clem84
Gold Member
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the value of many things has gone up tremendously. Real estate for one has gone up in many places. Anyone who follows the world of retro games will know that prices have gone up a lot in the past year, even for games that have been released not too long ago. Some Switch games already go for $200+. I've never seen this before in my life so soon after a game's release.
I went to this friend of mine yesterday. First time seeing him in over a year because of the pandemic. He had been collecting Hockey cards since his childhood, for over 35 years. He had a wall full of binders, close to a hundred of those 3" thick ones, full of cards. He had been looking to sell for a while.
He told me at the beginning of the pandemic he was afraid the value would go down so he wanted to sell quickly. He eventually sold it for 25k. He told me at the time, that's pretty much what it was worth. Maybe he would've been able to get 30k but not much more. He told me right now, a year later, his collection would be worth 3 times as much. He said the Wayne Gretzky rookie card was worth around 700-800, now worth 4k. He was a little depressed talking about it. I tried to cheer him up saying there was no way to predict this would happen.
So why is this happening? Why has the price of collectibles gone up so much in the past year?
My purely speculative guess is that many activities have stopped, or were dramatically scaled down. No more concerts, no more restaurants, no more bars or night clubs, most leisure travels, local and international, have all but stopped, to name but those. The people whose job was affected by this, received help from the government. The people who continued to work and whose salary was not affected, had all of a sudden lots of disposable income ready to be spent on the used market, which drove up demand. Demand went up, supply stayed the same so prices went up accross the board.
That would be my explanation for it. Is that it? Is there some other reason I'm missing here?
I went to this friend of mine yesterday. First time seeing him in over a year because of the pandemic. He had been collecting Hockey cards since his childhood, for over 35 years. He had a wall full of binders, close to a hundred of those 3" thick ones, full of cards. He had been looking to sell for a while.
He told me at the beginning of the pandemic he was afraid the value would go down so he wanted to sell quickly. He eventually sold it for 25k. He told me at the time, that's pretty much what it was worth. Maybe he would've been able to get 30k but not much more. He told me right now, a year later, his collection would be worth 3 times as much. He said the Wayne Gretzky rookie card was worth around 700-800, now worth 4k. He was a little depressed talking about it. I tried to cheer him up saying there was no way to predict this would happen.
So why is this happening? Why has the price of collectibles gone up so much in the past year?
My purely speculative guess is that many activities have stopped, or were dramatically scaled down. No more concerts, no more restaurants, no more bars or night clubs, most leisure travels, local and international, have all but stopped, to name but those. The people whose job was affected by this, received help from the government. The people who continued to work and whose salary was not affected, had all of a sudden lots of disposable income ready to be spent on the used market, which drove up demand. Demand went up, supply stayed the same so prices went up accross the board.
That would be my explanation for it. Is that it? Is there some other reason I'm missing here?
Last edited: