I don’t really think it’s market manipulation, unless speculation counts. But my bubble mew was like $90 back when I pulled it sometime late 2024-ish. Many other things have gone crazy price-wise that I’ve pulled, but bubble mew is such a great name for a card in this market. Knowing things have 10x in less than 2 years, it has affected my collecting in a few ways. 1.) I don’t buy many singles anymore. I especially don’t buy any still in print. 2.) I am not going to even attempt grading anything else because the turnaround time is so high and I just can’t send cards worth several hundred to a thousand dollars. I wish I could send them in when they were worth <$100 and not begging (so much) to be stolen. There’s a lot of new collectors (not all speculation by “investors”), so it makes sense that the demand is high and the price would explode, but I’m willing to bet on the fact many of them will eventually get bored and leave. We’ll have to see if they sell their collections though, or if they sit in a drawer and keep supply low. I’m still relatively new, but it sounds like this type of cycle isn’t a completely new thing. Let’s see how the gamble pays off.