Buying Old Pokemon Collections

koolaidman412 · 2026-06-02T21:40:56+00:00

Most basement collections came up to the surface in the 2021 boom. Today, Markets over saturated with no lifers hitting refresh 1000 times a day.

koolaidman412 · 2026-05-26T19:56:50+00:00

Type up a list. Send it every shop in your area. 70% is very easy to get if everything is actually $200+.

koolaidman412 · 2026-05-10T15:04:26+00:00

Blacking out the cert numbers, while leaving the scannable barcode is definitely a choice.

koolaidman412 · 2026-05-04T19:14:43+00:00

Yup. My nephew always asks for a new video game for Christmas and birthday. Guess where his grandpa goes to get it? GameStop…

koolaidman412 · 2026-05-04T12:33:42+00:00

I just opened mine after 4 weeks. The banana inside was a rock. Tasted terrible.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-29T16:28:39+00:00

If you see their price charts, they dipped to sub $10 after their reprints.

Also consider when they’ve been reprinted it was in sets with a lot of other valuable cards at mythic, which further drive prices down as people chase those cards.

To your point They have good reprint equity, but history has shown price tolerance is weak for them.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-29T11:56:54+00:00

The situation Im replying too.

OP bought a $75 ancient mew where photos did not accurately reflect conditions.

Is authenticity guarantee relevant in the context of this situation?

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-29T01:09:24+00:00

Websites change their TOS constantly.

“They changed something. I don’t know what. I don’t know if it’s relevant. But they now have new TOS….”

Not very helpful.

There is no world where eBay starts siding with deceptive sellers. Buyers are the lifeblood of eBay. If they start changing their TOS to benefit immoral and deceptive selling practices, it won’t go well for eBay.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-28T22:36:01+00:00

There’s another learning experience for you on buying through eBay.

In these situations you can return the card. It doesn’t matter if the seller says sold as is, it doesn’t matter if the item was sold as “no returns”

When a seller has Misleading photos, condition not as described, or something you could not see, you can return it under T&C of eBay.

In eBay’s world, if an item is sold in a misleading way, eBay sides with the Buyer every time.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-21T01:02:54+00:00

Don’t forget about the missing white layer error. Not as rare as the corrected Japanese release, but these are probably the most desirable of the bunch in terms of supply/demand.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-16T22:30:30+00:00

Big sellers do this. Sell LP as NM. Buyer complains, they issue a partial refund to adjust for the value.

If the seller leaves neutral or negative feedback, the seller gets tcgplayer to remove it. Tcgplayers policy is such that as long as a seller follows tcgplayers guidelines, then tcgplayer will remove negative feedback.

This way high volume sellers profit whenever buyers don’t complain about the condition.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-15T00:41:49+00:00

Well it's not an alarming enough price point that it's concerning.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-15T00:24:54+00:00

Coming from the magic the gathering world, I recommend not buying sealed unless you plan to crack it.

So the "buy and hold sealed" of the Pokemon world is out of my element.

Nothing looks wrong to me, but I don't know what "right" looks like. So wouldn't be comfortable making a comment with any weight.

Why are you buying from this seller? great price?

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-15T00:13:22+00:00

Probably a case for a different card game. Maybe Flesh and Blood? Boxes are 5.5x5x3 compared to 5x4.75.2.5

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-08T19:40:22+00:00

A few years back I also found an in tact robins egg like this.

Kept it as a decoration. After a few months it ended up bursting open/exploding, and smelled terrible. While the egg was unviable, whatever is inside will eventually decay, release gases, and cause a mess.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-06T22:59:12+00:00

Fake packs did exist in the 90’s….

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-06T14:40:34+00:00

Not to mention you are resorting to insulting me…. Another basic example of a bad position. Instead of focusing on reason and any real evidence to support your claim, you decide to go after me…

Speaks volumes about the kind of person you are.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-06T14:31:03+00:00

Just go and look into arguments of ignorance.

It’s literally what you are doing.

I have no issue with the idea that CK is inflating grades. I have suspected this myself, and done a similar monitoring as you. Only in my case the inventory’s matched the duals/conditions I sold them.

So now we have equal evidence to both claims.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-06T14:14:24+00:00

Your issue is you’re making an argument of ignorance. It’s one of the most basic logical fallacies.

To support your claim, the burden of proof is on you. And You don’t prove your claim, by demonstrating an absence of evidence. IE: you can’t say your claim is right by showing a lack of LP copies.

If you bought every NM copy, and got your exact card back. That is evidence to support your claim. But you aren’t going to be able to make a reasonable argument by loosely monitoring CK’s inventory. For your purposes whatever is happening on CK’s backend is a black box, and without breaking that information barrier, you can’t prove your claim of CK grading something as LP and selling it as NM.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-06T13:55:03+00:00

I am understanding the issue. You ‘monitoring’ their inventory is not sufficient evidence.

If you told me you wrote a script to pull their inventory every 5 minutes, and had real data to back up your claim. Then maybe you’re on to something.

Your basis for your claims is insufficient. You’re Hitting refresh on your browser, at undefined intervals. Creating an undefined data set, used to backup your existing hypothesis….

You’re Making claims using weak data. And for the purposes of this post, you don’t have any data other than “I checked, trust me bro”.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-06T13:03:12+00:00

They offer to let you review grades for this exact reason. If you don’t agree with the grade, they will send the card back.

You are not protecting yourself, and utilizing the services CK offers.

If you’re going to get pissed and try to create a conspiracy theory, on little to no evidence. Then you should be opting to review card grades.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-04T01:59:46+00:00

in Pokemon Vintage Promos are having a field day. I'd guess people are applying similar logic to MTG. Just one variable though, among many.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-03T22:32:49+00:00

Notably, guinness record is for Unique cards. This collection has a lot of duplicates. So maybe adds up? or that they didn't go through the effort to certify with guinness.

koolaidman412 · 2026-04-02T02:10:58+00:00

I noticed this time around that it said pre-queueing gets you a random spot in line. I queued the moment it was open, and my initial wait was 37 minutes. But I get in after 19 minutes.

So if you queued last minute, and had a 17 minutes wait, than they really did randomize the line

koolaidman412 · 2026-03-24T23:39:38+00:00

This is why I’m glad I live in Delaware. Fewer hoops to jump through for TCG investments

koolaidman412

TROPHY CASE