Pokemon at Gunpoint

Target has suspended Pokemon card sales because there has been too much unrest around them. Apparently collectible hobbies in general have gone on a tear during the pandemic and Pokemon has caused a problem because people are lining up at Target stores before they open, each man fully intent to purchase the entire inventory that is in the store.

There are cheat codes on Target’s web site that lets you see their inventory arrival date, so often there are a couple of dozen adult men waiting at the front door, looking to clean out the store for resale on eBay. At one Target a guy showed his gun, and Target decided they had enough. All sales online only for the time being.

My boys played prior-Pokemon-2012, before the company revamped the game. We’ve been out of it since.

There’s a level of absurdity to all of this. I’d be curious to know how many of these people have jobs.

A buddy of mine sold an old Pokemon card of his for $8,000 a few months ago. People are crazy.

A lot of collectibles are seeing huge spikes in interest. Baseball card grading services are swamped as people seek to have their cards professionally appraised; wait times are a year out or more.

There was an episode of the SOPRANOS where Christopher hijacked a truckload of Pokémon cards. Who knew they were ahead of the game?

I have an acquaintance that makes a big side living off collectibles. He says it's absolutely insane. Grading of his batches of products could take *years*.

But the already graded product he has is just making him insane money.

Hasbro unintentionally acquired Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons when it acquired Wizards of the Coast just to get the North American distribution rights to Pokemon.

I assume it's like collecting everything else; there's some money in it, don't get caught holding the bag when the market collapses (and it will collapse). Beanie Babies are the classic modern example. I have some my dad gave me, after he got caught holding the bag.

My brothers collected baseball cards, comic books, etc. I don't know how successful they were, but they're all still working for a living if that tells you anything.

RobertB wrote: I assume it's like collecting everything else; there's some money in it, don't get caught holding the bag when the market collapses (and it will collapse).

Many people know that the baseball card market collapsed in 1991 (due to oversupply) but what a lot of people don't know is during the following years (when sports card manufacturers scaled back, consolidated, and in some cases failed) that left a fairly big hole at checkout counters across America, space formerly reserved for sports cards. One of the companies that filled that gap? Wizards Of The Coast with Magic The Gathering.

So much of success (in life, business, whatever) really is all about timing.