You guys need to read this because it's one of the most honest things I've seen written on Pokémon TCG in years! The author starts by pulling their own Secret Illustration Rare Charizard - yes they actually pulled a SIR, which is incredible already - and then details how that card alone has rocketed from $600 at pull to nearly $900 just months later. And don't even get me started on the graded version: an identical card in gem mint condition currently fetches almost $2500 through PSA grading. This isn't some outlier, either; it represents a wholesale breakdown of traditional trading cards logic where value drops after release. Instead we have non-seriesed modern chase cards regularly hitting five figures and the entire market behaving not like collectables but as an asset class - which is exactly what I suspected!
The numbers behind this are genuinely jaw-dropping when you lay them out plainly, so pay attention because they tell a story bigger than just one expensive card. Between 2004 and 2020 values climbed 282% per the Collectors index, but the post-pandemic jump is where it goes off the charts - CNBC reports a massive 1350% surge from the 2020 high up to today! Look at TCGPlayer's top cards comparison: in late 2023 the most expensive pack card averaged around $115 and almost every top chase was double digits, yet by end-of-2025 those same chases sit comfortably in the hundreds. The Umbreon SIR ended that year averaging over $1000 and a Pikachu EX / Mega Gengar EX Sir each are already at well over $1350 as of mid-2026 - and there's a long list of other cards hitting triple digits too! Even the 2024 Bubble Mew card jumped from roughly $80 in resale to about $850 today, which shows how quickly recent releases appreciate.
But here is why this matters beyond speculation: it has fundamentally broken Pokémon for actual fans and kids who just want to play or collect sincerely. The author shares a message from 12-year-old fan Oscar - autistic kid whose social life revolved around the game - describing brawling adults outside toy stores and bots that clean out inventory before any real person can buy cards online. It's heartbreaking because it means normal families can no longer walk into a store and find Pokémon products, and kids are growing up in an environment where their favorite hobby is synonymous with scalpers fighting over boxes worth car down payments. The author correctly points out that the Merriam-Webster definition of 'hobby' as something done for relaxation and leisure doesn't apply here anymore; this requires job-like dedication at every level before you even get a chance to enjoy it! We have transitioned from collecting cards to participating in an economy where the cards are collateral, not toys, and no one should be surprised when that creates exactly the kind of toxic environment we keep seeing.
Source: https://www.nintendolife.com/features/opinion-by-definition-pokemon-tcg-is-no-longer-a-hobby
The numbers behind this are genuinely jaw-dropping when you lay them out plainly, so pay attention because they tell a story bigger than just one expensive card. Between 2004 and 2020 values climbed 282% per the Collectors index, but the post-pandemic jump is where it goes off the charts - CNBC reports a massive 1350% surge from the 2020 high up to today! Look at TCGPlayer's top cards comparison: in late 2023 the most expensive pack card averaged around $115 and almost every top chase was double digits, yet by end-of-2025 those same chases sit comfortably in the hundreds. The Umbreon SIR ended that year averaging over $1000 and a Pikachu EX / Mega Gengar EX Sir each are already at well over $1350 as of mid-2026 - and there's a long list of other cards hitting triple digits too! Even the 2024 Bubble Mew card jumped from roughly $80 in resale to about $850 today, which shows how quickly recent releases appreciate.
But here is why this matters beyond speculation: it has fundamentally broken Pokémon for actual fans and kids who just want to play or collect sincerely. The author shares a message from 12-year-old fan Oscar - autistic kid whose social life revolved around the game - describing brawling adults outside toy stores and bots that clean out inventory before any real person can buy cards online. It's heartbreaking because it means normal families can no longer walk into a store and find Pokémon products, and kids are growing up in an environment where their favorite hobby is synonymous with scalpers fighting over boxes worth car down payments. The author correctly points out that the Merriam-Webster definition of 'hobby' as something done for relaxation and leisure doesn't apply here anymore; this requires job-like dedication at every level before you even get a chance to enjoy it! We have transitioned from collecting cards to participating in an economy where the cards are collateral, not toys, and no one should be surprised when that creates exactly the kind of toxic environment we keep seeing.
Source: https://www.nintendolife.com/features/opinion-by-definition-pokemon-tcg-is-no-longer-a-hobby