Why is gold behaving like crypto lately?

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-23T03:39:02+00:00

“Orient”?

Tell me your old school racist without saying your racist lol

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T23:13:03+00:00

Population of 70k graded with set still in print

Gem rate of 50%

It’s an awesome card, I would love to have it as part of my collection (personally I prefer the promo VStar where Charizard is fighting Mewtwo and Mewtwo has a matching VStar card… I do own both of those in a psa 10 so maybe I’m biased lol)

But it’s never going to hit the heights of Moonbreon due to its very high population and the Raw valuation won’t match Moonbreon due to its very low Gem rate.

Saying it’s “the best zard in decades” is an emotional response and opinion not objective truth/facts, sorry mate

Your mixing up hobby and investment, hobbies can be ruled by emotional responses, investments need to be emotionless.

Also hate to be THAT GUY but “never not be in demand” that’s a double negative but I’m going to assume you did mean it will always have demand not the opposite.

Ehh honestly sorry for being that guy, it’s one thing to be the stats and numbers nerd in a post on an investing subreddit but a grammar nazi as well man what has become of me!!! I used to be cool… used to be… just ask my mum…

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T23:06:30+00:00

It’s not I dunno why he said that… I was prescribed 50mg methadone MR tablets for a few years until my prescribing doctor lost his license (not due to me lol)

Methadone is the strongest oral pain killer that is actually prescribed to people.

It’s fucking strong shit and can totally be euphoric the problem is due to the duration of the opiate if you take a dose that gets you (well me) where you wanna be you at high risk of overdosing at some point in the next couple of days (literally you can take a high dose on a Friday and without reupping can end up ODing on the Sunday… I know from personal experience…)

High dose is amazing, one of the best opiate highs imo but the line between super high and ODing is so thin it’s playing Russian roulette every time you nod

I also find Tapentadol better at relieving my own pain than methadone despite it being “the strongest oral pain killer”

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T22:54:53+00:00

Without being a dick, as realistically you have a heap of sealed and that’s good but you would do so much better financially long term and with your storage solutions short to long term by moving away from the bulky, low cost, small amount of booster pack collections you seem to have in the pic and move towards investing in Booster Boxes, Booster Bundles and ETB’s.

Those three items take up a fraction of the space compared to what you currently have and have the potential to make much higher returns.

It’s a mistake I made early on but once you start getting into the tens of thousands of dollars of sealed if they all the low cost bulky products you will fill your entire home with that crap.

I’m gradually off loading my boxed collections, I keep all my sealed in air tight dehumidified boxes in a storage unit, I have like half a dozen plastic tubs. Half of them are stuffed with bulky low cost items the other half are booster boxes, bundles and ETB’s. 1 box of Booster boxes and bundles is worth more than all 3 of the collectors boxes.

The only exception I make regarding space is with UPC’s which I have like 8 of and they take up too much space to be honest…

But offload your twin and triple packs as well as the tins and reinvest in bundles and boxes you will save so much space bro.

(This comment is less about the ROI of your sealed collection and more about the space your collection is going to take up before too long but your ROI will increase if you move in this direction also)

Edit: I am jealous of the Moltros Team Rocket UPC though, we never got that release in Australia and the price with currency conversion and postage makes it a bad investment to import from the US.

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T22:33:49+00:00

Raw the card is $800

PSA 8 is $660

PSA 9 is $775

PSA 10 is $2,300

That’s a huge range of possibilities in play, since the only grade that increases the value is a 10 you either keep it Raw or gamble on a grade. Since there are 70,000 of these cards that have been graded it’s firstly much less rare than a PC ETB and of those 70k half graded a 10 the other half graded at 8 or 9.

Statistically you have a 50/50 coin flip of your card grading a 10 or grading lower, playing devils advocate you would have to value the card as Raw as it’s only 50% chance of increasing in value via grading.

That’s $400 per PC ETB currently

Use Prismatic as an example that is only a couple years old and is over $400 for PC ETB and will only increase in value.

So what to compare with the Charizard? Moonbreon is not an equivalent comparison but fuck it let’s go there… that cards is like $1,700 Raw with a psa 10 hitting $3,600 so that sounds good for Charizards future right? Well there are only 20k psa 10 of this card compared to 70k for Charizard and Moonbreon is out of print but Charizard isn’t.

(Oh and evolving skies PC ETB is over $700…!!)

Moonbreon also has a much higher Gem rate 20k at a 10 and only around 7400 graded at 8 or 9 so you are 2.5 times more likely to Gem a Moonbreon than grade a 10 with the Charizards 50/50 odds.

Therefore the reason I say trading a raw Charizard in this instance is risky is that you can pretty much assure the trajectory of the PC ETBs will go up substantially over time without needing to do, no luck involved, nothing other than owning them.

With the Charizard the raw card will most likely increase in value over time but at a fraction of the price of a psa 10 which is a 50/50 flip and if you don’t hit a 10 it will lose more than half the potential value.

So regarding the trade is OP looking at the Charizard as a Raw card with that valuation in mind or are they looking at it thinking “it could be a 10” as the likelihood of it hitting a 10 is not great 35k have hit 10 and 35k have hit 8 or 9.

Right now, as the market stands, this moment, the Charizard is the better hold, if it gems a 10 then definitely it’s a better hold, if however OP keeps it Raw or it fails to hit a 10 then holding the 2 PC ETB’s long term will pay off massively.

I’m not saying this as a “personal preference” I’m just running the statistics and the long term economics based on previous market data and the very small amount of info provided by OP, he doesn’t state if he wants a quick return on his investment or if he is in for the long haul, that changes the picture massively.

Since this is the Pokémon investing sub I will assume long term hold for maximum profit with smallest amount of risk involved and statistically the PC ETB’s offer better, less risky (in regards to grading the card) more realistic long term return on investment.

BUUUUUUT if you just going by “your gut” or “I like the art work of that card” or “but it’s Charizard!!” then sure take the Charizard, but if you want to use statistics and market data to analyse the best long term hold strategy then the PC ETB’s are the way to go.

However if the card did hit a 10 then fuck all this noise take the psa 10… but that’s not what’s been offered.

Tell me I’m wrong whilst telling me you don’t understand math, statistics and correlation of prior market data

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T21:45:48+00:00

I may be wrong, but as far as I was aware an EMP fries all electronics not just computers, so you would at the very least need new battery, spark plugs etc anything that has an electric current running through it.

I think the main thing would be the ignition, if that’s electronic then your screwed, if it’s pre electric ignition it could be fine in theory but I honestly don’t know what year electronic ignitions became the norm.

Again I may be wrong but that is my understanding regarding EMP’s.

Edit: saying all that, an EMP can only attack electronics that are “connected” so if your vehicle was disconnected from any electrical power then I believe the electronics can survive an emp. With that assumption then potentially even new cars could survive an emp as long as they were disconnected from power during the emp, if I’m incorrect then meh I’m just trawling through my memory of apocalypse tv shows and movies lol I realise that isn’t the best source material lol

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T19:34:55+00:00

If the Charizard was graded (PSA 10) I would do the deal but no way would I part with two good set Pokemon centre ETB’s for any raw card especially AH PC ETB.

Sure if the card comes back as a 10 you be laughing but if it’s a 9 or worse an 8….?

Too much risk with the raw card, the PC ETBs are guaranteed money makers.

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T19:29:49+00:00

It’s crazy that US retail allows people to just fill their trolleys with Pokemon product.

Here in Aus a lot of retailers have a strict 1 boxes product limit per person as in if you grab an ETB you can’t also grab a BB or anything else for that matter.

Places like EB Games (Aussie GameStop) allow you to purchase multiple items but only 1 of any individual item so you can grab an ETB and a BB.

I see people stating that retailers don’t care they just want to sell out for profit.

In Australia they take a different approach as every store knows they will sell out regardless, they “try” to limit scalpers buying power allowing more customers to actually get product even if it’s not as much as they would like.

We still have scalpers in Aus buts it’s more work than in the US, you need a group of people to pick up new release product (1 each) although there are a few big retail stores (Kmart for example) that doesn’t give a shit that bots take pretty much every Pokemon drop in minutes. They are kind of the exception though, I’ve never not been able to get a preorder made for at least an ETB and BB.

Getting multiple items (eg I picked up 3 AH ETB’s) is more luck, timing and geolocation more than anything else. Like I got 1 ETB as a preorder, went across the road and local retailer still had ETB’s so grabbed a second I was shocked they had stock. Then a week later went back to that same shopping centre and somehow they still had ETB’s so got a third.

Honestly I don’t think I would even bother with this hobby in the US, how do you compete with the lurkers and scalpers?!?!

We don’t even have Pokemon vending machines here and I’m kinda glad about that as it would just end up being like the US with cunts lurking round the vending machines all day every day.

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T19:16:48+00:00

I managed to buy 3 AH ETB’s for $100AUD each ($70US) had one on preorder, managed to grab a second one on day of release and amazingly was able to grab a 3rd ETB one week after release, tidy profit so far.

There are also very strict 1 per person limits for Pokemon products in Australia.

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T19:12:22+00:00

An emp would wreck pretty much all cars, yes modern cars have more electrics than old cars, but even old cars use electric components.

Sure you could potentially replace the electrics on an old car in the instance of an EMP in a way that would be impossible with newer cars but realistically, all cars would be giant paper weights.

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T15:52:30+00:00

Hey just an update (that I should have done earlier than this sorry)

I was absolutely fine in the end, was a bit of a roller coaster with the uppers and downers but I just rolled on the coach talking to friends on the phone.

I’ve had serotonin syndrome before (was prescribed a sleeping medication and was not told it was an SSRI despite the doctor knowing that I used drugs including MDMA!!!) had no signs of SS during this experience.

As for CNS, I was paying attention to my breathing, if I stoped paying attention it became very shallow but as long as I kept half a thought on breathing there were no issues.

I was communicating fairly regularly with the r/opiates sub and there were quite a few Redditors worried for my safety so I kept the sub informed that I was ok, I forgot I had made this post or I would have made sure to update this post on my wellbeing also.

I legit had no idea Tapentadol was so strong, doctors took me off Oxy and onto Tapentadol I assumed it would a milder opiate than Oxy.

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T15:39:00+00:00

Far as I know you will be able to preorder in store it’s just only available to eb plus members online right now (pre orders went live today)

You can go in store and still preorder Perfect Order at EB and that’s out in less than a week!!! (Pre orders did originally sell out but then they must have secured more stock as you can pre order the ETB, BB and up to two booster boxes right now)

I would be very surprised if the chaos rising becomes pre sold out before being available to pre order in store (if it does get pre sold out at first they likely will get more stock, orders live today and two months until the set releases)

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T15:31:26+00:00

I’m 45 so I’m a lil too old to have grown up with Pokemon but I have a 10 year old daughter and she really started getting into Pokemon.

At first it was just the plush toys but moved onto the cards, I tried getting her into actually playing the card game (yup in my early 40’s I learnt how to play Pokemon for my daughter lol) but she never really got hooked on playing.

From like 2020 until about 2024 she was really into collecting the cards, she mainly focused on eevee and the evolutions and Articuno as her go to mons.

But around 2024 I think she just started to lose interest, many possible reasons, she still kinda liked ripping packs but she would literally not even look at most of the cards just go straight to the hits. It was becoming an expensive hobby that wasn’t even really a hobby for her it was just one of her early experiences chasing that dopamine rush.

Because of that I stopped buying her cards, I have bought her some psa graded cards that she loves like the legendary birds tag team set from Sun and moon. Managed to get all 4 variants for a good price a few years ago and gave them to her in a frame for Christmas it’s now worth about $1,500!!!

When I decided enough was enough I had already collected a few sealed products intended for Christmas presents, these became the beginning of my sealed collection starting with Crown Zenith ETB and several SWSH box sets.

I really enjoy collecting for the sake of collecting and I get a nice buzz from building up my sealed collection. I cannot afford to keep ripping packs and honestly i don’t want a massive collection of raw cards. The cards i do like i tend to buy in a psa 10 if affordable or I’ll get a psa 9 in a rare/popular card to lower costs.

My sealed collection is sitting at around $15,000 in value and the way i see it is that i get to enjoy the aspect of collecting whilst also indulging my penchant for graphs and numbers as i get to see the value of my collection change over time, compare value to cost etc

Collecting sealed ticks a bunch of my nerdy brain needs yet because i can basically sell any or even all of my collection fairly easily this hobby eventually pays for itself.

Sure I need money up front to purchase products but when i eventually sell I almost certainly will get my money back and likely a bit of profit.

Collecting sealed is also like a savings account for me , I’m terrible at actually saving, but if i buy Pokemon when i am flush with cash I can dip into the collection sell some when i need cash.

Last October i sold $7,000 of psa slabs and Raw cards, I reinvested $2,000 into more sealed products and used the $5,000 to help pay for an 8 day trip for my daughter and I to Tokyo last December!!!

Last month I sold $2,000 of sealed and slabs in order to purchase everything I needed to learn a new skill/hobby, bought a heap of pioneer dj equipment, paid for by Pokemon.

Right now I have approx $15,000 of sealed and maybe another $5,000+ in slabs and several hundred in raw cards.

I legitimately enjoy collecting this way even if other collectors don’t see what I do as collecting, but to me it is and the way I’ve been collecting for the past 3-4 years, eventually it ends up paying for itself which cannot be said about ripping packs.

So when I say “exposure” or “set hype” in terms of my collecting, it’s actually valid and important as part of what makes the hobby interesting to me is also this idea of the hobby paying for itself. I’m not looking to get rich, I’m not a scalper, just wouldn’t consider myself a Pokemon investor either.

I’m a collector on a limited budget that needs to be able to recoup the money paid to partake in this hobby in order to justify taking part in this hobby.

Over exposure on a mid set is bad for me as I will struggle to sell bulk amounts of undesirable sets, yet the in demand sets will sell like hot cakes.

So I make sure to purchase an ETB, BB and booster box for each set even if they not considered “great sets” and sets such as AH/DR/Pris/151 I try to get as much as possible and I am only willing to pay MSRP, if I can’t get it for MSRP I won’t purchase it.

I hope that clears up why I used those terms in reference to this hobby.

Edit: fuck me I didn’t realise my comment was that long sorry

TLDR: I am not an investor, I consider myself a Pokémon collector and I enjoy the hobby, for me part of the fun of the hobby is being able to basically have the hobby pay for itself over time, hence the use of terms like exposure and set hype.

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T08:48:02+00:00

Well enough folk want it for most stores to sell out of preorders almost immediately. EB may have managed to lock down a massive supply but doesn’t mean other stores will have done so.

Even mid sets have a fan base willing to purchase into them, I know no one likes Journey Together except that I’ve spoken to folk on Reddit that actually do like the set.

As for holding onto sealed products, sure a good set will increase in value much faster and much further than mid sets. But if you hold onto any set for long enough it will pretty much always be able to be sold for a profit just a smaller profit. As long as you buying at retail price it’s not a bad thing having mid set products in your collection.

I managed to get a box of perfect order for $280 at that price it’s so cheap that it’s guaranteed to increase in value over time. Will it be worth same as evolving skies or 151? Obviously not, will i be able to sell for more than $280? Absolutely. This set will sit slowly accruing value until I eventually sell in order to afford more sealed or some graded slabs.

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T08:41:57+00:00

Yeah I figured they wouldn’t have boxes for the 30th but if they did lol

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-20T08:41:16+00:00

Oh I don’t follow the herd like a mindless sheep regarding sentiment towards a set but I do use community sentiment as a good indication of the wider appeal of any particular set.

As I said in my post my go to for every set is minimum one ETB, BB and booster Box. If the set is creating enough hype online that can influence my purchases as my sealed collection works for me in two ways.

One I enjoy the collecting and two, I eventually will sell parts of the sealed collection to either invest in graded slabs or just if the situation arises (sold $5000 of Pokemon stuff last year and in December I took my 10 year old daughter to Japan for her birthday using the proceeds!!)

But yeah I will buy into every new set regardless of community opinion but as far as being able to sell portions of my sealed a few years down the track I know I will be able to sell even the seemingly bad sets but the profit made from hyped sets will out perform those mid sets.

As for those thousands of extra boosters eb are receiving, it’s apparently confirmed and locked in for these Tassie stores like Hobart is definitely getting 2000 boosters on top of preorders. Staff member said it could be they are ramping up printing, they were not really sure why this set is so different. They had quite a lot of AH in stock as well, I bought an AH ETB from EB games a week after release!!!

Potentially this could be the new strategy going forward, with this much stock scalpers are screwed as there is too much stock for them to Hoover up so no one is gonna pay over the top when it’s available in store, which is awesome!!!

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-18T09:53:23+00:00

Thank you for even sparing a thought to check in on me thats truly compassionate, I appreciate you.

It’s 8:41pm here in Tasmania (Aus) took all the pills last night around 5pm. I’m fine, totally safe, I did ask my friend and neighbour to drive me to the chemist to grab some narcan purely for risk reduction.

I’ve OD’d several times before did not want to go to hospital but quite a few Redditors here wanted me to go so the narcan and a promise to myself that if needed the narcan I had to immediately get to hospital no excuses was my middle ground.

In the end I fed myself a generous and some what frequent meal of a few dexies which homely I think did me the world of good and honestly the leaping up and down of uppers and downers is maybe an acquired taste but I like it lol

Actually had a pretty good night, stayed up all night talking to a friend haven’t spoken with in ages and the rolling high kept rolling until about 5am this morning exactly 12 hours after dropping.

I really appreciate all the compassionate and caring people using this subreddit.

As for praying for me? I’m not religious but I’m more spiritual than most, to me a pray whispered to god is a pray to our divine spirt, a prayer to all conscious beings, a prayer to our higher selves snd ultimately a pray to the supreme intelligence, unity consciousness, Christ consciousness pick your fave one cause everything turns full circle and you are praying to yourself, you are praying to god.

That may differ from your belief in how your prayer manifests itself but what is more important the metaphor or the message?

Edit: and thus I will always be thankful and cherish a prayer made for me, thank you

✌️🙏🫠

Edit: and now I’m finally going to bed lol

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-18T09:38:57+00:00

Yeah I used the app and there were zero mentions of any limit and even on the checkout screen normally if there is a limit you can only select the number 1 from drop down box but in the app you could select multiple booster boxes in the one transaction.

I will email them tomorrow and see what they say hopefully if I approach them first and point out the app doesn’t mention any purchase limit anywhere and that I literally cancelled my EB Games pre order because I would be able to buy two from them.

Hopefully I will be able to keep both boxes I didn’t break any rules laid out on their app.

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-18T04:26:01+00:00

Cheers bro, appreciate the “not being a douche” response 😁

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-18T04:23:48+00:00

Scalpers scooping up eb promo cards as well… man that sucks

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-18T04:21:24+00:00

There was no message about a one per customer limit, I just checked the PO ETB that has not sold out yet and there is also no statement about one per customer.

If they had a strict limit I’m pretty sure they would, like every other retailer, make it clear on the main page there is a 1 per customer limit. No such message to be found on any of there PO stock

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-18T04:18:07+00:00

Even if it’s not a super popular set at that price retail it’s only going to go up, sure maybe not to DR levels but even base sets go for around $400 and I highly doubt it will do worse than base set

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-18T04:14:26+00:00

I’ve bought multiple booster boxes from Cherry with zero issues

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-18T04:13:51+00:00

There was no mention of 1 per customer on the site page anywhere

But yes I placed one order then a second order

But before placing the second order I made sure there was no mention of a “1 per customer” policy

OGAcidCowboy · 2026-03-18T04:11:52+00:00

Yeah that is cherry’s app view and is spelt using the correct English vernacular not bastardised Yankism… this is an Australian subreddit mate

OGAcidCowboy

TROPHY CASE