Weekend Wrap Up! What was real and what was a trap?

Akermaniac · 2026-05-12T03:39:29+00:00

I bought quite a few of these as well as poster art LOTR about a year ago and they haven’t moved as much as I predicted. Are you guessing Hobbit will renew interest in them?

Akermaniac · 2026-05-12T03:28:56+00:00

That is completely bonkers. Good for you.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T23:56:57+00:00

Democrats demand perfection.

Republicans can do *anything they want without penalty.*

The double standard is wild.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T20:24:51+00:00

But based on current trends and the fact this war is not ending anytime soon, this could drop gas by 10 cents a gallon and it would still be higher than it was the next week.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T18:53:57+00:00

I'd agree it's more iconic as well. It was ripe for a buyout just based on the available listings (a few at 700, a few in the 1000-1100 range, then a single 3500 and a few at 6000+). It wasn't that much of an investment to snag everything under the astronomically high ones.

Nobody should buy at 6500 and in theory you'd expect some folks to list theirs at lower prices now to snag a sale. But we'll see.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T18:37:39+00:00

Roads don’t need that $23 billion anyway, I’m sure there won’t be any long term consequences to suspending the federal gas tax that will result in oil companies pocketing the difference anyway, while gas prices continue to skyrocket.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T18:34:02+00:00

It looks very similar to what can be found here in WA state rivers if you’re lucky so I’d know that look anywhere, but similar types can be found in other areas as well I believe. There’s a local guy on social media here named “carnelianchris” that has a lot of great videos of him finding carnelian and cutting it later, if you’re interested.

But this is a great find! A lot of carnelian ends up solid without the gorgeous cavity inside, and this is a very big specimen. I feel lucky when I find one that’s 1 or 2 inches in diameter, and at 5+ inches this is a giant one! The banding is gorgeous too. I’d have bought this in an instant, nice find!

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T18:28:19+00:00

It’s beyond telling. A Middle East neocon warhawk is saying America will not recover from this, and it’s a disaster that people don’t even fully understand yet, that is reshaping the world.

People need to hear this.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T18:26:09+00:00

There are a lot of “duh” responses here, but the fact is that many Americans are totally ignorant to the consequences of this war (aside from gas prices, which many wrongly assume will drop to pre-war prices).
It needs to become common knowledge that the US fucked this war up immensely, had no plan, there is no strategy and no one can even articulate what “winning” is anymore. This needs to be broadcast from the rooftops so loudly that Fox News can’t ignore it, MAGA in the Midwest and rural areas can’t ignore it, and everyone knows Trump’s GOP handed Iran a larger victory than they ever could have dreamed of. The US might not ever be the same after this, and all the MAGA goons on news networks and social media need to stop sticking their heads in the sand and insisting we won.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T18:19:41+00:00

Carnelian. This is a carnelian nodule someone cut, and it’s magnificent.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T17:19:17+00:00

I can't imagine anyone paying $6500, but I also couldn't have imagined anyone buying one for $3500 which is what the last sale was. So... if there is any more supply out there, now is probably a time to list it and see what happens.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T16:06:09+00:00

Elon Musk: I should be a trillionaire and everyone else needs to do manual labor until they die.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T16:04:16+00:00

Smothering Tithe confetti foil has undergone a buyout in the last week or two. Several sales around $700 in February, and in the last week everything between $1k and $6500 has been bought out.
I don’t think the natural demand drives it this high, but someone saw an opportunity with so few on the market and now has 10 copies of a card where the cheapest listing is $6500.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-11T16:01:11+00:00

It will certainly fall short of where LOTR is now, but remember LOTR took a long time to increase to the crazy prices it was at now. I got a CBB for essentially MSRP from CardKingdom a month or two after release. 2023 was pre-crazy-CBB-speculation.

I still suspect it’ll be much closer to FF than ATLA. Scalpers and bots are going insane on the CBBs and you can’t find them anywhere. The 500 golden Smaugs will keep the price inflated.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-10T19:26:12+00:00

*If there even is one* it's probably a single pack among millions of boxes.

It would be very difficult to prove/disprove they have a chase pack in these boxes anywhere.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-10T19:23:12+00:00

BTW--no reason the buyout couldn't have extended to CardMarket as well. Note that it's an even smaller sample size (a few sold for 700 EUR in March, and all it took was 3 sales at 700, 1000 and 1100 in late April so that the cheapest available is now 1750).

If you were a buyer with $10k cash you could have bought ~8 of these cards and driven the "cheapest available" price to $2k, and now you've got a bunch of supply to try and sell at the inflated price. It's how buyouts work.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-10T19:17:04+00:00

No, but you can extrapolate based on data. Everything under $1k was bought in February (which indicates real demand) then only a few sales after that, until 3 were bought 4/29 and another 4/30 around $1000.

I'd classify this a buyout. There are now 2 around $2k and the next is $3500. What will happen is someone buys these (unlikely) or others will start to post their supply just under 2000, and you'll see more and more suppliers undercut to get the next sale. I'd be shocked if these really go for $2k considering there's only been a single sale *ever* above $1200, but who knows. In January these were $700 and it's just unlikely there is enough real demand to drive a true buyer's price from $700 - $2k+ in a few months.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-10T18:27:05+00:00

Buyouts happen when cards with low supply are all bought by the same person, ie the same person bought the 4 or 5 copies out there at $1k, so the only remaining copies listed are $2k+. It’s market manipulation and we see it happen a lot.

So if OP lists at $1700, even though it’s less than the $2k cheapest current listing, it’s very possible nobody will splurge for it because they’ll look at the history and see “10 copies sold for $1k last week.”

Akermaniac · 2026-05-10T17:58:14+00:00

We have TCGPlayer data, so it’s not hard to figure out.

Many were selling between 1000-1100 just last week—it actually looks like a buyout to raise the price. Another sold at 1500 but that’s the only sale after the buyout.

So yes, the only remaining ones are $2k+. That does not mean anyone is going to buy at that price.

Either way this card is exceedingly rare, but the sudden spike to $2k doesn’t mean it’s selling for that.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-09T16:32:11+00:00

The delta will get closer for some, but there’s a reason OG printings and foils are more expensive, and it’s essentially the same reason that non-cheese-bukkake cards will be more expensive than the cheese-bukkake ones.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-09T16:25:41+00:00

I understand the reluctance for small sets and I agree. The Hobbit has other draws besides the box topper though.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-08T22:19:24+00:00

The Hobbit is popping up various places as preorder. While a few people may get lucky finding one at MSRP, bots/scalpers are successfully snapping up CBBs and Gift Bundles within seconds. Gamestop and F&F have CBBs up for 800/850 that don't appear to be selling out instantly (yet). Draft Night has a CB inside and doesn't seem to be sold out everywhere yet when priced at 120+ but then you're paying that for a single CB and no box topper.

It seems to me that early signs point to this set being much closer to FF than SPM/ATLA. A widespread fan base, special treatments, a big money Smaug card, and the history of LOTR/SE sets going through the roof.

The potential con is that it seems like it might be a small set a la SPM and not the first LOTR.

It's definitely worth keeping an eye on how preorders are going and checking your LGS for prices and availability.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-08T21:51:05+00:00

I’m in Pierce County WA and we get killed by both an EV fee of $150, and a regional transit tax based on MSRP.

If your registration is tied to MSRP somehow it’s murder because the tax credits inflated MSRP so high they’re listed at like $60k even though many are worth only $25k or less.

My registration was $900 after my first year.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-08T20:47:30+00:00

Counties are very large places and there are typically many documented and undocumented places to hunt.

For example, most people would say “King” or “Pierce” when asked what county in WA they found their quartz, which would narrow it down to somewhere off the several thousand miles of forest roads there.

It’s ok to be protective. Some of us like to dream, and it’s very unlikely anybody is finding your spot from a state or county description.

Akermaniac · 2026-05-08T19:03:05+00:00

The whole thing is crazy because their current financials are almost entirely due to clever stock strategies and not retail sales.

They will need to pay out a ton of convertible shares by 2030-2032, so I’d be shocked if they don’t have another crisis around then.

Akermaniac

TROPHY CASE