for cards it’s artificial scarcity, and for lego sets it’s artificial scarcity with extra steps.

The pokemon cards timeline

A set released (surging sparks) where a couple of the SIR (Special illustration rares) were worth hundreds of dollars on the singles market. Just before Sparks was released, there was a set released containing exclusively pokemon from the original 151. These packs sat on the shelves for a couple months. There was hype for the sets, but only in the TCG community.

The price per booster pack of the 151 set was higher than the price per booster pack of the other sets due to it being a “side set” or one that only gets released in limited bundles. The only way to buy single boosters is to buy them from someone who opened up a bundle and sold them individually.

Costco starts to get exclusive bundles of 151 that cost around $75 but the price per booster pack is significantly lower than any other bundle available before.

At the beginning of this new run of costco bundles, there was no limit on how many someone could buy. People who were already making money buying bundles and reselling boosters started to buy entire pallets of these bundles as soon as the stores would open. You probably saw videos of people fighting in costco over pokemon cards. This is why.

Now these scalpers, as far as I have heard, were taking out loans to buy these costco packs. The supply dries up for anyone who isn’t there at 6am to line up and so these scalpers start to buy every pack of pokemon cards they can get their hands on from every retail store. Some of these older sets were even on sale at this point because there wasn’t the demand for the less exciting sets.

At this point people who play the TCG competitively (me) or just like to collect and trade their little shiny cardboard creatures (also me) have zero access to any sealed product at even MSRP because all the stores are sold out. TCG/hobby shops already charged a little extra because they actually get raked over the coals by the suppliers for not being able to order huge quantities. Suppliers are now getting extra orders from the major retailers like walmart because they suddenly had a run on all their stock and can’t stock it fast enough and literally cutting the orders of smaller stores in half.

Major retailers: Sold out, people have made deals with the delivery drivers and reps to get a heads up on stock re-ups and stores like london drugs(this is a canada only place i think) will have lines of people around the block before they open on resupply days. Hobby shops/independant retailers: having to buy from scalpers themselves just to keep stock on the shelves ans are often charging more than the guys on marketplace marketplace: 50-150% markup from MSRP for any pokemon card product.

I’m so baked i’m sorry if that was hard to follow I took an extra long coffee break yesterday to wait in line to gt the privilege of paying MSRP for stuff

it’s getting better slowly but all the scalpers are refusing to go lower on their prices even though demand is slowing because those of us who kept telling people not to pay more for cards are starting to get through to others.

Capitalism

millennials miserable + nostalgia commodified

Lego has always been expensive, they are just making even bigger sets now for adults. The rarity is them doing limited runs, so they can produce more new sets. r/lepin has resources if you want cheap good clone sets. I’ve built a few and they’re very good.

I’m a lot less familiar with pokemon, pretty sure its just scalped to hell and back. I vaguely remember this video giving some insight but its been a while since I watched so I couldn’t summarize it better then that.

Manchildren

Lego has been the same price for a couple decades now, about 10 cents a piece. The issue is that they’re catering more to adults now, so a lot of the sets are monsters with thousands of pieces that cost hundreds of dollars. The $10-$20 kits that my parents were willing to get me as a kid are mostly gone now.

They’re basically Bored Apes but with physical objects to obsess over. It’s an unlicensed securities market where supply is controlled by each company. Most buyers are just looking to buy “rare” items at low prices and sell later when the scarcity they help created drives up prices. If this was an important commodity it would be called commodities speculation, hoarding, etc.

Manchildren nostalgia paypigs with Beanie Babies characteristics epidemic

Adults started buying toys to a greater extent.

Production of a toyset is finite, they turn the factory into making something else.

The ones that become rare become worth a lot.

Like pokemon cards really.

Scalpers

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To anyone who wants a nostalgic Pokémon TCG fix on a budget (read: for free), check out the two Game Boy games^[1]. Tons of fun, banger soundtrack, and incredible renditions of the card art considering they’re on a frickin’ 8-bit handheld (see this great video to understand the technical and artistic mastery required to make it work, and check out the rest of that channel’s videos if you’re into Pokémon TCG).