Why You Can't Buy Pokemon Cards Right Now

[@Augors]

I will never forget when you did a live stream with the investors and said something along the lines of “You are just ‘investing or speculating’ on a children's toy as an asset that might have no actual value.” Boy, that room was quiet for a good minute. As always, great video, J!

[@AnaosPoffu]

i need to see this

[@eggplantlow]

@@Augors yeah who was that with?

[@snoopy5413]

but it does have value

[@Archaneleo]

@@snoopy5413 If you actually get something. You're buying the chance to get something. You're buying a highly decorated lottery ticket with doodoo odds. LOL.

[@eggplantlow]

@@snoopy5413 I don't think anyone is doubting the value. There is a difference from treating it as a collectable with current value that may increase and treating it as something that in 10 years you can sell for 10x the value and retire. Pokemon is not designed to be some guys 401k, it's a fun card game.

[@ElvenElle]

I was so excited about prismatic evolutions. As a lifelong franchise and TCG fan the eeveelutions are some of my absolute favorites, but now I’ll probably never even get a shot at opening the set because of how hard the hobby is being gatekeept from its lower-income fans by flippers. It feels like every hobby I ever get into ends up being tactically nuked by a bunch of a holes.

[@EeveelutionaryTree196]

Just take a break for 3 months. PRE will be available for a decent price once the next set is released and Team Rocket is properly announced. Maybe crack open some Stellar Crown, Temporal Forces, Paradox Rift, or Shrouded Fable if you're itching to open some packs while you're waiting. Or simply save up for when PRE becomes available for a reasonable price and pick up more once it's widely available at decent prices. And if I'm wrong and you miss out on the set: That sucks, but whatever. There will be more gorgeous Eevee cards in the future.

[@D-I-N-O_N-U-G-G-I-E-S]

@@EeveelutionaryTree196 that’s good advice but it seems so bad that I can’t even find those sets near me :(

[@monkey39128]

It'll be widely available eventually like every other set. Patience is a virtue.

[@DanNguyen-ey5tw]

Lets hope that prismatic gets reprinted to hell and same with journey and team rocket. I just want singles but I will never pay an over inflated price for them.

[@esbainter]

Whatnot is so wildly toxic. It's just a bunch of streamers trying to hype up how good of a deal people will get with them, but then turn around and berate their chats for not bidding high enough.

[@Violet_Erin]

Mystic rips?

[@darioperez5084]

Whatnot is my favorite they are dumb af

[@skool8404]

I remember hoping into some random stream and it was some guy hyping up like base set poliwrath or something and when it was downplayed in the chat by 1 person the streamer went off and basically said hes busting his ass off for this kind of stuff. (Poliwrath did not go up like at all).

[@MoyToy84]

Most Pokemon sellers on whatnot are scamers. One booster pack of prismatic evo is going for $40 and dumb people buy it.

[@deliwtz]

@@MoyToy84 and with no shortage of dumb people in the world, these people will sadly always be enabled and empowered, which will just bring more scum into the hobby. Man…

[@SkywalkerOne1977]

I hate hobby investors. Go invest stocks, not our little monster cardboards.

[@poopooman-q7r]

they arent going anywhere lol

[@jonunciate7018]

Corporations and billionaires already own most of the stock market sadly. The rest of us are fighting over crumbs.

[@hulkingmass]

​@@jonunciate7018 You obviously have no idea how the stock market works. So my question is why are you talking about it like you are an authority? The world is ending I think. Everyone does this.

[@tenglei2]

3. fans collectively stop buying from flippers/scalpers and stop giving traction to investor influencers. but thats impossible.

[@formula1man111]

Fans aren't the ones buying from flippers. It's other whales who don't care how much they spend, so long as they get their product.

[@ItsFinigan]

Yup I’ve recently unfollowed a lot of the investor/money channels.

[@JJ-ctrl-alt]

Ive gotten posts taken down off ebay by reporting that “the seller is violating the presale policy and is unable to ship the product within 40 days” for the journey together stuff. Do your part in reporting folks!

[@okJLUV]

every bit counts

[@teooo7558]

weid flex. go to university, go to work insteading of wasting your time like that. thats crazy ahahhahha

[@Gecko998YT]

@@teooo7558 I spotted the scalper! But seriously man, all you do is copy and paste and it takes less than 10 seconds to report each listing. Spend 5 minutes out of your day reporting listings and that's 35 listings from our favourite scalpers taken down 🤗 If they're gonna scalp, they need to abide by eBay TOS and wait their turn- it's against TOS to list a product you can't even ship for 40 days :) It's not even close to a full-time job to annoy these wonderful scalpers and flippers a bit by forcing them to relist all their ""product""

[@Lux-my9ns]

@@teooo7558 found the ebay scalper

[@JJ-ctrl-alt]

@@teooo7558 presuming someone isn’t already a career established individual who who has all time in the world is “craaaaaazy”

[@mundaney]

The community is sadly split between genuine fans and people who view pokemon as an asset. Thanks, investor bros.

[@Calebdevelops]

no problem, stop acting like you have a moral high ground though

[@Unifather1033]

​@@Calebdevelopsthere's no moral high ground we just want to be able to afford our fucking cards

[@marcburch2633]

Irrelevant to the fact that the Pokémon company is refusing to keep up with demand after all the money we’ve given them

[@gromexecutive]

Only solution is to do both. Best of both worlds. I stock a small qty of each release and open a small handful to scratch that itch. But i buy singles of my fav mons and have binders for each. Rayquaza, Lugia, are the biggest ones i collect. Trying to get every card with them anywhere within the art. Long story short.. What does that make me?

[@nkbd8139]

I’m a genuine fan 🤓🤓🤓

[@milkosturtle]

“Investors” and scalpers are absolutely killing the hobby

[@haruhisuzumiya6650]

That's why LGS are funneling Pokemon players into one piece

[@Violet_Erin]

The distribution system is corrupt. Period.

[@formula1man111]

This is where it's at. The fact that whatnot streamer gets a house full and local game store gets none is clearly the issue.

[@Something5870]

Definitively backdoor deals where distributors get some "extra" payment on the side to allocate to those flippers and breakers, instead of the LCS network. Most likely happening at a mid-manager level - who may even be getting a promotion because of how well he sells the distributor's stocks!

[@the36thexposure]

​@@Something5870 Yes, in Japan, during the period of Sword and Shield, wholesale agents from a certain company since Dark Phantasma went from 75% per box to 125%, all "because the people will pay it." I intended to have a shop during those years, but I couldn't because of this. When I claimed, we were blacklisted and lost access to supply forever. There are a lot of pimps now dealing in Pokémon cards in Japan because it's an easy way to launder money from their adult entertainment businesses; since they pay the tax, the can get all the second degree supply.

[@Chimeratech8]

The only group that can end this is Pokemon themselves. There are two ways they can do this: 1. Increase printing of cards as much possible, even consider purchasing additional printers to do so if needed as they have done in the past. Continue to reprint popular sets as long as the products continue to move, like they did with Crown Zenith. 2. Produce some 3-5 very unpopular sets focused on Pokemon that aren't popular. Stop putting Eeveelution, Charizard or Pikachu chase cards in sets for a while and see if people would still FOMO over an Ultra Beast set as an example. I'm not sure if either solution is likely but that's the only way I can see things calming down.

[@uewbn7]

A company deliberately tanking their sales just for the actual fans to get some cards for cheap? Tell me you're joking.

[@trainerskitz]

the idea of going for 1 or 2 less iconic (but meta impactful) sets before the next pika/zard/eevee set is a good one from a printer stand point, gives you effectively 6-9 months production as you can have half the printers working on current (that has less but still high demand) and the other half on the next hype set. instead of this awful timeline of stellar->surging->prismatic->journey and there being effectively no stock of anything for 6months+

[@ranperuxd]

What’s funny about your number 2 statement is that they have done that. Look at paldea evolved, obisidan flames, temporal, paradox, shrouded fable. They are all sets when first came out people didn’t really like, they didn’t care about it and called it “scarlet & violet era sucks and have bad sets” but now those are all popular (except for shrouded) and you can’t really find them frequently like before. Like this is a point in time that any product is going to get bought up no matter what.

[@basillah7650]

Without rare cards it would not be worth buying the packs need to get money back from rare cards.

[@hb003]

Thanks for breaking this down. I'm a casual collector (with my kids) and its been miserable to try and get ETBs of the recent releases. I normally get 3-4 ETBs per release so we can all have one. But Prismatic Evolutions was botted and sold out online. I refuse to pay anything over MSRP. And Battle Partners was also botted. Incredibly frustrating experience.

[@AMCUO]

Same. Family thing. Tips: I've made sure to figure out stock days for some stores(I know walmart and target close by me). Helped a lot and sometimes Ill see old stuff stocked. Do your best to figure out stock days and you get what you want. As for prismatic..... gamestop and bestbuy do online order after midnight of release day for pickup but also stock in store shelves day of. Either show up and grab or stay up and order(be ready at 11:59pm thursday night). good luck. I preordered but will be grabbing as much as I can.

[@AngelSteezey]

Do your part and report ebay listings since they literally don't have a product and it's against eBay TOS :)

[@Calebdevelops]

You can't report prismatic listings. You can report JT listings though. Just saying because people are idiots

[@grandpanda2791]

@@Calebdevelops a listing is not allowed if the seller will not have the item on hand and shipped within 30 days of the item being sold

[@hardstylecity400]

@@grandpanda2791 is prismatic release 30 days away?

[@RubberYen]

If you do this unironically in your free time, then u need to touch grass as much as the scalpers do on ebay.

[@ottoweininger8156]

@@RubberYen if you find one when browsing, why not?

[@keeysOST]

I would hate to be a kid into Pokemon cards nowadays. I remember back during Black and White, being 10 years old and being able to go into a score to see a whole bunch of Pokemon cards. Now I see nothing or maybe 1 or two packs, then see the same crds being overly priced online. No wonder kids play with phones now, they don't even have the option to play with toys.

[@okJLUV]

that’s what im saying! and without those fans now they won’t even bother with this stuff when they’re older because they’ll cement themselves in other hobbies

[@JoelyChamber]

I feel that Whatnot is more damaging than people realise. It’s a kinda gross watching people bid triple the packs value just to have a streamer shoot through packs as fast as they can to keep people in the chat just to make more profit. I get it and I get it’s not for everyone but they seem to always have countless amounts of stock and there’s just a full money grab vibe than makes it unenjoyable. Great vid mate. 🤟🔥

[@Baker_memes]

I hate how these people treats pokemon tcg as a money machine than something to enjoy, like these people look at the card and only see dollars instead of a cool thing to add to your collection or a cool thing to use while playing the game.

[@TheDragonfriday]

There is a Mafia in Japan with Pokemon cards for years.... It alright until too many people get into it for money

[@noahbenavides9405]

Target, Best Buy, wal greens, Walmart, GameStop, and CVS were all picked CLEAN and I wasted an hr and a half just looking

[@Jimimaru88]

Great video JLUV! I want to add that during 2022-2023 Pokemon products sat on shelves because they actually did print a ton of it. Tons of product was selling at below MSRP and even below distro prices. Many cardshops were selling them at break even prices. It's possible that the shortage we're experiencing now is related to how hard the product was to sell during 2022-2023. They might've underprinted these newer sets cause early SV era was selling so badly.

[@okJLUV]

yo jimi, first up thank you for helping support the channel, means a ton! i think you're partially right, there's definitely a chance that they adjusted their print run to meet the new market demand and got caught out. i'd like to think they have the foresight to see that an Eeveelutions set would exceed 2024 demand though. they probably needed 4-6 months worth of market data, though - so the spike in interest after Surging Sparks mightn't have been enough.

[@amharbinger]

The same thing happened with video games. It's not about the hobby, it's about making a profit. It sucks

[@Oohkamitama]

I like how Disney and Bandai did it, “What do you mean you get more profit than us selling our products?! Unacceptable!” -Prints a crap load to meet customer demand-

[@okJLUV]

yep, best way to do it, then whether or not cards become rare and coveted depends entirely on IP popularity

[@TheDragonfriday]

@@Oohkamitama stupid they limited things, they worship money so much yet they didn't think how much money they are missing out having limited products

[@HrryBrry]

Simply the best Pokemon TCG channel out there. Keep up the great work!

[@okJLUV]

greatly appreciate the support Hrry, thank you and enjoy your week!!

[@Z2-Phantom]

Stop the cap

[@SkywalkerOne1977]

Everyone remembers their parents walking into Walmart and buying them a pack. Never has there been a worse time to be a kid wanting to get into Pokémon cards than today.

[@BlitzkriegOmega]

One FLGS had a genius policy for Stamping out scalpers. And I think it's something that needs to be done pretty much everywhere: You have to pay double MSRP unless you rip the packs in-store.

[@okJLUV]

yeah thats kinda based tbh

[@CellarDoorHinge]

You completely discount the release of Pokemon TCG Pocket. I think this has created a surge from elementary school collectors, like me, to comeback. I wouldn’t clean the shelves though. Its about the kids. These cards wouldn’t exist without the kids playing the tournaments in the 90s, and creating the fun dynamics of the culture.

[@okJLUV]

nah I addressed TCG Pockets impact at the start; blaming it all on Pocket is lazy imo

[@llowery720]

I'm a smaller local vendor that does trade shows and it's insane right now. Honestly probably going to be skipping these next couple sets until we see a reprint since I refuse to charge 2x or more msrp for a set that just came out and I likely can't get more than a few boxes cheaper with how distribution is right now. Obviously it's great to make some money from my hobby but that isn't what i originally got into this for and I'm not a fan of the current culture surrounding things like whatnot and extreme scalpers, hope to see a return to a bit more normalcy soon so more people can get back to enjoying the game

[@KamikazeVibe]

Idk what the best thing to do is, but I definitely feel that those who buy things that are overpriced are partially to blame because it just validates the market, but it's impossible to stop being from paying whatever amount of money just when they can.

[@TriggzTTV]

As a small business owner im forced to no longer carry pokemon cards ,distrbutors are shot, and I cant justify spending money , waiting for product for months. Guess its time to find a new TCG to fill the gap for now. ONE PIECE is pretty neat, MTG is always another... shame pokemon company cant really put a restriction on things. We got 1 order of sparks and then nothing.. thanks for trying to kill small business greedy sock puppets., good video

[@KateH]

My local card shop is selling all of their retail stock of prismatic evolutions at ebay prices... feels kinda scummy for an official store to do that too :/

[@flambookey]

@@formula1man111they likely weren’t there when prices were down for the past 2 years, but now cry wolf when they want the expensive new set

[@KateH]

@@flambookey idk I just wanted to buy a few packs. I've never seen retail stores sell way above MSRP like this, or below like you're referring to

[@Ajia_No_Envy]

​@@formula1man111ya? Did you step out of kindergarten maths class?

[@KateH]

@@Ajia_No_Envy I'm just saying. I expect aftermarket prices when purchasing through the aftermarket... It's jarring seeing this extreme example at a retail store

[@026Gonzo]

6:03 I never thought of this. Easy for the flippers to flip when someone does the research for them already.

[@brandongodbolt3612]

The whole issue could be fixed if TPC printed more. But they're not going to do that. End of video.

[@djsamplegee]

The thing I love about Pokemon is that the sky is ALWAYS falling. very dramatic. wait for reprints. Great to see you again Julian please make more stuff.

[@okJLUV]

yes the pokemon card space is very dramatic indeed. can i ask honestly, do u feel like this was filmed in a dramatic way? i wanted to keep the emotion out of it but the nature of the topic makes that hard

[@DanielleBarnham]

Do you have any idea how hard it was to get 151 in Australia? - it sold out almost instantly and almost all the restock went to the US and other countries. The little bit we did get also sold out within a day. Prismatic Evo is even worse! - it's not dramatic if it is legitimately a problem that has been left to fester by the powers that be.

[@NawiPokemon]

As you said, this boom happened a couple years ago, and eventually went back to normal. I'm holding out hope that this will happen again. Unfortunately for a lot of us, it means that we are going to be priced out of our hobby again. When it happened last time, I took your suggestion and moved to playing the TCG rather than collecting Japanese product. I hope that I will be able to continue to play the TCG during this boom again and that the playable cards don't get pumped too. I've already given up on building any of the eeveelution ex decks because I know it would just be a waste of money to buy the singles of these.

[@ghuruzilla]

It's such a foreign concept for me to see people buy booster packs not because of card play, but for the potential money that could be earned. After this sudden flipping situation, the set Sun & Moon from 8 years ago went from 60 bucks to 80 with the Solgaleo box on ETBs. Pokemon just needs a Silver Era like MTG had. Print it to the ground.

[@b-spiral8314]

At the end of this video, i got an ad about "how to rip Pokémon cards on whatnot". A site i didn't know existed until this video, discussing the exact issue presented in this video. Nice

[@okJLUV]

can't script it!

[@snackbread]

Soo glad to see another video. Always have loved your views in this crazy tcg space, it was your content that changed how I collected and viewed how I collect Pokemon. (Hope that wasn’t weird to say) hope lil one is doing good

[@ChaloopaJoe]

I started getting into the TCG at the start of 2024, and now I can't get anything for my collection 😭

[@Kraust]

I wish I was interested in a hobby to the degree where I would pay someone to open packs of cards that they only have because they're closer to the supply chain than the end user preventing the end user from obtaining the cards they want to open in the first place. This is peak 2020s - paying for an experience and not a product.

[@kigas24]

thats my strimmer

[@AvatarKid4]

It’s the simplest thing don’t buy from others only stores it will stop but people think they will miss out on everything you won’t!!!!

[@AilonONLINE_]

I’ve gone to several stores recently and have been looking for literally any card sets as one of my friends birthdays is coming up- I’ve found literally none, every store I’ve gone to only has Pokémon figures and plushies, not a single set has been left other than card packs without an actual packaging and Pokémon labeling. Literally any set is fine so long as it’s official and has the labeling to confirm it’s official but it’s literally all gone.

[@Tax.Fugitive]

I appreciate your transparency here, there aren't enough people that are genuinely critical about this

[@erinfee5104]

The supply issue happened so suddenly. This week's "restock" at my local Target consisted of card sleeves and binders spread across to fill the shelf space. I thought that it was just the post-holiday drought, but the pre-order situation points to a real supply issue. Did TPCI somehow not realize that these new sets would be more popular than the average gen 9 set?

[@formula1man111]

I don't think it's a lack of supply coming from the printers, it's where that supply is getting siphoned at the distributor level.

[@PrismaticRevolution]

Jluv the most toxic youtuber in pokemon.

[@okJLUV]

that's me!

[@PrismaticRevolution]

@@okJLUV is pokeNE a shill again? lol

[@okJLUV]

@ gotta be a better way to spend your day bro. go for a walk. play a game. read a book. watch a movie. learn something. idk...but trolling in the YT comment section is not it. this is my channel so at least i have a reason to be here. self growth is important my guy. find your path

[@twinquinn4370]

All shops near me are literally wiped clean of everything not a single pack or etb at any shop that sells them

[@dudono1744]

I love how the thumbnail has a happy Eevee while the video is about problem.

[@Flowmaster925]

just send Pokemon another Email explaining this and they will print a set 6 months from now into oblivion ( shining fates i think? ) all i remember people actually cried to Pokemon then they mass printed the worst sets

[@TheGoorru]

You actually call it the right problem at the end. Distributors are holding back product and scalping them at high prices to Streamers/breakers. The distributors are cutting back supply to actual stores. Then when big box stores get them scalpers stalk to the BB stores and sell them to streamers. So basically the biggest problem IMO are the distributors.

[@Sun33daze]

This☝️ they know streamers/breakers can make buckets of money selling packs/products at a markup. So they cut them a deal and it gives incentive to do business with them vs smaller stores or local lgs

[@MagisterMatt]

Tickling gen 1 balls is tight.

[@kentuckyfriedbabiestx2199]

This is why I quit collecting for a while. I couldn’t find anything. My inner child got really stoked for 151, but I was spend a whole day off looking for scraps…

[@Violet_Erin]

Hi where can I buy sealed japanese pokemon tcg products in japan?

[@pokedav_]

I collected cards as a kid and only got back into collecting abit over a year ago and have been loving it! However more recently I have been feeling bad for getting back into it for the reasons you’ve mentioned. The more fans and the more collectors means less to go around and I know I’m only one person (and am still rarely able to get cards) I know that if I get cards I might be keeping someone else with a bigger passion for it then myself from getting the already scarce cards. Anyway great video! Totally agree with everything you said! Good to see a very level headed collector who is trying to help the solution and not contribute to the problem!

[@okJLUV]

appreciate it dav, sorry i got back to this comment so late!! don't think you should feel guilty about taking away from somebody else who's trying to collect especially if you're just trying to start doing the same thing

[@Lorinato]

Wonderful video. I feel like the way we watch packs openings online plays one of the biggest part in all of this, especially the short/tiktok format

[@okJLUV]

for sure, consumption of content has warped how we appreciate things, only trending objects are treasured. did you know there are historical artefacts from the 1400s worth less than some Pokemon cards? legit wild to even think about

[@DJMilez]

This video is so well made and executed I was entranced watching this from start to finish. Having an addiction of my own with OPTCG the prices for some of those cards are obnoxious and I refuse to pay for. My heart really goes out to you passionate Pokemon fans who are here for the love of the game/cards and have to deal with this current situation

[@okJLUV]

thank you man! i'd rather be an OP hardcore collector, it's really just the mangas that are in the sky, everything else is so chill hahaha

[@bomberwarren]

Limited sets are a toxic idea

[@okJLUV]

agreed

[@fargnbastage]

Would Pokemon Steven be part of the problem since he actively buys cards, grades them, and then sells them for profit?

[@okJLUV]

nah that guys based love him

[@GacNac]

Steve is one of the most wholesome people in the hobby, and barely does sealed product at all. Def do not consider them anything but a positive

[@fargnbastage]

@@GacNac I agree. Been watching Steven before he had 1k subs. However, if we go off the definitions and labels JLuv uses, then Steve is part of the pyramid scheme. He buys and sells cards purely for $. He sells them to people who think they're valuable and will retain their value, if not go up, and will some day perhaps sell those cards to someone else at an increased price. So, using Jluvs logic....Steve is part of the problem. But, we all know who the real issue is. PCI/PCJ. They're not printing enough.

[@okJLUV]

@ leave some Steve for me bro

[@CoopsCollection]

Sometimes I wonder where I fit into all this.

[@tayloreh]

I hope Coffeezilla uncovers the truth about this stuff, where the allocation is going... what evil contacts are botting preorders and have friends to get early product.

[@Unifather1033]

locking all flippers and investors in a very small room would also solve the issue but apparently that's "not ethical"

[@HankHillspimphand]

its funny becasue the idea that all these cards will be worth in 20 years what gen 1 is now ignores the fact that back then no one thought they had much resale, so they didnt keep them clean and safe. they had fun with them(this is why its hard to get hq gen 1 and 2 cards) those unopened boxed that go for 50k. if you think your set will go for silly amounts, i dont think it will. as everyone will be doing the same thing so they wont be as rare. it might pump for a bit after the tcg hype settles be warned. with inflation you might end up making less than a low risk saving account. i just like the art lol

[@tuongpham7609]

Another solution is to buy singles. Everyone is talking about fans of Pokémon never seem to mention those that play. The Pokémon environment is perfect right now for players/those that buy singles. Thanks to all the breakers, there is a flood of cards. Everyone complaining are those looking to collect and rip packs. I haven’t heard a single person that plays the game complain, at least for the gameplay accessibility. Everyone is mad they can’t get sealed product but not looking at the fact that singles have gotten cheaper(at least for playing).

[@kitrakitarunaki]

I think they should just batch print from preorders. Basically take continuous orders and give you a batch number for estimated shipping so it is print to demand

[@Lily-yf2rx]

If I could phase through walls and haunt people I’d honestly just follow flippers around and stare at them in abject disgust. What kind of loser makes it his life’s mission to suckle on the festering teat of Mammon and just, with zero interest in the game, zero interest in the collecting, just take all of the stock and make something they don’t even care about miserable for everyone who does? Why does anyone tolerate this? I really wanted PE but I will never ever purchase higher than the msrp for a new product. TPCI should be suing every flipper on the internet because they are selling a sealed product of an IP without a retail licence. All of this needs to be regulated. You can’t just buy a pallet of stock of iPhones from some third party and just sell them on the sidewalk without Apples permission. Why is TPCI so lax with this? Like yeah they’re getting paid, but people who did nothing but purchase their product the fastest are getting paid even more than them in resale. So what, you can compete with Pokemon and sell their product by making money on their labour and intellectual properties, but if you even think about downloading a pokemon crystal rom you’re honestly done for mate like how dare you mate shakes fist* ??? Make it make sense. Great video, hope you get some from the shops

[@TheDragonfriday]

MR crabs: Money

[@J3susChrist]

4:14 'grats on becoming a dad! please keep the jokes coming in these trying times

[@DragonCat260]

Me: “I’m gonna get every single Eeveelution card! I feel like I’m doing pretty good so far!” Pokemon: nuh uh how about a new $1,500 Umbreon card😊

[@haruhisuzumiya6650]

Those Pokemon investors were Pokemon fans of yesterday To those i ask who is the Pokemon investors of tomorrow?

[@ironpatriot-no6lt]

Nothing but facts stated in this vid. Went to so many stores to grab just a sleeved booster or 2 but I totally forgot Prismatic released so to my amazement I saw nothing but empty shelves 😂😂 it's like all the flippers who didn't get Prismatic just grabbed whatever else they could 😂😂😂 it's ok I grabbed some football and basketball and actually got some good cards for my pc but man I will never not hate the fake "fan" flippers. It's ok though I already know 2-3 stores in my area that no flippers ever hit and yes those stores have the good stuff, going to pick up so many Surging Sparks tomorrow 😂😂😂

[@okJLUV]

best of luck tomorrow king, i'll be trying my locals in 2 days and bracing for the worst lol, wont know unless you try tho. appreciate you watching!

[@RedBull89s]

tbellcardhouse is the scalper on that video

[@Anticoleccionista]

They are selling expensive in short term due to FOMO, they are selling expensive long term due to speculation. Neither has to do with product quality

[@jonathanberrios585]

Yea this video hit it on the nail amazing points made. I tried waiting for surging sparks to go down since release and it only seems to be going up still i cant catch a break lol

[@Theu131]

I don’t go on whatnot and drip a lot, but I totally believe that breakers significantly effect the supply. Pokémon can just print the exact same amount as they always do and claim “they didn’t know what demand was”. So that’s their out. The influencer/investor is the most annoying to me since they are the most visible. There’s one guy on here , he posts every single day (even when there is no new content), has rambling buzz word filled video titles and is actively pushing people to follow him , follow him, get him to 4k, 5k… It clogs up my feed and makes good videos like this so much harder to find. There’s other guys that have huuuuge amounts of money dumped into pokemon, so all their overly positive encouragement just seems a little self serving. I ultimately don’t really like any influencer honest actually collect the cards or care about cards or have their own personal collection. Those are just crypto bros who found a new cash cow, and they need to go.

[@WattoRips]

I woke up this morning and literally told myself: okay I gotta start flipping if I wanna keep opening/every week and collecting sets lol

[@saturninebear]

Excellent video, Julian. I'm so so so depressed at the state of things.

[@heyokaempathtraversingcontrari]

Influencers > local game stores! We all gotta do something to stop this hobby from being an online only obsession!

[@surtlex7800]

Jluv ur vids always bring me entertainment 😂 us aussies just get the leftovers of America

[@okJLUV]

it’s the absolute pits down here, we’re just looking on hoping some makes its way down

[@oldtype45234]

It's literally everything as well, just now we've finally gotten the steam deck 😅

[@Straightouttaskibiditown]

Wasnt shrouded fable faced with delays as well, if such a low demand set is faced with even just a portion of these issues it genuinly scares me how badly more popular sets could be as we see more "hyped" sets start to roll out

[@ottoweininger8156]

I'm not a collector so no expert. But couldn't they produce premium sets with arbitrarily high prices and limited supply for the investors to do their thing with, so that the mass produced sets could be left for the players/ general collectors?

[@flambookey]

biggest IP in the world but it’s card game somehow gets rug pulled every few years, quite the paradox

[@AnaosPoffu]

I love all the Irasutoyas in the bg my pea brain is happy

[@chappiescollectables]

Aaaand suddenly the japanese cards dried up

[@ianb3409]

Right now I'm buying singles from tcgplayer, singles from a monthly card convention, and playing my own format of the tcg with friends. Opening packs, buying the latest couple sets, Whattnot, and a lot of other ways to enjoy the hobby are in a pretty rough place at the moment. Hope they can recover.

[@mistat8297]

I work at a menards and we randomly got a shipment of prismatic evolution boxes (ik why menards of all stores) and I bought one figuring they wouldn't last long, (I was right, some lady bought all of them the same day) and I've been debating on if I should even open it or not

[@truthseekercanada]

This is an engineered shortage to allows TPC to sell more product at MSRP on their own site. You can tell me they didnt know after Novemebers release of Surging Sparks that the demand was really high.

[@craftcuber-e9n]

Hello! I am 16. And I genuinely like pokemon cards, for their art mostly. But I do save some packs I buy(like one in 3 or 4) because If I do, and then sell those few packs in a year or 2, only then will I have money to buy more pokemon cards. TCG is EXPENSIVE to me and that is the only way I can afford to enjoy it. I do not and will not buy from scalpers not only because of what theyre doing, but because I just do not have the money to because I am a broke ass teen. I did manage to find a prismatic evolutions poster collection at close to MSRP in my local book shop. I bought one and my friend did too. I actually just bought it to own a flareon card bc fluffy lol :) To whoever reads this, thank you for listening

[@TheRealRamJ]

this is why japenese is better i open like 5 boxes for hopefully 5 different hits then buy singles

[@herohour6496]

US Pokemon is just ripping the fans off. 1 in 2,000 packs is hilarious. It's not even signed or #'d. LOL

[@TheRealRamJ]

@@herohour6496 true also a special set so not like guaranteed like anything

[@flambookey]

@@herohour6496 yes they are ripping you off. They take care of their own, and make money off of everyone else. Not that I blame them one bit, but once you figure it out its hard to go back to English cards

[@GameMarketAnalyzed]

I honestly think these huge swings in demand is ultimately what contributes to the player/collector base. Many of these scalper and investor types are initially brought in through the hype, then Pokemon goes on an insane print run which weeds out those looking for gains, and finally prices stabilize at below equilibrium and the true enjoyers stick around. Just sucks that prices get crazy for a bit but I think this could be the normal market cycle going forward as long as people see Pokemon cards as a legit way to store value or launder money.

[@CagedRyno]

Hate to deliver the hard truth to ya’ll but people are easy to manipulate and there’s nothing that will change that. Its not hard to hold onto your money and refuse to pay $26 for a modern day booster pack but people do it anyways. We’ve been preaching “don’t FOMO” for years but people do it anyways. Pokemon will eventually print one of the next few sets to demand to scare away the scalpers and everyone will cry about it as prices drop back to normal. They did it with Battle Styles and they did it with Evolutions. They even did it with the original Base Set unlimited back in the 90s. Just hold your money and wait for it and make sure to read the hysterical comments on Twitter when the announcements made.

[@paulhumphreys2902]

Pokemon doesn't help themselves with the atrocious pull rates as well. Will artificially raise the price of the set when you only get 1 SIR in 60-odd packs and there's like 10 SIRs

[@Deltadmirer]

So many great points made here and a great break down as a true fan yeah it definitely is really disappointing seeing how much nonsense the flippers and scalpers get away with what makes me the most annoyed is the fact that the fake fans get rewarded for being fake fans I can’t stand it and equally that myself and other real fans are paying the price (of not being able to get what we want don’t worry I’d never buy from those scalpers) due to their actions it’s so dumb

[@okJLUV]

yep it’s pretty messed up but it’ll be like this for a good little while i think. thanks for watching !

[@Deltadmirer]

@ unfortunately yeah :( and no problem I saw your video and put it on right at that moment haha thanks for making the videos you do!

[@Psi10w]

i dont know if im not thinking too deeply into this but Pokemon company, yugioh they should hire a designated pack opener/ sponsored product hyper/advertiser so that before other people scalp only that one person gets like 1-2 early access boxes, with a NDA signed contract that said person can't sell the product/ cards until the offical products are released. this way even if we have scalpers or flippers they cant gain access to the products and everyone can get at least 1-2 boxes. is it bad for poketubers and or yugitubers maybe...but is it better for everyone else who is actually into the hobby...i think so.

[@MrAmadeus1998]

Then you have us odd middle children: the sealed collectors.

[@hulkingmass]

TCG investors are just kids in mind and heart that want to dress up like a grown up and make grown up investments but are too stupid and lazy to learn about investing. So they just buy a lot of toys and call it investing. And then have to store their investments in their garage for their whole lives and require their investment to appreciate by at least 20% before seeing any profit at all due to selling fees. And even then they have to contend with scammers who will try to say they were sold a dodgy box. You are either rudy or you arent. If you arent rudy, there is literally no reason to invest in TCG unless you have an aversion to learning.

[@wiwog525]

@@hulkingmass i just hear wahhhhhh

[@djan0889]

Because real stock market crush them apart. So they just bully and scam kids. And its a cool hobby rather than trying to predict next middle east conflict or next big hit tech startup.

[@hulkingmass]

​@@wiwog525 yeah sounds about right

[@MartenFerret]

But, Mommy, I bought a tie and everything! I'm a big boy! Wah! D:

[@marcburch2633]

I’m up more than the S&P 500 on my booster boxes anything else is gambling 🤷‍♂️ I’m not buying shit coins or tesla 💀

[@mooviedude141]

I'm starting to think the Pokemon Co purposely limits some of these sets to drive up demand and cause a buzz.

[@JmurphOne]

‘Investors’ are a healthy sign that a product is doing well and is being relatively well managed over a long period of time. It’s a good sign that they are present. People talk about investing like they should be ashamed to make profit, yet there is plenty of risk on the investors side and people on both sides of a trade are free to make decisions. The real issue with PE and sets that have gone this way is the Pokemon company itself. If this set was printed aggressively from the off, we probably mitigate this issue. I’m sorry but the PC is mostly to blame on PE.

[@AxelNotHuman]

I think "Breakers" need to go 🤣

[@LuckyBunnyTCG]

Great points! I'd want to know if you think of investors, do you also consider that they hold tons of this inventory for themselves as part of the issue since they know it will rise over time? Primarily stores, since many have admitted that they have tons of Surging Sparks in their inventory for example. Again, we're not trying to single anyone out and I know I have a few boxes of stuff in my closest lol but I doubt my 3 Stellar Crown boxes and 1 box of Twilight Masquerade is changing much.

[@JuniperLucas555]

I’ve collected on and off since I was a kid when the original sets came out and I recently got back into it around 6 months ago I’d buy myself some every pay day now I can’t find even a single booster pack

[@nugnug6546]

9:14 I think the good type of breaker usually falls under the collector type ie Scotts_PC

[@runningupthatchill]

I'm not a pokemon fan in anyway, in fact the algorithm sent me down this rabbit hole b/c i fall asleep sometimes to an ASMRtist who opens boxes of pokemon cards and since I don't know/care about them it's just background talking... but anyways... It's been fascinating to watch the videos I have for the past 2 weeks, mostly pack openers (or i guess breakers) and my brain felt like it was broken because they would be like "this pack sells for $200, and the 2 cards (out of however many) of value are $125 and have an insanely low pull-rate" and I'm like... what even is this? It seemed like nothing was worth opening because the prices of packs were so high compared to a reasonable potential value on opening. I understood it for the massive youtuber who could off-set the costs with adsense or donations but for everyone else it seemed insane. And the openers would start opening slowly and by about 7 packs in they were so desperate for that high of a hit they were ripping them in 3 seconds and not even reordering them, just fanning them out and then throwing them to the side to grab another. Like how do you have a hobby where the most cost-effective way to collect is to sit on a pile of unopened boxes?

[@HOOPLAAAA]

im a mass collector, and I fully understand but its hard at some times want to collect when I have some boxes worth more than cars, it's just not possible to see them as an investment and also then collect them for decoration. the market will crash and this will settle soon but its just on how bad it will..... on another note rip and ship is just gambling and it should be illegal online like that period.

[@wiwog525]

Opening packs period is gambling if u wanna go that route bud

[@HOOPLAAAA]

@@wiwog525 only if you open to only get the chase, you know theres other cards to like play the game or even collect the set....... rip and ship is only chase hunting and they will even now give you something less for hitting the chase its gambling online....

[@wiwog525]

​@HOOPLAAAA nah bro it's exactly the same as opening packs yourself just with extra steps despite whatever logic you want to apply

[@HOOPLAAAA]

@@wiwog525 if you really understood how they worked you understand better, idk why u are defending online Pokemon gambling but ok waste ur money.

[@wiwog525]

​@HOOPLAAAA youre the one who doesn't understand and no wasting money from me don't worry pal 😂

[@PlayBackNova]

Unpopular opinion, i love chasing stuff that’s harder to get. Although it sucks not getting many product at MSRP, it feels even better when you do score.

[@HarryWest19]

Distribution is the key for me, the fact distributors can hold their product and sell later at a higher price is crazy to me… There are always people after a quick buck, which doesn’t make it ok, but TPCI should know this and be working to mitigate it, which doesn’t feel the case