Japanese pokemon packs advice

[Mossberg 930 JM]

Greeting all,

Back in the mid/late 90s I wad on a trip to Tokyo. I was wandering around the city when I happened by a strange looking store with what I know now to be pikachu as basically the front doors. There was a large line of Americans waiting to go in. I asked one of them what this was about and he told me these cards were in demand in the US. I had never even heard of Pokemon but I decided to buy a bunch to give away as Christmas gifts to nieces, nephews and their friends. To make a long story short I ended up buying around $2500 of Pokemon stuff. I gave away about half and the other half have been sitting in temperature and humidity controlled storage. Recently I found these (pic below) while looking for something in storage. I have many more of these somewhere along with a stack of vending sheets and giant metal buttons about 4 or 5" in diameter. So, as I still don't know anything about Pokemon, I would like to ask a couple of questions in terms of investment.

1) I've noticed that some cards are worth quite a bit of money. Would it be worthwhile monetarily to open some of these packs for individual cards? Or, as time goes on will sealed packs be worth more as more of them are opened and packs become rarer?

2) I have noticed that some packs are encased in hard plastic and graded. Is it worth while to do this with my packs? Where would I go about doing it? What is the cost for such service?

Many thanks to all of you for what advice you can offer.

 

[donavannj]

Greeting all,

Back in the mid/late 90s I wad on a trip to Tokyo. I was wandering around the city when I happened by a strange looking store with what I know now to be pikachu as basically the front doors. There was a large line of Americans waiting to go in. I asked one of them what this was about and he told me these cards were in demand in the US. I had never even heard of Pokemon but I decided to buy a bunch to give away as Christmas gifts to nieces, nephews and their friends. To make a long story short I ended up buying around $2500 of Pokemon stuff. I gave away about half and the other half have been sitting in temperature and humidity controlled storage. Recently I found these (pic below) while looking for something in storage. I have many more of these somewhere along with a stack of vending sheets and giant metal buttons about 4 or 5" in diameter. So, as I still don't know anything about Pokemon, I would like to ask a couple of questions in terms of investment.

1) I've noticed that some cards are worth quite a bit of money. Would it be worthwhile monetarily to open some of these packs for individual cards? Or, as time goes on will sealed packs be worth more as more of them are opened and packs become rarer?

2) I have noticed that some packs are encased in hard plastic and graded. Is it worth while to do this with my packs? Where would I go about doing it? What is the cost for such service?

Many thanks to all of you for what advice you can offer.

1. Not usually worth as the odds the packs you have will actually have them are very low.

2. Not worth unless you're confident your packs would earn a 9 or 10 grade. The preferred grading agency in the Pokemon TCG community is PSA.

 

[Mossberg 930 JM]

Thank you for your helpfull reply. I will send one or 2 pack to PSA to get an idea of how my packs will be graded overall.