Putting Money Back into This Hobby

[yoshimoshi]

It's been a while since I have purchased Pokemon cards, over a decade, and I was thinking of possibly getting back into it. I'm sure that some of you are much more knowledgeable than I am in this topic. I was thinking of purchasing three boxes of roaring skies, and getting the rare ones graded. I have heard some people claiming that you can generally speaking not make money off of purchasing boxes and selling the cards as singles. Well what if you bought more than one box to help the chances of completing the set. I was doing the math

~$300 for three boxes of roaring skies
~$30 for bulk penny sleeves
~$700 to get a reduced rate from PSA to grade 100 bulk cards to get the price per card low
~$30 shipping and handing
~? sturdy card holders to ship in
~? ebay and pay pal fees to sell duplicates on ebay

I'm not really sure if you can get your money back. I was thinking of possibly attempting to get a few boxes to try and complete the set of roaring skies, and get the set graded as a complete set in PSA ten, yes this would be priceless and could possibly sell for thousands since you would be the only one with a complete psa 10 set, but the problem would be finding a binder.

Please provide me your knowledge and experience and trying to make a profit off of this hobby in the long run. As a kid I couldn't through around over $1000 into one hobby, but now that I'm much older it isn't a problem.

Let me know

 

[LOLZ]

It's been a while since I have purchased Pokemon cards, over a decade, and I was thinking of possibly getting back into it. I'm sure that some of you are much more knowledgeable than I am in this topic. I was thinking of purchasing three boxes of roaring skies, and getting the rare ones graded. I have heard some people claiming that you can generally speaking not make money off of purchasing boxes and selling the cards as singles. Well what if you bought more than one box to help the chances of completing the set. I was doing the math

~$300 for three boxes of roaring skies
~$30 for bulk penny sleeves
~$700 to get a reduced rate from PSA to grade 100 bulk cards to get the price per card low
~$30 shipping and handing
~? sturdy card holders to ship in
~? ebay and pay pal fees to sell duplicates on ebay

I'm not really sure if you can get your money back. I was thinking of possibly attempting to get a few boxes to try and complete the set of roaring skies, and get the set graded as a complete set in PSA ten, yes this would be priceless and could possibly sell for thousands since you would be the only one with a complete psa 10 set, but the problem would be finding a binder.

Please provide me your knowledge and experience and trying to make a profit off of this hobby in the long run. As a kid I couldn't through around over $1000 into one hobby, but now that I'm much older it isn't a problem.

Let me know

As define by Google-

hobby
noun
1- an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure.

job
noun
1- a paid position of regular employment.
2- a task or piece of work, especially one that is paid.

If you are trying to make money off a game, you should open a card store. Other option is to play the game during your spare time and have fun, do well at the game and win prizes, though you would have to win big to recoup expenses to obtain cards + travel.

 

[vaporeon]

I would say dont look at it as a money making hobby. Buy the cards and play the game since the community is much more richer than the money you could make. Making friends is the biggest of the fun. I recently went to a Pokemon tournament and saw all the people I haven't played with for over 2 years and the feelings I felt was just amazing. If you want to sell cards then you can Here at the Gym we have a way of allowing you to do so but you must first build a good reputation through the iTrainer system and ask for the permissions needed to sell here.

I say, since you're trying to get back into the game, build your collection first and spend here and there obtaining cards. I don't know what the pull rates are for the set. I've seen a box open on youtube that had 4 full arts and like 5 or 6 ex's but in the past, what you get in terms of ultra rares can be between 3 (2 ex's, 1 full art) or 10 (5 to 6 ex and 3 to 4 full arts)

Sorry for not being able to provide a better answer for you but those who want to sell for profit normally have large collections normally consisting of "meta" cards or other highly sought after cards like Gold Star Charizard.

 

[King Piplup]

The math won't really work out for you in the short run. Maybe in the long run the PSA grade would mean for something like Roaring Skies, but right now it's just not there. An awful long time to tie money up for a gain that might not be there.

 

[yoshimoshi]

I know that it is a trading card game, and the point of the game is to play it and have fun. Certainly the community part of it is appealing. Looking through my collecting of old Pokemon cards that I purchased back in the early 2000s, it seems that I had some first edition holos from the base set among others. I've seen how much these puppies go for on ebay. The problem is that there all beat up and would receive a low grade from psa and worth a fraction of the high grade prices. When I was a little kid I played with them, and had fun. Which is the whole point I know, but if I hadn't had done so these pieces of cardboard would be worth much more money. So I find myself in the position were I would be afraid to play the game with these cards, if I got back into collecting them, because it would appear to be something that devalues the cards greatly. So just given that information, I feel like if I started collecting pokemon cards again, I wouldn't be playing the game, but trying to complete sets and collecting, and selling off extras to work on completing different sets.

I'm just hoping to find a serious collector who collects Pokemon cards who can give me a run down on if they have made any profit, and if so how along with other advice. I see people on youtube who appear to be serious card collectors of Pokemon. They have videos of them sending off several batches of cards to PSA, and selling their duplicates online.

 

[Zing]

Currently printed cards will never appreciate in value as the older sets did. The reason cards from that period are worth so much in mint condition is that few people preserved them or bothered to "slab" them. At this point, you are hoping for a "greater fool" who believes the cards will be worth more in the future.

Also, as someone who has opened many many packs, I can see why slabbed and graded cards have high value. Most of the cards I pull have some edge wear straight out of the pack.

Also, three boxes is overkill. A single box and then some, and I am lucky to get a rare I don't have. The commons and uncommons are overflowing, even as someone who wants a full playset. It would be far less money to buy a box and then just buy what you need.

 

[vytieubao]

I say, since you're trying to get back into the game, build your collection first

 

[Jarofmayo]

If you plan on making money off a set, Roaring skies is probably one of the worst sets to be going for. The pull rates for the set are one of the worst from what I've seen. You can open a box and not even get a single FA.