Pokemon Collectors Anonymous. I'll go first.

[00:00:00]This This feels so stupid.

[00:00:03]This feels so dumb. But hey, I committed to it. [snorts] Hi, my name's Tashi and I'm addicted to cardboard.

[00:00:17]I never thought I'd ever be saying that.

[00:00:21]Um, yeah, I've had a pretty wild 6 months, right? And I know to many collectors out there that's nothing.

[00:00:32]You've been collecting for years if not decades. And whilst I've been exposed to Pokémon since I was a kid because I'm 38 years old. So the 30th anniversary is a big deal for me. It's the last 6 to8 months where I've kind of jumped back in and it's just gotten out of control.

[00:00:52]And you may have seen from my last video where I talked about how I was the dumb money about a month ago.

[00:00:58]Um, and I went from ripping packs to buying 10 $20,000 slabs. Thankfully, I've I've d-risked and offloaded. And I thought I was doing the smart thing.

[00:01:11]But I feel like looking at my own behavior, especially over the last, I'd say, month.

[00:01:19]I'm just tricking myself.

[00:01:23]I'm thinking I'm being thoughtful and calculated and I'm just moving the addiction into different areas of the hobby.

[00:01:34]And I've moved normally I have a table in front of me, but I moved this because I feel like this is meant to be a very honest video. I even thought about doing it in an armchair cuz I've got an old armchair somewhere in the garage over there. So I could feel like something was like hugging me so I could be a bit more vulnerable.

[00:01:55]Um, but I felt no I I shouldn't feel comfortable. This is meant to feel uncomfortable this video.

[00:02:07]And the moment I realized I had um a bit of a problem whilst I was thinking I was too smart for my own good by analyzing things was when a couple of weeks ago I was meant to buy a slab, right? And I know that sounds hypocritical because I got out of all my slabs, but this was a vintage grail that I've been keeping my eye on. the market softened a little bit little bit. There was a motivated buyer um and I felt like it's something that I could hold for five ten years, right? Because it was a it was a dark Charizard first edition PSA 9 well centered. It looked good within the slab.

[00:02:52]Ultimately, I didn't go through with that purchase because when I inspected it in person, it didn't because it was an older C. It didn't really live up to what I think could hold up to a nine in today's standards. But because I didn't spend that money, rather than just being like, "Okay, let's hold on to that dry powder for when something else presents itself." Like, I've got my eyes on a shadowless Charizard and a a base set.

[00:03:18]Um, not a base set, a first edition Neoenesis Lugia.

[00:03:23]I was like, "Okay, I've got money to spend. What should I spend it on?"

[00:03:31]And so to explain to you what what that looked like literally, especially over the last 48 hours, which is why I was like, "Dude, you got to call yourself the [ __ ] out and shoot a a short video is I was like loosely I've got, let's call it 3,000 US to spend, right? I know it's not that much, but just to use a round number. I went from, you know what, I just watched the Hobbit Magic the Gathering release on some of the new cards, and I really love the Tolken universe. Maybe I should pre-order a bunch of those. Let me do a bunch of research. Look at eBay solds online. It looks like it's going for a lot higher in the US, so in Australia, it's cheaper. Good deal there. Look for some local stores. didn't end up pulling the trigger cuz I've already got two that I've pre-ordered from a while ago that I got um relatively low pricing close to retail before the hype.

[00:04:26]And I was like, "Okay, maybe not that."

[00:04:28]And then because I was in the Magic the Gathering universe, I was like, "You know what? I really enjoyed opening some of those Marvel boxes. What can I do?"

[00:04:36]And within the span of less than 30 minutes, I found someone on Facebook Marketplace that also owns a store that was willing to sell me cases at a discount. And I was like, "That sounds like a great deal." And then I just had to literally just be like, "Wake the [ __ ] up, man.

[00:04:55]You're not a [ __ ] card store.

[00:04:58]I get you believe in this stuff long term, but what the [ __ ] am I doing buying cases of this [ __ ] you know?

[00:05:09]And the store owner was talking to me in terms that I didn't even he was using acronyms I don't even [ __ ] know, but apparently it means like he's getting pretty much it's close to his cost, right? Because he's getting it from whatever as a distributor. He's getting it from Wizards of the Coast. So I was like, "Oh, that's cool. Maybe I get 12 of them. Maybe I get two cases and blah blah blah.

[00:05:28]>> [sighs] >> And there's still a part of me that goes, "That's a [ __ ] good deal. I should reach back out to him and do it."

[00:05:34]But again, I'm not When did this thing turn into go from, hey, it'd be really cool to collect and buy some long-term slabs, maybe expose myself, maybe drop like $5,000, $10,000 tops to snowball into whenever I see a good serendipitous entry, it justifies buying as if I'm trying to create this [ __ ] treasure chest of cardboard.

[00:06:05]And my exposure to date right now is about $25,000.

[00:06:10]Which to me, and this is a scary signal, I don't even think that's much because I'm treating it like a speculative asset. Like, I've got my Bitcoin, I've got my stocks, I've got my mortgage to pay off of the house.

[00:06:26]Yeah, I've got a [ __ ] problem, man.

[00:06:27]Because 25 I'm like, I can go to 50. I could push it to 50.

[00:06:31]It's like what the [ __ ] is wrong with you? And the reason why I can justify it because I spent about 6 hours with Claude last night which is an AI chat tool. I pay for the premium one cuz I use it for work and everything where I was just having a deep conversation with it about my psychology as a human being. You know what makes this [ __ ] brain tick?

[00:06:55]because it clearly makes me brilliant at a bunch of work and career stuff cuz I obsess and I go 0 to 100. But why the [ __ ] can't I control it? What's going on? Cuz even now I'm thinking about a couple of opportunities and deals when it comes to Pokemon and Gundam and you know the new Dragon Ball story. It's like it started with Pokémon and Pokémon's turned into like the gateway drug into these other TCGs because the market is so hot right now.

[00:07:30]The only good ser like uh tangential collecting that I've done I think and the silver lining out of all this all of this is I'm starting to buy stuff that's not crazy expensive cuz it's weird that really tickles my inner child. Like I just had some old VHS tapes delivered from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Um the first movie and The Secret of the Ooze sealed ones. That's going to be really cool to keep on the shelf. Not to ever resell, but to have the VHS's. And I'm even thinking about opening them even though I bought them sealed cuz how cool would it be to feel the VHS?

[00:08:02]You know, even put your finger in the little wheel thing which sounds [ __ ] weird.

[00:08:08]I don't think I'm coming across as a normal human being right now.

[00:08:16]It's really easy to think you've checked yourself like I thought I did when I did the dumb money video cuz I drisked from all of the high-end slabs which I still think even though there's a lot of money to be made there that is the most speculative area of the hobby.

[00:08:35]But now I've convinced myself I'm doing the smarter thing about going into certain sealed products. And I get the ROI on sealed if you want to look at it in investment is not as high when you look at certain cards and slabs.

[00:08:50]But also I'm not an expert and I'm not planning on being an expert. Everyone if you ever want to be the best at anything are people who are [ __ ] obsess over it, right?

[00:09:01]I don't have the luxury to do that when it comes to TCG. So, I don't know why I'm dropping money as if I'm an expert.

[00:09:07]You know, sealed from a psych psychological angle is the coward's way out for me because I'm like, "Oh, I'm buying things that haven't really run."

[00:09:18]You know, I'm spending a bunch of money on sealed collector boxes in Magic or even Pokémon that I think are at fair value or below retail because there's no real hype attached to it. So, if I hold it for 3, five years time, it'll do well. Like that's the in a blanket sense that's the safe investment for me. But that doesn't justify spending $20,000 on this [ __ ] [ __ ] Like even to demonstrate to you where my mind's going from a long-term play. I think it's a good idea even to buy Perfect Order Chaos Rising Pitch Black Booster Boxes right now. Like maybe not cases full of them because again I'm not an expert card investor, but people don't like them right now cuz they're they're accessible. They're current.

[00:10:00]They don't have huge Chase cards. But imagine in five years time, even three years time, everyone's going to be complaining about whatever new sets out.

[00:10:07]And when there's a thousand more Pokemon because of the new gens, hey, a chase card Meowth and Perfect Order is actually going to be feel feel pretty niche and pretty rad, isn't it? The Greninja art is pretty dope. Like anyway, I'm not defending modern stuff because, as you know, I feel like it's in surplus. everything's mint and near mint or sealed because everyone's gotten into this habit and culture of sleeving and taking care of every single card. So, there's a very bullish case for the vintage stuff that is very scarce. At the same time, not all vintage. Just cuz it's pop one or two doesn't mean it's valuable, right? I could grade my sock and it's pop one, but no one's going to spend $100,000 on it, right? So, it's all about supply and demand. But coming back to me, I'm doing things now to scratch my collector itch in a way that means I don't have to spend money cuz I feel like I'm jumping on eBay. I'm jumping on Facebook Marketplace every day. It's like window shopping, right? To find good opportunities. I was even looking at like um random [ __ ] that was never on my radar a week or two ago that I'm convincing myself through investment thesises, through scarcity, through numbers and charts that it's a good opportunity to buy because it's a good entry. I feel like that to me is a telltale sign that I just need a [ __ ] break.

[00:11:34]And you might be watching this going, you're a [ __ ] loser, dude. Like it's just step away from it. If you can't control yourself, you can't control yourself. Go away. But I do feel everyone that I'd like to think I'm a relatively measured intelligent human being.

[00:11:50]But it's not that easy sometimes. I feel like sometimes we're running away from another problem that we don't necessarily haven't identified yet. And we use this as a crutch or an escape.

[00:12:03]And it's fun and it's current. And there's so much marketing [ __ ] being pushed at us that it's really easy to get absorbed into it. and everyone's doing it. Not to mention the returns over the last 12 months have been incredible. Like I would not be surprised and here's a new business venture for anyone watching if you've got a wealth of experience that there's not going to be Pokémon card consultants and curators popping up. You've got it for modern art. If you're spending half a million dollars, a million dollars in art, you'd like to hire someone to tell you what to do or to understand the idiosyncrasies and nuances of that market. Pokémon cards are getting there.

[00:12:38]you've got a lot of money on the sidelines my age and above 40 50 60 that can't not pay attention to this asset class right now because of the returns if they're willing to deploy 100 grand they'll give you two or three G's just for your time to help explain the different errors the different cards you know pop reports what to look for even in slabs the different graders or someone will pay you for that time because if they don't the own investments they make up front and the mistakes they would dwarf the amount of money they pay you for your expertise. So, I do think that's a business idea.

[00:13:15]I really do. And if you're younger and you've been in the collection hobby a long time and you you laugh at that idea cuz you've leed it your own way, just remember you entered the market before its frothiness today. So, it's a lot easier to buy in and all that kind of stuff. And you deserve your gains because you were collecting where no one else was. But if someone wants to buy today, it really is an investment, especially for the bigger cards. So, they need to think about it and they'll pay for it.

[00:13:49]Like, one of the things I'm trying to do right now to scratch the itch is is open packs that I enjoy and grade them.

[00:13:57]Not with PSA.

[00:14:00]Also, because I'm in Australia, it's it's a [ __ ] it's like the Odyssey.

[00:14:06]It's like a Christopher Nolan movie in IMAX to get your cards to PSA and back.

[00:14:11]Not to mention, it takes a [ __ ] year.

[00:14:15]But the cards I'm grading now, I'm not looking for liquidity or a value play. It's for PC. So, I grade with PCG.

[00:14:24]But also, I do think if you give them some time, they'll close that liquidity gap. So, whatever you're grading, if you hold it long enough, I don't think you need to rush over to the to the PSA camp, especially with everything that's going on. And on that note, I don't think everyone should [ __ ] on them as much as they do. The reality is is they're the big brother. They're the biggest organization. Any other grading company once they get to that scale is going to have the same [ __ ] problems, if not worse, because they haven't been around as long or have the infrastructure. Quality control suffers in any business in any industry when it gets too large. So your favorite grading company now I know people like TAG because the AI story and all that kind of stuff. I know people like Becket. I know the people like imagine if they suddenly grew their grading volume by 100x or even 10x over the next year. Yeah. You'd see a lot of horror stories as well and a lot of things would slip through cuz at the end of the day people are grading our cards. Even with TAG, from my understanding, yes, they use AI and they market the [ __ ] out of that AI. But AI is wrong all the time. Like even when you use Claude and Chat GPT, the first [ __ ] thing it says at the bottom, and these are the supercomputers that the large companies are commercializing, and I spend like 200 bucks US a month on mine, it says Claude makes mistakes.

[00:15:44]Chat GPT makes mistakes. Check everything. We don't [ __ ] know half the time, right? So even tag when it uses it, it has a human grader at the end. Again, from my ex understanding, please educate me if that's wrong. But even if they don't communicate that, they have to.

[00:15:59]You can't. You can't trust a computer.

[00:16:02]And at the end of the day, someone coded that computer. So technically, it's still a person doing it, isn't it?

[00:16:07][snorts] I'm very passionate about this hobby. I really, really like it. I want to stay, but I need to get a [ __ ] grip, man.

[00:16:22]Like, and now I'm hearing myself talk and I know I'm running the risk about sounding like a whiny little [ __ ] But surely I can't be the only one that feels like this.

[00:16:40]And the crazy thing is is I'm not going to stop buying. I'm still going to buy.

[00:16:44]I'm going to justify how to do it in a smarter way. And that's the problem.

[00:16:50]I'm too smart for my own good. I'll justify it somehow.

[00:16:57]My only saving grace is I never dip into my savings or any money that goes to family or the house mortgage. It's always money I generate from side quests and side hustles. So, in theory, that money could go down the drain and it doesn't hurt anyone. But if you really want to analyze that and think about it, even that side quest money I do, the consulting, the things here and there, it's time away from my family or time away from me and my mental health or taking care of myself. So, there's still a cost, right?

[00:17:30]All right, I'm going to stop there. Let me know if this was um interesting or if it was too much. If it was too much, I'll go back to my more measured table and discussion points.

[00:17:45]Just felt like bleeding into the lens today.

[00:17:49]Also, I was staring at a spreadsheet for work for the last 3 hours crunching numbers.

[00:17:55]So, I felt like a bit of a robot. So, I wanted to allow myself to kind of feel like a human being and flick out a drop of humanity. So hopefully that was um what came across.

[00:18:12]Please be kind to yourself. [snorts]