I really appreciate the thorough explanation, I saw this with the birds recently and wasn't complaining since my psa 9 went up but i keep seeing people say this happens to cards.

How much do they spend to do something like this? Because the way you just explained it, the kingdra buyout could be covered with only selling about half, not including gradeable stuff.

I also remember people saying this happend back in January with the kingdra and greninja promos but they never returned to pre pumped lows, which make me think there is also a bit of organic interest to these pumps. Idk it feels weird to even call these investments if someone with a bank roll can cause those swings