The Nameless One

It's a tricky situation but one I want to explore further. Personally, I'm not unhappy with my grades, I'm proud of the fact that I managed to send in 9 and 9.5 quality cards, from what I have gathered I did relatively well. I think we need to shift blame to the market itself which is, in this current incarnation, young when it comes to collecting. That transition from niche to mainstream creates a patch of market turbulence because, well, we have tons of fresh collectors getting into the game... and fresh grading services. This period of expansion has created a very volatile market, I'm tucking away my liquid assets for 5 years before thinking of selling. We don't even have a pop report! People are just winging it at this point, and Ebay is a monster - I hope this expansion leads to stronger tools to sell on the secondary market. Our selling/market standards are outdated, and this leads to blaming the grading and whatnot, especially with modern Marnie flippers who want to make a quick turnaround off their pack fresh graded hits and running into the great gamble that is manufacturing quality control. Like, I honestly think the market is kinda dumb because people value a card which was magically cut to perfection as opposed to a collectable with a story to it. It's so soulless this 10 fetishism, like, oh no my Marnie got 1mm of edging on the centering whatever, why does that impact the value so severely? I understand feeling salty about landing your card in high value tiers, but it's a grading company's job to be transparent about that 1mm edging on the centering. You just need to get lucky I guess, and that's the unspoken reality of selling graded cards - it's the rarity of the card along with the rarity of perfect manufacturing. Some cards are so flawed in their manufacturing run that a perfect card is a holy grail. Personally, I hope the market begins to lean towards sheer rarity of card as opposed to the rarity of manufacturing perfection. Like, what's special about a minty copy of Super Mario Bros found underneath some Toys R Us shelf relative to one which was enjoyed properly? Yes, given that so many people enjoyed the game as opposed to hoarding copies in their basement like goblins, one leans more scarce than the other. I just find it funny that I can go to my local used game store, grab a cart of Super Mario Bros and a NES for 150 bucks, play it and whatever, and people are spending millions on vault pieces. Form and functionality...

CGC slabs are a young market. Like, isn't it kind of a fool's errand to think of selling before the population report comes out? Not saying a pop report would magically fix the value problem with CGC 8.5s, but we're kinda gauging the value of our slabs with a blind eye. I don't feel comfortable selling any of my slabs, a CGC 9 Marnie recently sold for $500 cdn... gross. Like, those cards are all 0.5 off from fetching an extra $400+, it's dumb enough to make me want to whip out the "revenge grading" argument. Given that the market values a CGC 9.5 as a potential PSA 10, a 9 is more realistically where it drops off. I feel like my 9 Marnie's could potentially snag a PSA 10 but you get trapped in it not being worth the $150 per card gamble. For the record, my 48 card submission contained 0 8.5s. Fair amount of 9.5s relative to 9s, but none of my $$$ cards came back 9.5. In general, given that these are modern cards, I'll want to wait until the sets are out of print at the very least. The market is cold at the moment, we might see a spike during the celebrations release but I'm not expecting to sell anything for a while. Too many factors holding the market back

RANT: Plus, there is an argument to be made that sub-grades could go as far to detract value given that people (read: this particular market) love their 10s and if your card doesn't grade a 10 you have not just one 9 but, like, four sub-9s to scare people off further. I fully regret purchasing subgrades after looking at my grading. No 10s, just a smattering of 9s and 9.5s for pack fresh cards so, like, what's the point of gambling on manufacturing deficiencies? It's not like those grades speak of anything regarding the life those cards have had, if anything, because I'm weird, an 8.5 or lower would be more attractive to me because at least those cards saw some use beyond capitalistic gains *cough*. Especially 2020-era Pokemon which is notorious for not being 100% on their manufacturing game, those 9s I received on my Marnie's slashed an easy $400-600 off what people will be willing to pay, plus Shiny Star V got a reprint which drove her value down :(. I don't think the market will ever mature to the point of a CGC 9 being worthy as a possible PSA 10 contender, the logic just doesn't compute because you need to factor in people needing to crack the cases and submit to PSA in order to get the grade you want, so that's an automatic -$150 from a potential CGC sale because sale listings always compare grades with PSA's metric. Maybe things will be more clear when the population report comes out, but even then you have to factor in the business and it's faults in general... like, look at Evolutions XY Charizard... PSA 10s are rare because... manufacturing... a 9 compared to a 10 is like, what, 300 bucks compared to 1500+? Given that this stuff is all unregulated, it's all... literally gambling, just with all of these stop gaps in between to remove that pretense. And the house, that being The Pokemon Company who can't properly print cards, always wins because they don't gain or lose money based on those defects. A booster box sells for a booster box... so, invest in sealed product! Opening packs is a huge mistake!

A firm yes on that question, but past present future shenanigans aside I feel like this is just them entering the shipping data in the system and the physical package will get to Fedex on the 20th after the weekend passes. I thought that was funny too, CGC so quirky

48 card economy submission Recieved: 4/1/21 Shipped: 9/20/21 Woo hoo! Time to flip some Marnies!

My order got put into Grading/QC when it was time to charge my account, now my account is charged and despite word from their accountant nothing seems to have shipped yet... Seriously, this company has the WORST transparency with it's customers... ever. This entire experience has been a complete joke, collecting is a huge mistake

Cool, it's a casually racist gif. What a cool place, America. Florida will be an island in ten years and your country is the laughing stock of the world. Enjoy!

Hackermannnnn, load up my VPN and sneak into the dark webs to secure my elite pokerman software so I can enter the cutthroat world of Ebay bidding, awesome

It would probably need to be a competing service, if Ebay has been doing the silent auction thing for this long then who knows. I do know of auction house platforms but nothing on the scale of Ebay. My idea would be for sellers to list a time of auction, people can lock their seats in, and when the auction occurs people go wild for a couple minutes before "going once, going twice... SOLD". Both systems have their flaws, I'd probably end up paying more at a live auction when I think about it, but at least then I can submit knowing that someone beat me fair and square and doesn't have some kind of "snipe bot" or something lmao

I love Ancient Mew to the point where I've considered buying a hoodie with that card printed all over it. Market-wise, the cards are fascinating outliers where people hound the errors and swirl patterns which emerge as opposed to the whole scarcity thing, it's cool that each card is so unique. I can see this card being a fun one to have several copies of for comparative purposes. I honestly haven't looked into the Japanese variant until now, I love the sparkly holo pattern, that's unique in itself.

Duly noted, thanks for the advice!

Because I'm a greedy goblin and played a tight margin. I mean, no one touched my bid for two days so I thought I had it covered. I feel like if someone bids at the last second there should be a function which increases the bid time by 20 seconds or whatever. I'm willing to fight but when it comes to raising the bar early it's hard to gauge what exactly I'm willing to pay, especially when I could walk away with a lower price. I'd rather walk the price up as opposed to throw a hail mary in a business transaction, and that's not to say I don't get sniped at the last second regardless. There's no gauge of who wants it more, it seems predicated on luck

I did my research and the company was perfectly fine with not communicating this prior to sending my cards in. I'm sure it's all kinds of alligator soup going on over there

Why is Ebay so bad!? I lost the Japanese Mew straight up, but that promo Mew... I got sniped at the last second and, by golly, I would've paid more (and tried to). Where's the option to extend the bid? Seems like a defunct bidding platform, the seller loses potential money with this nonsense. I would've paid 100 more for that card, what a scam

These boards are a mess, nothing but "where's my package" with slivers of actual enthusiasm towards the hobby

Since when is a business a house? Yeesh, it's like my "friends" jumped me, took my wallet, and sicced their little yapping dog on me before telling me that I can get my wallet back in 5 months if I stay in their disgusting closet, as if I have a choice with all this duct tape.

Wow, my March 8th delivery isn't looking too hot then. What a clown fiesta

I found this listing: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Machop-Machoke-MACHAMP-Cubone-Marowak-Pocket-Monsters-STICKER-Pokemon-HOLO-Cards/324108878555?_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item4b766502db:g:S3oAAOSwUwRedHT0&amdata=enc%3AAQAFAAACgBaobrjLl8XobRIiIML1V4Imu%2Fn%2BzU5L90Z278x5ickk5v8gVt3hEWLVg%2F253w6XCYCQTRDuaMZdYnz%2Fk4N8LoBXTl3SjgAjsxxZWbDyvxslBL%2BvZws9qfq8AJAjiFPpo7bgysRP1OVGMJC5ZWtrClAubjpzKK7JeNOUomvT7dHmFCph%2FdllRPdEFYz9TM88NAh78W2zb%2BED4fEXaIYW%2B7FUjLzJ3WDtzO5glG55KxdIctWHzqbiS1SEjsGrlBdgKIdZD%2F8KCIpusjPY7IGnTeJLEyEwzWsdhHyTvpzj%2BYoKDmpoLDnE3HWJoUPNY6CKCYRnZxiXovdQ5KcYbAKGOGT%2FwSRjLXBN2IDhxL5ghyYR7wNC%2FTHDhVLduOiugtpq%2FqBJRVAO686oUQaOhQb1IQlrcRAr8nLDYU82j34fWw9uEWxGHbaoORGG%2BJU8Kz4r0h143Z1dM5%2Bv53Y%2BJPRKMg6AkYSm7RejIHkLKS8z4hzFauCPY0oX0JeQs1EUg0wDqQhYUwhi48HKWNkpDHxl1Su2MoXgWEo3OZ4Mu97wGCTdiJB%2BCh0iPNCcJAA52%2FoNz1RGd4Qs27%2FgN7mlsTJa28k8IMLgSy9WAXy4dv2fLn9yIPMQfhCtkL8htBDHH82w4dZpO6OsEU%2BceWt%2FbgTWSlFaf6JvuIHyUTUqD9bZInfBme%2FtVWR4blYvnnGps5emRFhczVGn6Fax4N3P3gZMPYOfu79pDrVYiHXCiGDJvNqev3KrPISyuBrgfD0BOiXSoThZqGjFPDkkW%2FgzVxnodcIa5VN59ScAWVaxcH3UYQY42PR%2BJVrYeKhwFuCuU%2Bzs6c5zxNP4YfYvGGFV6kTWmfg%3D|cksum%3A324108878555aa88c1a91a464c679b8816c93b08cc2d|ampid%3APL_CLK|clp%3A2334524 Those are familiar to me from back in the day, cool find.

The zard, to me, has a twisted back. I see a thin top + left on the pika's back. I prefer the centering on the pika in my eyes, NA cards and their wonky cuts...

What are your feelings on Leonhart's Rare Candy service he was shilling the other day? That sounds like a step in the right direction

The Marnie market is cooling off! Everyone and their mums are flippin Marnies! Charizard has taken her place! It's wild! I guess we'll see when Shiny Star V goes out of print. I'll be removing prices from previous cards, this stuff needs live tracking I decided to go all in bidding on my two holy grail purchases: The English promo I'm bidding on is graded respectfully. The Japanese Fossil Mew is raw with signs of it being pack fresh, never played, all that good stuff. I find these two to be a fascinating comparison in regards to rarity. Really, you can still find Japanese Fossil packs and pull a fresh Mew. Is that possible with the pokemon league obtained promo? One of my dad's students who worked the pokemon league at the time offered me the English Mew when I was 11, nothing can touch the sentimental feelings I have for that card, but which card is more difficult to obtain in good condition? Realistically, if you see a promo Mew on the market it travelled 21 years to get here. Remarkable. Don't let the seller know but I'd pay... a lot more for that card in the condition it is being offered. The Japanese Mew is simply my "best of the best" as opposed to my "favorite", I'm taking a gamble with it's condition and plan on getting it graded. If it gets a 10 or something ridiculous that's a big gain, not that I would sell it, but that's some insight on potential market gains people shoot for. Honestly, if someone outbids my current standing with the Japanese card I will back off, there's only so much I'm willing to gamble on a few pictures and a description. I'll bid up on the promo

There isn't what I would consider to be a good one, pricing is all over the place because you got raw prices mixed with whatever slabs are going for. Lots of math, and website tabs, required at this point. Hard to be exact. Squeaks Game World just released a video on the potential "bubble" of the pokemon market and how he gauges buyer and seller interest with google search statistics. That tells me we have a lot of work to do in order to flesh out this market, technology-wise. We reached an unprecedented peak of interest in pokemon cards so I imagine we're going to see a lot of development in the near future. Personally, my mind is shifting away from this whole selling mess and thinking more trading card for card. There is an established pokemon card forum, pokebeach, which I plan on diving into when my cards return. Ebay is a bit... cold

I try to get the best approximation of a card's value relative to recently sold listings, sometimes I cannot find a recently sold CGC slab and have to price based on PSA or Beckett. It's all HUGE grain of salt, I'm relatively new to the evaluation process

Who are you talking to?