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What will happen to PSA if/when the TCG bubble bursts?
craig44
Posts: 13,281 ✭✭✭✭✭
I just checked out the new gemrate numbers for october. PSA graded 2.79 MM cards for the month. of those, 912k were sports and 1.88 MM were TCG.
now I know that TCG/Pokemon are all the rage right now. but...
there were 10 Billion Pokemon cards produced from March2025-March2026. I would guess that with the 30th anniversary this year that number will increase. That is a LOT of cards. 85 Billion in 29 years.
when collectors/flippers look closer at those production numbers, do you think the craze will continue?
if not, where does that leave PSA? 2/3rds of their business is pokemon/tcg.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
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it is the cycle of life & business that all things go up AND down. Sooner or later there will be a correction. No way to tell when though...
I agree. Based on making quarterly records I'd guess they're thinking if/when that happens that'll be someone else's problem to solve. They'd better hope it's years into the future.
2014 220,000 TCG graded cards
2025 7,500,000 TCG graded cards.
Yea that pokemon bubble is huge.
I got a card graded for fun, PSA 10 2026 POKEMON POR EN-PERFECT ORDER 104 MEGA ZYGARDE EX ULTRA RARE
It's hardly worth grading.
When I got it graded there were 350 PSA 10's. Now it's over 1,000 PSA 10's for a card not worth grading.
The market is nuts right now because everyone thinks they missed out.
Llamas and alpacas are camels. They aren't like camels, or related. They are camels. When was anyone going to tell me this?! How long had Bill Nye been holding out on us?
Will not burst. Those people will be billionaires in about 3 years. Mark this post calling it now.
Grading monopolies will be owned by collectors as Pokemon will be currency then.
Wait that did happen I think
Sorry what? This bubble will pop, they all do, the foolish part is trying to call the ‘when’.
If the bubble bursts, PSA will crystalize itself and vanish into the stratosphere. Sparkly bursts of color will fill the sky creating a rainbow of happiness above the faltering planet. People will dance in the streets or just aimlessly walk around mumbling in mixed languages to themselves. It could be Armageddon or the first day of spring training, but we won't know until it happens. All of the unused holders will be contracted out to build shelters for the less fortunate. They shall remain unlabeled.
A gembryo is the early developmental stage of a perfect card.
While it sucks we can't get our cards graded, I think the TCG?Pokemon think is great for cards in general. It makes people aware. Probably brings back many who thought hey had out grown it. ANd makes it kind of a "cool" thing to do versus maybe a nerdy thing to do.
The more the merrier. Definitely puts a big circle around the pre 1992 cards (cardboard), especially 1975 and back. Look for those in PSA 8 and up just to keep trucking fast. Not many around and the centered ones will bring a haul.
TCG still means topps chewing gum to me.
PSA will have to lay off billions of employees and the entire economy of the solar system will crumble.... IF/WHEN the TCG bubble bursts.
If the bubble bursts Japan will have a short recession.
PSA may have to lose some staff.
And suddenly there will be a wave of collector who are underwater.
Might rebound on natural momentum.
Llamas and alpacas are camels. They aren't like camels, or related. They are camels. When was anyone going to tell me this?! How long had Bill Nye been holding out on us?
With all the TCG cards out there and being graded it feels more like that entire thing is a bubble similar to the junk wax era than PSA and grading.
Sooner or later those numbers become unsustainable like any pyramid scheme. It just gets too big for folks at the bottom to keep thinking they're worth buying.
You know that it's just Pokemon being graded in stupid numbers.
Where a pokemon single card not worth grading has 1000 PSA 10 examples, an entire set of Magic the Gathering cards might have 400-1000 cards. And a YuGiOh set may have 8-10 graded examples across the whole set.
It's pretty clear to me that Pokemon is the bubble.
The spike in the photo I post is the Pokemon 20th anniversary set. So even when a pokemon event happens it leaves a huge mark on the TCG side of the hobby
Llamas and alpacas are camels. They aren't like camels, or related. They are camels. When was anyone going to tell me this?! How long had Bill Nye been holding out on us?
Just by comparing 2020's 1.5million against 2025 8 million it makes the market look pretty bubble shaped.
Especially when 2014 was the first year to break 200k cards graded and 11 years later its 8,000,000
Llamas and alpacas are camels. They aren't like camels, or related. They are camels. When was anyone going to tell me this?! How long had Bill Nye been holding out on us?
"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." - John Maynard Keynes
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
it certainly has a junk wax feel to it
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Same here
I think there are some differences today than in the JWE too which are not insignificant. There is a modern speculative market in Pokémon too but there’s also a growing collector base and much more liquidity today which makes it less of a speculative bubble than it may be in segments.
There are a lot of complaints about PSA grading prices but the value for most cards is better than it was in 1990 even if it’s not cost effective to grade all your commons.
Yea but they have refractors..etc... how u been ... im back Colecting Rod Carews ...!!
H
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_from_Panama
Exactly. I remember all the dads in my neighbourhood “investing” in sportscards and how scarce 90 UD Hockey felt because the demand was huge. Dads scrapping for boxes at Costco. This is just that, these easily accessible huge print run Pokemon cards will suffer the same fate. Greater fool theory, at some point you run out of fools willing to buy and grade this stuff.