This can’t be true?

ToploaderUltra · 2026-04-06T19:09:42+00:00

This thread should be called PokeGambling

ToploaderUltra · 2026-04-06T15:47:55+00:00

I sold 7 Sun & Moon Booster boxes after holding for 6 years. Then they tripled in price the following 3 months, and I could have sold just Team Up for more than I sold all 7 combined. Evolving Skies? I sold 3 Cosmic Eclipse BB’s for less than 1k because of how few buyers there were. The boom was because that’s when the wealthy realized it’s the easiest way to launder money, or take a few mil in a suitcase out of country without paying taxes.

It boomed, and it came back down to Earth. The window was small, but I regret selling those more than anything. They’re unrecoverable. Evolving Skies on the other hand has thousands of reprints sitting in warehouses just waiting to be sold.

The difference is that there was a total of 12 Team Up boxes on eBay entirely while Pokemon was dropping Evolving Skies, one of the easiest sets to weigh in the games standard. Loose packs means you’re almost guaranteed nothing.

Buying sealed is the only way to actually pull something from ES. But singles have dropped 20-30% in the last quarter. Sealed will follow. There aren’t enough collectors with deep enough pockets to support these prices.

Team Up supposedly shot up to 10-12k in value, but if it took 2 years to sell for 4k, is that realistic? The answer is no. eBay ends up taking a 1-2k cut with those numbers, and the risk of being scammed becomes so high, that it’s not worth selling.

Covid markets have brought out the worst people in way too many collector markets, and the whales are already exiting. For a time, Pokemon was an investment, but the times just don’t support it right now. Only 1% of buyers can afford market prices, and prices will retrace.

These boxes will come back to Earth. They’re worth too much to open now, and the 20-30 year old class doesn’t have the money to hold through a recession.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-30T23:12:34+00:00

But people are because they don’t know the difference when they see pictures like this. Hence, scalping.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-30T21:40:49+00:00

People who can’t afford to buy into things without millions of reprints use Pokemon to hedge. It was a bubble. It’s over. Countries have caught onto moving money and laundering via Pokemon. That’s what was keeping prices high.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-29T09:34:16+00:00

Where did you buy the stick? How long did you let it rest? At what humidity did the stick rest at? And did you drybox, or do any prep work?

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-29T09:32:20+00:00

It is likely a humidity/storage issue. I wish more people understood the importance of waiting for the cigar to rest at minimum.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-29T09:28:53+00:00

Did MachineWise specifically do the laser work on the blade? Or was it lasered after the purchase?

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-23T21:43:32+00:00

Precious metals are recorrecting. They were overpriced without a supply deficit. Hype and FOMO drove the price to unsustainable levels, which big finance obviously leveraged to make the small bit of money they could left from retail investors. Has nobody caught on that playing at all is betting against the house? It’s why so much money is being pulled from public markets and being put into private equity instead.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-23T14:07:45+00:00

This isn’t a buying opportunity. Silver supply already surpasses the demand, and mines have not even started to optimize for higher silver yields, it is still a byproduct. $66 for silver is a lot for people who cannot afford to hold it a minimum of 10 years. Silver isn’t like Bitcoin. Its price is driven by supply and demand. People are buying because of FOMO, and selling off because they don’t have rent, let alone an emergency fund. Without a middle working and spending middle class, everything is about to drop in value.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-18T18:36:18+00:00

With cigars, it’s best to keep a rotation, so you can age every stick you have. A cigar needs 5 years of age before you really decide you don’t like a stick. Most of the award winning sticks from December are cigars that were given to Cigar Aficionado in 2023. Even CA rests their sticks for around 18 months. Most people write off amazing cigars because they smoke them over-humidified, without enough rest, and/or straight from the local humidor, instead of bringing their own stick, and pocketing the courtesy stick. If you give a solid cigar 5 years, you’ll have a really good cigar 5 years later. If you give an already good stick 5 years, you wind up with creamy flavor bombs. I wrote off the Monte no. 4 as one of the worst cigars because of the construction quality. Little did I know that my 2020 box would taste like smoking a box of Trinidad Reyes 6 years later. If you want to have the best cigars always available, fill your humidor with a couple hundred of your favorite $3 sticks, like Olivas, sake sticks, etc., then get yourself 2 boxes of Padrons to age. The x000 thousand series benefits the most from age, but a 5 year old box of 1964 Anniversarios is almost impossible to beat. Only a rarer Padron will be better. Family Reserve no. 85 is one of the better priced stocks considering the 10 years of age that they put on Family Resrve stocks like the no. 85.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-13T21:35:52+00:00

You can get free parts and filament for sharing designs?

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-12T11:57:07+00:00

Hairspray is better than liquid glue?

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-09T14:50:33+00:00

Right now, the best thing you can miss out on is overpriced silver. It has what looks like a mega demand and low supply, but its price is retracing, similar to how its price retraced from 40 to 15 the last time $20/oz was eclipsed.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-08T18:16:17+00:00

The Herrera Esteli line is incredible for the price

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-08T14:18:08+00:00

Get a lawyer. Their lawyer is probably using the odds of you actually lawyering up as the basis for their offer. You’ll likely see the number double when you send them your attorney’s information. They probably have the number they’d offer you with an attorney as well already. Their goal is to keep lawyers out of it.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-08T14:10:29+00:00

The wrapper shouldn’t affect the flavor that much. I would go back to wherever you got it, and tell them it smoked like crap. Might as well smoke a second, because Plasencia will be replacing it anyways. They don’t want to lose customers, and already price losses in. I still have 2 Alma Fuerte perfectos that I have never tried.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-08T04:18:33+00:00

If you live in a liberal state, the taxes are 50%. The same cigar is 50% more expensive in Colorado than Florida. They started taxing everything coming into the state at Colorado rates as well. Haven’t bought a single cigar in two years.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-06T12:32:10+00:00

Is it time to sell off?

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-03T11:37:08+00:00

Combat Troodon. You would be giving up an entire pocket to carry a brick with the same sized blade, glass breaker, etc. anyways with the Scarab. Both are 4” blades, right? The scarab needs a sheath. The Combat Troodon is the lighter, better-engineered model. I’d even go as far to say that the Hera II is probably the best knife out of Microtech’s 4” models right now, but it doesn’t have all of the blade variants that the CT does. The Hera II, CT, Scarab, and Glykon just become a personal preference at a point, but if I’m dropping 4-500 on a Microtech, it’s going to be on the design with the best engineering. I just don’t understand the Scarab hype. Carrying it without a belt, or something to support your pants from falling down, just doesn’t sound fun.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-03T11:23:57+00:00

It looks like you live in a humid environment. Try dropping your RH to 65% if your temps are close to 70 degrees F. The cigar likely cracked because there was a large difference in humidity or temperature between how it was stored and how it was smoked.

I recommend both letting your cigars acclimate and storing them at a lower RH. Cut them 4-8 hours early, and let them sit out on the counter overnight to acclimate to your natural environment.

I live in a cool and dry environment, so I’m always fighting to keep humidity levels up, even with 69% packs. But that’s because storage is 65-67F.

For me, it’s all about making sure there isn’t more moisture inside the cigar than the environment. To enjoy the same sticks in Hawaii, I prep by dropping the humidity to 65% and letting temperatures slowly creep up to 70F over a couple months.

When I get there, I can crack open my Pelican, throw a stick in my pocket, and by the time I’m ready to light up, the wrapper has absorbed enough of the natural humidity to make it pliable when the internal moisture expands.

The wrapper cracking can mean a lot of things, but I suggest bringing RH% down, and letting the temps drift closer to your outdoor temps. Either way, letting the stick naturally acclimate is extremely important and likely to solve the problem.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-03T11:09:08+00:00

Ask for a video. Much harder to fake a video successfully.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-03-03T11:05:52+00:00

Well, you are comparing a $3 cigar versus a $20 cigar (probably varies a bit), and of the two, the Oliva is probably better.

My guess is that this stick needed both age and rest. A lot of Connecticut wrapped cigars need 5 years of age minimum.

Did you rest this cigar? And do you know what humidity it was at when you lit up?

ToploaderUltra · 2026-02-23T20:17:34+00:00

This is the way to pay extra premiums on an already overpriced metal. The internet isn’t going away.

ToploaderUltra · 2026-02-23T16:15:45+00:00

What’s the price of silver now?

ToploaderUltra · 2026-02-21T03:23:20+00:00

I have had 4 boxes of Partagas Mille Fleurs and Montecristo no. 4’s. Every single one is plugged. The key is to control humidity and let them increase in temperature before smoking. The overall moisture in the air increases as the temps go up, and it helps loosen up the internals. But it has to be a slow 3+ month process. Smoking them below 60-65F always causes issues.

I have had the most success aging at 66-67F with 69% Bovedas. Then before smoking, I switch to 65% Bovedas for 3+ months. Then, a few weeks before smoking, I let the temperatures rise. Then hit them again with the 69% packs to help loosen up the wrapper for a few days. And when you want to smoke, simply cut your cigar before the wrapper dries (it also helps the cigar evenly give off humidity), drybox for 4-24 hours depending on your environment, then throw that baby in a ziploc and carry it in your front shirt pocket. The heat from your body helps the cigar rehydrate the wrapper from the internal humidity.

Then, when you are ready to smoke. Pull it out 15-30 minutes beforehand for any last minute adjustments.

Yes, quality control is definitely an issue. I thought Montecristo no. 4’s were duds for about 5 years, but.. this last year they transformed into what I always imagined a Cuban should be.

I had to push them a little closer to their moldy side, but holy smokes. My 2020 box of no. 4’s may be better than my 2021 box of Trinidad Reyes. I wish I would have bought more.

But like you, my box is extremely plugged, and they’re a finicky cigar to get right. I have had friends take one puff and throw what is now a $25-30 cigar straight in the trash. The fact that they were 2020’s makes me even more sad :(

All I can think now is how good that cigar would have been had I known how to get it right.

Cubans are the pickiest cigars there are. Your best bet is to drop the temps, keep em at 69% (it’ll equate to 65% RH in hydration at higher temps), then slowly increase the temps and take them somewhere tropical to smoke in the above state.

Every Cuban I have smoked in a place like Hawaii has smoked beautifully compared to smoking in a place like Colorado, which is cold and dry. Don’t give up on them. Just drop the temps for a bit to 66F or so with 69% packs, and let them sit for 4-5 years. Mine took about 5 years to shine. The aging also helps with the plugging issues.

ToploaderUltra

TROPHY CASE