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NEW YORK (AP) – Obsessed with collectibles, Americans are offering the prices of trading cards, video games, and other memorabilia to their youth. The frenzy has made small fortunes for some, but deep frustration for those who still love playing games or trading cards as a hobby.
Some of the most sought-after – and even contested – items include the childhood relics of millennials. This includes copies of trading cards such as Pokemons Charizard and Magic: The Gatherings Black Lotus, as well as Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. game cartridges. Some cards sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars and an unopened Super Mario game recently sold for a staggering $ 2 million.
This is more than a case of opportunistic collectors looking to capitalize on an outbreak of nostalgia sparked by the pandemic. Everyone is apparently looking for a piece of the pie.
The corporations that own franchises like Pokemon are bringing new editions to market as quickly as they can print them. Internet personalities offer the products and rake in advertising money; Companies that tell collectors how much their property is worth are doing unprecedented deals – and in at least one case, they receive financial support from a prominent private equity firm keen to participate.
But while some collectors and investors see dollar signs, others are complaining about the collapse of their close-knit communities. Players who want to play in person again after the pandemic cannot find the game pieces they want. when the pieces are available, the prices have risen astronomically. Rising price critics have become targets of harassment from those who today view trading cards, comics, and video games as nothing more than a portfolio of stocks.
“Prices go up and access goes down,” said Brian Lewis, who runs a YouTube channel called Tolarian Community College.
The collecting craze has been fueled in part by a self-fulfilling cycle of YouTube personalities fueling the collecting hype and rising collectibles prices. This can lead to big paydays as advertisers notice the frenzy that is sparking among the influencer’s dedicated followers.
With more than 23 million subscribers, Logan Paul has made multiple videos simply opening boxes of vintage Pokémon cards, picking up the prices he paid, and generating millions of views. Australian YouTube personality Michael Anderson, nicknamed UnlistedLeaf, has garnered millions of views for similar videos.
“It may be an emerging industry, but it’s still big business. Brands want to reach these audiences, ”says Justin Kline, co-founder of Markerly, an influencer marketing agency. Based on industry metrics, he estimates that Anderson can make up to $ 50,000 in ad revenue unpacking videos, while Logan Paul may make six-figure earnings per video.
The hype has led collectors to find out if their Pikachu, Charizard, Mox Emerald or Ancestral Recall cards could be worth a fortune. To do this, they turn to grading services that have been inundated with jobs.
Beckett’s review service has stopped accepting cards for review unless the customer is willing to pay $ 250 per card for their ultra-fast processing service, usually reserved for the most expensive collectibles. The turnaround time for basic grading services is over a year, the company said.
In response to the record demand, companies are releasing new versions of the games, including premium products, at higher prices. It is not known whether the dynamic is sustainable, at least in terms of price. Other fads like beanie babies or pogs only exploded to the crater in the 90s, leaving most collectors worthless garbage behind. Pokemon and Magic have been around for decades and have seen strong interest before that.
Meanwhile, auction firms and valuation firms are making fortunes by riding the current speculative frenzy.
Brian Lewis is based in Portland and nicknamed “The Professor”, making several videos a week in hopes of introducing new and existing players to his favorite hobby, Magic: The Gathering. With more than 600,000 subscribers, he also comments on the state of the game, particularly the issue of rising prices, both in the secondary market (cards bought in store) and the prices companies charge for products like Magic.
“I am very concerned that these rising prices will have an impact on the average person’s access to the game,” he said. “There’s a growing group of investors in Magic, and I don’t think that’s having a positive impact on the game.”
But the frenzy goes beyond trading cards. The US Mint launched a 100-year anniversary collection of the Morgan silver dollar earlier this summer, which coin collectors consider to be one of the most beautiful designs of all time. The products were sold out within minutes.
Three weeks ago, an unopened copy of Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System sold for $ 2 million, making it the most expensive video game sold. Just a few weeks earlier, a copy of Super Mario 64 sold for the then record value of $ 1.6 million. An unopened copy of Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda from 1987 sold for $ 870,000 in early July.
Some members of the video game collectors community have questioned whether the prices paid are exaggerated by the involvement of third parties like Rally, which sells “shares” of collectibles.
Meanwhile, the trading card community sees their own high prices as players struggle to find coveted pieces to add to their collection.
A mint condition Black Lotus from Magic: The Gatherings first set, known as Alpha, which sold for more than $ 510,000 in January. That price is twice as much as a card in similar condition that was sold six months earlier in July 2020.
Austin Deceder, 25, primarily buys and sells cards on Facebook and Twitter as an intermediary between players who want to get out of their games and new players. From Kanas City he now travels full-time through the country to buy collections.
Deceder had a used Black Lotus card that he sold for $ 7,000 in September 2020. “Here we are now and the price of the same card has doubled.”
It’s not just the extremely rare cards that see inflation. Take the popular Magic: The Gathering card called Ragavan, Nimble Thief. The card, which shows a bespectacled monkey perched on a treasure, cost $ 30 earlier this summer. The card is now selling for nearly $ 90, Deceder says, as game stores reopened after the pandemic.
“Now that people can play in person, ticket prices are going up again,” he said.
Not everyone is happy, however. Some enthusiasts say the frenzy brought out the worst among fans and speculators. Nowhere is this more evident than with collectors of Pokemon cards with the motto “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!”
The excitement in Pokemon started late last year when Logan Paul shot his first unboxing videos, which only spurred other content creators to make similar videos and collectors to raise prices for new and vintage cards, said Lee Steinfeld, 34 , a longtime collector in Dallas who makes videos, including unboxing, under the name Leonhart.
“It all got really crazy,” he said.
Since then, boxes of Pokemon trading cards have routinely sold out at craft stores and large retail stores. Fist fights have broken out, with chains like Target having to limit the number of packs a single customer can buy. The Pokemon Company says they are trying to print as many cards as possible to keep up.
“Pretty much the entire Pokemon community has deteriorated,” said Shelbie, a creator of Pokémon videos known as Frosted Caribou on YouTube.
While most of Shelbie’s content involves unboxing or discussions about upcoming products, one of her most popular uploads was a one-hour video that focused on the issues facing the Pokemon collecting community since the frenzy began last year. Shelbie, who refused to give a surname so as not to be a target of harassment, said some of the community’s greatest collectors have been harassed in the past, especially when she has talked about prices.
Later this year, Pokemon will be releasing a set to celebrate its 25th anniversary. While normally an anniversary set would pique the interest of any collector, this time around Shelbie said she was hesitant.
“The set is going to be fantastic. It will also be impossible to get. It’s going to be really horrible, ”she said.
But the surge in interest has been good for businesses and Wall Street.
Hasbro’s division Wizards of the Coast makes the tabletop role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons” and Magic: The Gathering. Wizards reported revenue of $ 406 million for the second quarter, more than double last year revenue. Hasbro executives told investors in July that they would soon be raising product prices. Wizards has introduced premium card packs with harder-to-find tokens that sell four to five times more than regular card packs.
Wall Street has also ridden the wave of interest. Private equity giant Blackstone bought a majority stake in Certified Collectibles Group, a company that values collectibles such as trading cards, in July for $ 500 million. The company has doubled its number of employees since last year and is buying another 30,000 square meters of office space, said President Max Spiegel.
It is unknown whether this is good for the players who have had these hobbies for a long time. Longtime collectors are likely to make money in the future, but those who have recently entered these communities may be buying overpriced cards hyped by those who benefit the most, community leaders said. It’s not unlike the stock market craze that drove GameStop and other “meme” stocks soaring earlier this year.
“There’s a whole subculture now that Pokemon is using as an exchange. I don’t know how these people can look at the community and say this is healthy, ”said Shelbie.
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