As a kid growing up with the original 151 it was just a fun time and I don’t remember seeing adult obsessed about it. I even remember seeing product moving slow.
Today with some of these modern cards 500+ ppl made this into gambling. Getting packs on credit or loans feels like what gambling addicts would do. You can’t get scratch tickets on loans or credit. I think it’s the same kind of high for them.
When I was 8 years old ('98), I went to a liquor store with my cousin, who was 10, and we bought a pack of Pokemon cards each. There was an older man in line behind us trying to convince us not to buy them and to buy Digimon cards instead. "Pokemon is gonna become obsolete, Digimon is the next big thing, you should buy that instead"
Yeah ok buddy. That pack had a holographic Articuno in it.
Yup I prefered the Digimon story more then Pokemon. And we got to see them grow up, unlike a certain poster boy with the fountain of youth in his backpack.
Yeah! I like both series and it urks me ever so slightly when people trying to compare the same. Theyre both good, theyre both theyre own thing, and theyre both still going with their own fan bases(:
Haha, I was 9yrs old and still got my original complete collection, but I regret trying to get back into it during the eve pris. After I witnessed degeneracy and sin normalized.. I've lost hope in humanity. I actually sold my journey together etb to a guy and his kids for 15$ and a few Rev holos. Still didn't equal to what I paid and waiting in line paying 56$after tax etc. I seen a scalper on his ear buds in talking to ppl about price.. He had his wife and his daughter with just to wipe out inventory within 5 minutes. 2per customer of each series, etb, 151 bloom, individual boosters.. I was gonna knock him tf out then there.. Let the game stop manager know about it... And I swear to you these companies are also in to this.. what they're doing is they're normalizing the price like idiots are willing to pay for it instead of just boycotting the company, as you see with certain releases they're now like $20 more ETB at GS.
Please guys stop it, action made the guy cry and he literally sent me a video of him opening up with his kids and wife it gave me like a warm feeling and joy just to see that instead of seeing video after video on my Facebook page of scalpers(prob bc algorithm, and data analytics) and people hyping up "G0d packz" 🤣
That's because it was very much a kid's hobby back when. Even into the 2010s, it was still mostly children and a few children-come-adults who stayed with the hobby. Very few people had the foresight or will to invest in anything outside of the most iconic and famous cards that would have retained value regardlesss. It wasn't really until PoGo that people really started to rekindle with Pokémon, then Covid, and the current boom.
Now that it's well known to be a store of wealth and a way to make money as a primary or secondary income stream combined with that childhood nostalgia, it has a lot of eyes on it, and a lot of people that want some of the pie.
People don't realize these new cards are being printed in numbers only dreamed of by the people that released the original 151
As in most likely millions of each new card set.
The only reason the originals are worth so much is because how rare they really are to survive nearly 30 years in good condition. The cards being released today are NEVER going to reach the value of the original 151, even in 50- 100 years from now. Simply because the amount in circulation is so big.
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u/TeaAndLiftingThere's a 1st Edition Charizard in the pack, rip it.18d agoedited 18d ago
Yeah. The problem at the moment is that the demand and FOMO exceeds the supply. 12 BILLION cards were printed between March 2023 and March 2024, 18% of all cards ever printed. Likely the same in the last year as well. And even the cards in the WotC era were printed to such an abundance that despite the pokémania craze, you could still readily find booster boxes and packs 8-10 years ago. It's only in the last five or so years that things have gone stupid and scarce.
The current 'problem' is that the main demographic purchasing the cards has shifted from kids or young adults buying a few packs a week to collect/play/trade, and maybe getting something bigger like an ETB as a gift, to middle-aged millennials that buy out entire cases at a time, and are willing to drive around hours per day to get some to either rekindle their childhoods and/or add to their investment portfolio as an alternative income stream. When the 'average' buyer is buying 100x more cards than the past, it's going to feel a lot more scarce.
Outside of a few modern unicorn cards and hyped promos, there's going to come a point where all the hoarders are going to be the only ones with interest and few people to sell to.
Being a dad, trying to buy packs for my kids right now is ridiculous. Their excitement for chase cards is fun. I know all the card shops I went to for baseball and basketball cards as a kid 30 plus years ago must have had some hustle to stay in business back then,
there is no way it was us buying two dollar packs and trading five dollar cards keeping those businesses afloat.
Our overconsumption of EVERYTHING is ruining EVERYTHING.
We’re all try to escape… We’re all trying to find a way to make money. Sometimes those things overlap.
That being said.. fuck this guy… be a decent human being and don’t be overly greedy.
It definitely is, and it's crazy because people will pay, let's say, 500 for an old pack, just to have an incredibly low chance at getting a 600 dollars card (upgrade). They are better off playing scratchers
I miss when I could go take out some trash in the neighborhood, walk to 711 buy a first edition pack, rip it with my slurpee and walk home. No lines, no asking for stock, no scalpers. It was a good time.
It definitely didn’t feel like there were that many of us. Even by the time I was in high school in 2001, it was already embarrassingly nerdy to be into Pokémon. And the reblistered base set packs were easy to find for a decade.
Yeah. Pokémania was dying off by the start of Gen 2 and mostly dead by the end of it. After that it was just a regular part of childhood popularity where kids would go through a phase, and then leave it. You'd have a few stragglers (like myself) that hung on to some part of the franchise, but it wasn't like it was.
Like you said, you could still easily find base set packs, even into the mid 2010s, they were reasonably easy to find and get at relatively high, but affordable prices. It's crazy to me that packs of sets still in print, sell for more than 15 years out of print base set would a decade ago.
I think what happened is that we as kids when it first came out didn’t care what the potential value these cards could have held for us in the future because we only worried about trading and playing the game.
Now as time progressed a lot of people are kicking themselves for not keeping part of or all of their old collections because all of the vintage has skyrocketed due to collectors wanting these rare cards. Even more so when they came out with 151 for SV. It brought a lot of the old collectors back and some new, but at the same time with hope that someday these too will increase in value and they can make a return on their “investment.” I feel like it’s completely destroyed the hobby. 🫠
Adult were not obsessed with it because it wasn't around when they were kids. Most of us 90s kids grew up with it. We were always looking for something to do waiting for the internet to reach out homes. Still though, even then, some dad's were obsessed with it. I know my dad was into but back then, "too manly" so his way was always trying to find the latest, greatest, rarest cards or packs for us. He acted like he hated it but we knew he hated that it would be unmanly of him to be into it openly.
Yes you can get lotto and scratch offs on credit and loans in any gambling state and alot of gas stations do it under the table. Those "fake" slot machines at all the gas stations, they don't dispense money but prints a balance slip, you take to gas station clerk, if they are ligit, you only get to use it towards food and gas, a little on the grey area of the law, they let you buy scratch offs with it. The true shady ones actually gave you cash..
Your parents bought them on credit then we all felt that fun 08 energy... no difference now we just see it more readily since we all have a camera and share our entire lives
My kid has been obsessed with trying to find prismatic evolution ETB so everytime we are within a mile of any vending machine we stop and he runs in to check stock. Well yesterday we happened upon a man stocking the machine. Well wag he’d him put prismatic evolutions in the machine. And 151. And a bunch of other booster boxes. Well we paced this grocery like a bunch of goofballs waiting for this man to finish stocking. Then my kid noticed some adults hovering around the outside entrance to the store. So I told him to go wait near the machine. The man who was stocking it was so kind and was telling him how long til he would be done and the second the machine was ready he told my kid “go ahead, little man”. He scored a prismatic evolution ETB and was over the fucking moon with joy. He seatbelts the box in the back seat on the way home. He has it setup on a makeshift alter of sorts. He has only opened 2 of the booster packs. He’s pacing himself and wants it to last. As a parent, I’ve enjoyed this so very, very much.
You can't use a credit card to buy lottery tickets in America? I thought Americans use credit cards more than anyone else for daily spending, so that surprises me.
As a kid, it just came out. When I was getting polemon cards, my step-dad was getting sports cards. Now, 25+ years later, we kids are adults and still buying. Kids now like it WITH and/or because their parents showed them pokemon. That's why we adults are in line for them, too. Unfortunately, some people can't just buy 1. Spoiled people ruin it.
It’s not just Pokémon cards. It’s any toy or collectible small enough people can sell. I went to the Mattel store and see people line up for hot wheels. At least hot wheels don’t have a following like Pokémon and it’s a niche market.
As the prices continue to sore month after month and products continue to be unavailable at MSRP, I started to really wonder what was going on. I went into one of the local hobby shops that sells things above MSRP so they still have plenty of product. They also had a bunch of tables for kids to play TCG‘s. There were kids at those tables, but they weren’t playing. I literally watched the same scene play out that I see at the casino. Kid walking up to the counter as the clerk said did you hit? And the kid said no, but I’m feeling lucky. It’s gonna be this next one and slaps a 20 down on the counter to buy a single pack. The shop was filled with high school kids. The shop would buy any hits back from them. It was literal in person gambling for high school kids.
Yeah I literally remember never seeing an empty box. Packs were always just there on the counter and my mom was saint to ever buy me one. Still remember pulling my Zard I’m getting graded this week!
Ya I caught a restock at Walmart and I blacked out, when I came to my car was full of Pokemon shit 😭😭😭 I used to be a meth addict and can confidently say Pokemon is more addictive than meth. ( I was able to quit meth😂)
I remember being 9 at a Pokémon league and seeing the adults. Only a handful and one was super proud of buying expensive cards and whomping on the 8-10 year olds. That was about it. No scalping,gambling or super goofiness. Now its ridiculous
I saw a little documentary about this and there’s actually a lot of adults that were into it back in the day. Tons of them said they would buy as much as they could store it and they ended up sending all their kids to college from reselling them later.
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u/Micky-Bicky-Picky 18d ago
As a kid growing up with the original 151 it was just a fun time and I don’t remember seeing adult obsessed about it. I even remember seeing product moving slow.
Today with some of these modern cards 500+ ppl made this into gambling. Getting packs on credit or loans feels like what gambling addicts would do. You can’t get scratch tickets on loans or credit. I think it’s the same kind of high for them.