Which cards are we grading and why? 1 1

[The Nameless One]

Yeesh, everyone's grading this that and whatever. There's no rhyme, rhythm, or reason! Sheer madness! The tubes are all clogged! People pointing fingers and blaming this and that for the clogged tubes, we're all so nervous by the lack of intention! I guess I'm part of that clog so may as well shed some insight. I'm going to do the full story deal and don't expect the same from you haha, bare with me. This is why I'm grading in general

Whew, feels like I'm in a AA meeting. Hi, I'm Nameless, I live on Vancouver Island, BC, I'm 30 and am riding the pokemon wave baby. Am I new to pokemon? Neup, I'm an OG, gen 1 yo, woke up at 6am to watch the pokemon cartoon. Do I have much of a collection to show for it? Ha ha, no. Do I regret that? Maybe a little, why are you looking at me weird? No, I'm not having a third life crisis and no I won't stop talking to myself!

 I love Pokemon, it's among my favorite series of video games. My fondest memories are built on Nintendo, I'm an avid gamer. My first console was one of those brick gameboys, our school had designated days where we could bring our gameboys and trade pokemon and whatnot. What magical times. *sigh*

Flashforward to today, and I'm not going to get as real but... things are tough! 2020 was The Hardest Year for most of us. 2021 is no slouch, either. So here comes a bunch of youtubers and they go on a TEAR, throwing millions left and right at this hobby, unbudgeable trends are suddenly spiking, the market value is increasing, supply is limited, demand is crazy. People catch wind that this is an investment opportunity and here's me fresh off my four figure gains from dogecoin wondering what's next? Why are people going off about "chonk rainbow pikachu"... wow, it's selling for $1200 graded, whew, that'll be 10k eventually... I've been down this path before. So, let me get this straight, I love pokemon, I loved collecting pokemon cards, this is all going nuts, and I'm NOT going to take part in this? Yeah right, I'm a craze junky. I love sensations.

I feel like I'm good at catching wind before it's too late to invest in something. So, how exactly does one go from a small investment to where we see a lot of youtubers today? I dunno about you but I want a piece of that action, I want a cool domain built of my interests! That takes hustle, however, and the pokemon hustle is fierce, but welcoming if you know where to look, who to listen to, and what to invest in. So, I hit the webs and the youtubes in order to get a handle on the collecting world. I made some mistakes along the way, but I don't regret them, this is all fun. This will reflect in some of the cards I'm grading. I'm going to start off with the big one...

[The Nameless One]

Shiny Star V, Marnie, #198/190 Secret Rare Full Art. Declared value: $1000cdn+

There you go you fiends, the meme card. I'm flippin' Marnies baby! Bought 20 Shiny Star V boxes for $2400cdn and pulled three of these suckers. So, what is this card to me? A hit lmao. Big money, baby! Jackpot! Nameless needs a brand new bag. Okay okay okay, I admit that this is a VERY nice card. Marnie is a mood, I get why people are attracted to her design. I might keep one for myself in case I'm wrong about character full arts and they remain relevant and that this card is not experiencing what is simply a brief peak... but the NA card market is teasing us that they might release this card as a... promo in NA??? Whew, I'm scared, better get this graded asap haha... why did I choose economy *slaps head*. Honestly, my OCD dictated that I wanted everything in the same package, haha, whatever. The idea is that this card can A) pay off my boxes and B) provide me with the capitol for more boxes. I want more cards, right? What did I do with one of my Charizards back in the day? Trade it for two inches of shiny cards. Absolutely I'm going to trade my hot tickets

Edited March 22, 2021 by The Nameless One

[The Nameless One]

Shiny Star V, Poké Kid, #197/190 Secret Rare Full Art. Declared Value: $200cdn

AHHHH THIS CARD IS SO CUTE. I'll guard it with my life! Stay away you fiends! You should see the holo design on it, all of these little hearts <3. The reason I'm showing off this card next is because of the sheer subjective joy it brings me, it's a fine work of art in my eyes, everything about it pops. I did get two of them so maybe I trade one... maybe... it is a popular card which fetches a decent amount on both the English and Japanese market. Eevee is a popular pokemon so eevee collectors probably want this in their collection. Tons of potential here

Edited March 22, 2021 by The Nameless One

[The Nameless One]

Final card before bed

Shiny Star V, Zacian V, #329/190 Gold Ultra Rare. Declared Value: $400cdn

 

Out of all the hyper modern stuff going on, this is my favorite pokemon of the bunch. SWORD DOG! DOG WITH SWORD! I was so thrilled to pull this, and I'm starting a lil Zacian collection to honor the draw. This is an investment card, Sword and Shield is fresh so it'll take time for this legendary pokemon to mature. Investors consider this to be a wise card to hold onto and that it's currently undervalued, especially given the rarity. I have a feeling this pokemon will pop off in 5-10 years. 

[C2N0]

Just the ones I’m keeping for my collection. No intention of flipping at the moment. 

[CHASEnBLUE]

Pretty much these for the moment as I get them....mostly walkthrough material because of the backlog. 

[CHASEnBLUE]

I do have two bulk submissions to include promo Charizards from CP, and 25th Anniversary GM and McDonalds, but not expecting those for awhile which is fine. Otherwise, just setting aside the good one's for my kids and will eventually grade as many of the higher grade ones I can afford. When they are my age I hope they will be very happy  

[The Nameless One]

8 hours ago, CHASEnBLUE said:

I do have two bulk submissions to include promo Charizards from CP, and 25th Anniversary GM and McDonalds, but not expecting those for awhile which is fine. Otherwise, just setting aside the good one's for my kids and will eventually grade as many of the higher grade ones I can afford. When they are my age I hope they will be very happy  

Beautiful 'zards! That's a healthy chunk for the kids! That's a good leadup to my next card

Shiny Star V, Charizard VMAX, #308/190 Declared Value: $600cdn

Whew, the pokemon company loves this art, eh? I'm not a charizard fan but this is just RAD! The point I want to make about this card is that for the first time in maybe pokemon history... Charizard isn't the big chase card! Marnie is! What???? That, to me, is a serious paradigm shift. Now, is charizard a slouch? No way, immortal investment, I think this card will grow and grow where Marnie is in a bit of a spotlight phase. Time will tell, that's one of those "no crystal ball" moments, it's inevitable that Marnie will get printed in English, but does that affect the Japanese value? This is one big section of the hobby I have a magnifying lens to. I don't want to say charizard is struggling as a whole but might be in a bit of a temporary slouch given the extent of people chasing 'zards. It's healthy that Marnie came along and made people reevaluate what a chase card can be, she's the perfect storm in that she's only currently available in Shiny Star V where 'Zard is more spread out

[The Nameless One]

May as well go over my spectrum of big lizard boi

Double Blaze, Reshiram & Charizard GX Hyper Rare, #108/95 Declared Value: $400

I want to go on an aesthetic rant. Rainbow cards are hard to pull off, and these cards illustrated by "CG Works" are kinda ugly, imo. It's like people are paying for the rarity and the fact that it is a charizard as opposed to aesthetic value. I'm very critical of the rarity tiers, it seems like people value cards well beyond that aspect. This is the big hit from Double Blaze... now I want to show you the... cheaper, more dignified version of this card

[The Nameless One]

Double Blaze, Reshiram & Charizard GX Ultra Rare, #007/095, Declared Value: $100

Holy smokes! Much better, right? Much... cheaper, right? Mitsuhiro Arita, the legend of legends... what a fantastic card... these are the kinds of cards I want as display pieces less than the hits

[The Nameless One]

Woah what a card!

...srsly, this is the "more valuable" variant?

[LuckyMouse]

Those are some amazingly beautiful cards, thanks for sharing them! The commentary is awesome too.

I haven't collected any newer cards since WOTC days, and the submissions I am waiting on are mostly 1st ed cards for my personal collection sets, with a few doubles to try and recoup some of my grading costs. I did impulsively buy a Champions Path ETB a couple of months ago, finally opened and realized $10 in value cards wasn't worth $50. Call me frugal. Kept the sealed card and gave the rest away. I love watching the box openings of old and new on youtube though, the hits are always fun to see. I think this CoroCoro Mew would be my fave card from the standard submission I just got back, would like to come up with a appropriate custom frame to display some of these slabs in.

[Deha88]

I’m just curious how the Canadian market is 2-5x higher than the US market. 

[Yeahiwasder4dat]

22 hours ago, The Nameless One said:

Double Blaze, Reshiram & Charizard GX Ultra Rare, #007/095, Declared Value: $100

Holy smokes! Much better, right? Much... cheaper, right? Mitsuhiro Arita, the legend of legends... what a fantastic card... these are the kinds of cards I want as display pieces less than the hits

I hate the art on the hidden fates shiny Zard or any other where it's more rounded like the top card(rainbow). Very unattractive imo.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Yeahiwasder4dat

[The Nameless One]

On 3/22/2021 at 1:01 PM, Deha88 said:

I’m just curious how the Canadian market is 2-5x higher than the US market. 

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

[thehumantorch]

12 minutes ago, The Nameless One said:

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

Is there a website that tracks the sales of cards?  For comics there are several including GPA which charges a monthly fee.

https://comics.gpanalysis.com/

[ShiningCollectibles]

I am grading my southern islands collection, pikachu world collection, team rumble collection, base, fossil, jungle most expensive holos, rocket blast/Zard... Some legendary collection reverse holos (Arcanine Mewtwo) staff arcanine next destinies. RR Chu Vmax, Shiny Zard V Shiny Zard Vmax RR Zards and many other cards! I am losing my mind every second they are away 😂🤣 oh and I'm cross grading a psa hidden fates shiny Zard to CGC...

Edited March 24, 2021 by ShiningCollectibles

[DonLaGreca]

I am getting my entire binder of base set unlimited energy cards graded. About 500 cards. Maybe they can dedicate a team to strictly energy cards and ill get it back fast. 

Edited March 24, 2021 by DonLaGreca

[ShiningCollectibles]

If I ever get them back if they aren't lost in the Abyss I'll showcase them all.

[LuckyMouse]

8 minutes ago, ShiningCollectibles said:

If I ever get them back if they aren't lost in the Abyss I'll showcase them all.

Looking forward to seeing them! I get why you're a little anxious, guarantee it will be like the best Christmas ever when you them them back.