Gamestop news
 

Not sure if this has been posted, but have seen other threads claiming Gamestop was looking to buy PSA. Appears they have their own plans... Which I imagine will affect modern much more than vintage.

From a Ft. Worth online business newsletter

"Grapevine-based GameStop made a trademark filing to the United States Patent and Trademark Office's site July 16. It indicates GameStop is likely developing an online marketplace for buying, selling and displaying collectible cards, complete with features such as authentication, payment processing and a digital animation that mimics ripping open booster packs."

Maybe they can decrease the ongoing TPG logjam caused by Pokemon cards.

Hodl

Haha. Roaring Kitty is paying attention.

Why do people denigrate Pokemon collecting so much? There are constant complaints about how the hobby is no longer catering to kids and pricing them out of participation. Pokemon doesn't do any of those things, caters directly to kids, and found a way to make collecting exciting.

What don't you appreciate about that?

What I mostly see online are adult men, well past the target age, getting into fights over Pokémon cards at stores.

Those images are probably 5 years old at this point. Isn’t this board full of adult men who mostly always have something to get mad at each other about?

lol point taken.

I agree with you about Pokémon catering to kids, but I don't think pricing is very kid friendly on many of the cards. I was at a show last weekend and talked to a dealer I know who deals only with Pokémon. There were plenty of cards he had that people were asking about for $100+ and not many that I saw below $10. I'm not sure I would consider that to be kid friendly.

Not sure this is completely a thing of the past. Target has signs limiting purchase of Pokémon boxes to 1 per customer (if they actually have anything in stock) so there's still plenty of people interested in buying it. Maybe the stores have managed to avoid having fights about it happen but I could see it still being a possibility.

That's going to be true of any chase card in any hobby. But the packs cost on average about $5 and you can buy ETB's for $35 to $50. The other thing Pokemon does well is they include all chase cards in one single product.

Look at the alternative in the baseball card world. There are multiple versions of every Topps release (Topps Series 1, Series 2, Update, Chrome, Chrome Update, etc.) and on average you'll be paying a few hundred dollars for base set hobby boxes. The price only goes up from there.

In baseball there is also a clear separation of the quality of cards available depending on the product you buy. There are retail versions of every product available but the odds of getting a hit get more and more remote as you level down. Compare that to Pokemon where the same chase cards are available at comparable odds in every product release type (ETBs, boosters, tins, blaster packs, etc.).

I think he means the $3.99/pack price point. But yes, there are trillions of cards you can get for a nickel to play the game with, if your goal is to play the game and make a fun deck. Which again, is the kid thing to do. Or just collect them like my nephew; he doesn't really get the value stuff yet, and sorts his collection by the hit points (?) of the character at the top of the card.

Even if that is the case, I can't prove people's interests from afar, but it seemed to me that this behavior was/is especially prevalent among people who were/are looking to make a quick buck and not necessarily rampant among actual collectors who are interested in the cards.

I think people bash Pokemon because when they go to a local "Sports Card Show" nowadays, they have to fight though dozens of Pokemon Booths to try locating 2 or 3 vintage card booths that may or may not even be there. And if you are successful in finding a "vintage" booth, they'll have mostly '60s - '80s cards, with maybe half a dozen low-end pre-war cards on hand (if you're lucky).

No malice towards those who like Pokemon (child or adult).... it's just not the same hobby experience we grew up with and loved.

TCG and sports cards are increasingly sharing store space, especially some of the newer started stores.

The TCG's are no longer the sole realm of hobby/game stores and mass retail.

It make for uneven audiences at "card shows" but it keeps getting increasingly hybridized together. For the most part the 2 groups could easily have their own specific card shows, and often do, but the promoters seem to have no issue having them slammed together in the same venue.

No problem with Pokemon, but i think sports cards are terrible these days. There are seemingly no base sets that have any real value, just a waste of money and i dont even know what a base set would be to collect a key rookie card. Seems like you have to get the fancier versions and it’s incredibly confusing and expensive. I tried to buy a key DeGrom Rookie when he started with the Mets. I went on eBay and bought a bunch i could find. I have no idea what i was buying, and no way to know if i had the right card that people would focus on if he kept doing well. Wasted a bunch of money likely. Not doing that again. I dont even know how to describe the cards i bought to look up what they are trading for now.

Without getting political I've seen jobless men staking out the door waiting for the person at Target to put out Pokemon. It's rather pathetic.


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I don't care what people collect, but the INSANE number of Pokemon submissions to PSA -- including millions of cards with minimal value -- is why people are waiting 6 months to get their cards back ... or in my case, just not sending at all.

Are you saying these are fired federal employees? Just trying to determine what's "political" about joblessness.

How do you feel about a bunch of grown men standing around waiting for another grown man to come over to write his name down on something? Or grown men who collect cardboard photos of other grown men?

Everything about a hobby can be talked down if you decide their interests aren't worth while. Collecting baseball cards isn't exactly a cool thing to do. I find it strange when collectors suggest there's something lame about collecting a different type of card. We're all lame.

Gamestop news
 

No need to comment further


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We are standing at the precipice of the biggest collectible bubble since the early 1990s.

Oh Ed, you know they bought 52 topps Mantles with their ppp money and came here to brag! (Since have deleted their post)

None of them bought pokey men!

sarcasm intended for those charged up by things they can't change, and are mostly oblivious to the root causes of.

I call BS Ted. It was only one member and only one 52 Mantle not multiple.:p:D:D:D

This is a new era. Every show I go to I see kids everywhere with wads of cash. I've seen kids that look as young as 8-9 buying $500.00 cards in cash. It doesn't matter where they got the money, they have it. The age old argument of "kid's are priced out of the hobby" doesn't hold much water in 2025.

Just my perspective.

Thing about bubbles is, some of them keep going for a long time, and keep getting bigger and bigger all the while. At some point, the prophets of doom are bound to be right, simply because every bull market has to end eventually.

But in the meantime while we're waiting for the bubble to pop, all the prognostications of doom sure look a lot like shouting at clouds.

Arrhhh! Get off my lawn :) what marks the top, we shall never know!

What's closing in on "long ago" though it's somewhat recent in the scale of the modern hobby, the price to break packs and build a set from them is long gone.

It's all about the "hits." Some people don't even keep base in their collections.

Thankfully, Topps still sells a complete set at a somewhat reasonable price.

That said, Stadium Club still delivers as far as a great looking set. The value isn't high, but it's a great one to flip through.

We need a new version of the movie 'Big,' where some highly-knowledgeable 'Pokémon kid' wakes up as a middle-aged,
potbellied collector and is able to walk a show floor with us and really explain what's going on with all of the shiny stuff.

Of course, someone would have to secure a booth at The National, remove the table and lay down a Walking Piano there instead...so maybe we'll have to wait until next year??

The barrier of entry to be an entrepeneur in our hobby is about 5 bucks. Buy a card for 5, flip it for 6, and you just made 20% profit. Collecting doesn't seem high on the priority list of most of the whippersnappers buying and selling, so it seems to me.

Before Pokeman there were Beanie Babies, repulsive little creatures. Many show promoters eventually banned them it got so bad.

Well, that dropped quicker than I expected...

https://powerpacks.gamestop.com/

It's in cooperation with PSA. Market is so saturated with 1000 different versions of this, but in a way it's also an emerging market so who knows how big they can actually make this "buy a mystery slab" thing.