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The story
On 5ch’s “Anything Goes Live G” board, discussion turned to the skyrocketing prices of the new Pokémon Card set. Packs that missed the ¥7,200 list-price lottery are reportedly circulating for ¥27,000, and some shops are now buying back those ¥27,000 items for as much as ¥60,000. Posters also pointed to the previous 25th Anniversary set, which started around ¥20,000 and climbed to nearly ¥400,000, sparking disagreement over whether to hold or sell. Meanwhile, the argument that “just printing more would fix it” drew pushback, with commenters noting it’s not that simple given production costs and no guarantee demand will last.
What people said
i.imgur.com/rb82YCV.jpeg
Lucky you…
I struck out on every single one
Shops are buying back the ¥27,000 one for ¥60,000 now.
Congrats
Should I sell it?
Torn on whether to hold onto it for a while
Personally, if you've got the storage space, I'd say don't sell — supply is thin.
The 25th Anniversary one is going for about ¥250,000 now, so maybe use 10x face value as your benchmark for when to sell
Tch.
Re: #9
I bought something similar during the 25th Anniversary run for ¥20,000 and it's now worth ¥400,000.
That's +¥380,000
Other way around — the 25th Anniversary set was even selling below list price at first, but look at today's box price, it's eye-popping
Given the number of lottery winners plus convenience-store stock, it looks like about 5x the usual supply is circulating.
Can't be very profitable as a resale item
That's because you don't go to card shops.
There are plenty of players — tournaments easily fill up with tens of thousands of entrants
People are way too convinced everything just keeps going up
If you're short on cash, sell now for a small profit; if you can afford to wait, just hold it, let it grow, and sell later
I only sell as many boxes as I bought at list price to recoup my cost, and keep the rest in storage.
If something spikes fast like the "151" set did, up to ¥70,000, I'll cash in a portion from there.
Done this for 10 years and made a killing.
I do file my taxes on it though
I'm a player too, you know.
I go to tournaments every week.
i.imgur.com/qoM8evl.jpeg
You probably look like this guy
Though I basically only enter adult-and-up tournaments.
I smile for the camera though!
Or are they secretly in on it?
Supply just can't keep up with demand because it's that popular. And you can't outright ban resale anyway
No other company has gone further than tying purchases to My Number ID and banning listings on Mercari.
Demand is just abnormally high
Or are they secretly loving the current situation?
Feels like a bigger problem than the scalpers themselves.
Re: #86
Kids are getting them fine.
They just can't compete with adults' wallets, but they can still buy them
Kids can buy them easily.
There are tons of kids-only sales too
They need to kill any reason to buy from scalpers
And once something goes out of print, that's when the price-spike cycle kicks in
Why not just increase production capacity?
The scalpers will buy it all up anyway
Ramping up production costs money too.
That'd be fine if scalpers kept buying forever, but once they realize there's no money in it they'll pull out — and then it's a massive loss
Is Pokémon Cards even bigger than that?
Which one actually sold more, comparing to Yu-Gi-Oh!'s peak?
Yu-Gi-Oh!: ¥50 billion, Pokémon Cards: ¥200–300 billion
Pokémon Cards, by a landslide.
It's beating everything else by double
You could actually buy Yu-Gi-Oh! cards without much trouble though.
Not even being able to buy it at all is next-level abnormal
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Pokémon Cards is said to vastly outsell Yu-Gi-Oh! in market size, with posters in the thread citing figures like “¥50 billion for Yu-Gi-Oh! versus ¥200–300 billion for Pokémon Cards.” Simply ramping up production isn’t a straightforward fix for a hit card game. Because new sets keep releasing every few months, expanding production lines requires capital investment and carries risk, with no guarantee demand will hold up. The very structure in which prices start climbing once a product goes out of print also makes limited-edition items easy targets for speculation. The thread also brought up cases of misprinted “error cards” unexpectedly fetching high prices — a reminder that ramping up production doesn’t necessarily increase these rarities in proportion.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Anything Goes Live G) thread “[Scalping] Pokémon Cards’ New Release Is Turning Into a Huge Mess.”
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