00:11:13]Or if you're in Australia or the UK or South America, wherever you are, um is McDonald's a big thing like it is here in the United States? Is McDonald's still just like everywhere? And every time I pass one, the line is around the building. It's It's crazy. Um that literally I go to McDonald's once a year to get the Happy Meals with the with the [snorts] Pokémon cards. I think I got like four last year and it was it was yeah, it was fun. Came home my wife and I had fun. But anyway, eating some Happy Meals as as 30-somethings.

[00:11:45]Um but you know, the hype is going to hit an apex again. It's going to be the top of the mountain, final boss of the hype for for this bull market. I really think it will be.

[00:11:59]And while I don't think things will ever go back to like they were in 2022, 2023, I do think there will be a more of a calm down at some point. Still a super strong, still basically a bull market, crazy prices, booster boxes over $200 for sure. All that stuff still going to stay the same, but I think that we're going to be hitting absolutely unprecedented demand and just people in at the 30th.

[00:12:30]But it seems like Pokémon knows that and they're going to be stepping up and if they've really just been printing this set as much as they possibly can and filling up the warehouse with it, then cuz I mean the warehouses are empty, right? They have plenty of space. Like seriously, the and this these distribution centers, Pokémon's biggest distribution, they got to have tons of space because they sell out of everything instantly.

[00:12:55]So all the space that they had for years is is just there. So they can just fill it up with all 30th, baby. Just let it flow.

[00:13:03]And uh I think they will.

[00:13:06]I really think they will and um I don't think I hope the distribution doesn't hold a lot back. I don't think they will with how much they'll be getting. I think they'll want to just push it out right away and and get it out to everybody, but it's going to be it's going to be really interesting to and what happens, but I I just think the prices will come down after a few months.

[00:13:31]We'll go into the holidays.

[00:13:33]People will have to buy all their Christmas gifts and their um you know, all all that stuff. And I think after the new year, I think January, February is going to be a really good time to probably buy the 30th after maybe a new set comes out. I don't know if we're going to get a high-class set in Japanese at that point or any English set in maybe February or March, but um you know, oh, we're going to have the Rayquaza set though in probably November. So that we'll have that actually. So that'll be Yeah, that'll be interesting to see how that works with that release with Japanese coming out in the summer. That'll be That'll be weird, but um Yeah, it's going to be It's going to be crazy. And I I just think that patience will win out in the situation. Patience usually does.

[00:14:19]And um I could be wrong, but I don't think I'm going to be.

[00:14:23]Let me know what you think down below.

[00:14:25]Um will you uh you're going to go all in? Are you going to do I and you know, I would be fine with like a blended, you know, I might pick up if I can get stuff at MSRP, obviously, that's a whole different If you If you're getting stuff at MSRP, I don't go to Target, I don't go to Walmart, I don't go to Costco, I don't go to Sam's Club. Um I go to my LGSs and I buy online. Um so usually I'm able to get stuff a little bit under market, but not too much. So um yeah, obviously if I can get something for MSRP, of course, that's an automatic buy. If you're able to buy a 30th anniversary ETB for uh you know, 50 bucks, of course, buy it, rip it, have fun. The expected value will probably be stupid when it first comes out and you can probably just sell the cards right away and then down the road pay for three more, four more ETBs or something.

[00:15:16]Um but but yeah, I I I wouldn't be opposed to doing some kind of blended like, okay, put 20 or 30% of the money that you saved for the 30th in right away and then save the rest or some you know, some kind of you know, 40 60 something like that. Um that I think that would be a terrible strategy as well. But um if you're going to go all in and spend 100% just boom nope like UPCs 400 bucks 500 bucks nope they're not going down boom like they could get reprinted um they could get printed heavily they could be stagnant for a long time if you're just buying them for investment the the celebrations UPCs I want to say they sat at the exact same price. I think it they were almost like hidden fates uh but obviously a couple years later.

[00:16:02]Um I want to say for like 3 years they didn't move up in price at all. So um be ready for that the hype remember guys the 30th and the anniversary sets get hyped when the next anniversary comes around. That's that's 5 years right?

[00:16:18]Like celebrations was not super hyped until this year and the the cards started rising again and the sealed products started rising again.

[00:16:26]So um if you're buying for for a hold like be ready to hold it for five full years not not two not three not four not four and a half five you going to have to hold that for a full five years more than likely before you would see the kind of gains that you're probably looking for.

[00:16:45]Um but you know, as as a collector though it looks like it's going to be a really fun set to rip. So I'm sure a lot of you are going to be looking to buy product to enjoy it. So But but yeah, anyway, um I think that's all I can say.

[00:16:59]Let me know what you think down below about that and then um last thing I want to say is uh so I talked about uh TCG Quant a few times um in some previous videos. I actually have a affiliate link down below now for TCG Quant. Um I liked it so much that I decided to um, join their affiliate program and um, if you click the link below, you will get three free days of their premium and um, it's really good for sealed. It's it's I'm a sealed collector as you know. It tracks um, SV era, sword and shield era, and mega era for sealed products. Um, and has a really awesome analytics and my favorite part of the website is the destruction tracker. Um, the destruction tracker is really cool. You can dive into sets and it basically has a a formula and it has some sliders where you can adjust of how much cards you think were graded and it'll show you how much um, how many packs and how many booster boxes um, were ripped or were opened destroyed, right? That's why it's a destruction tracker. Um, so I really like that tool and they're like optimizing it and stuff like that. Um, but uh, this isn't not a sponsored.

[00:18:10]They're not they're not a sponsor or anything. It's just an affiliate link if you guys want to check it out. Um, honestly, I don't even know what I don't even know what I get. Um, but uh, yeah. So, affiliate affiliate link down below if you guys want to check out and get three uh, three free days of premium trial for that. Um, check it out. Let me know what you think. And besides that, yeah. Um, I appreciate the support as always and I hope you guys enjoyed video and let me know what you thought down below and uh, yeah. Like, comment, subscribe and we will see you all tomorrow.