What is the biggest lesson you learned so far in collecting?

I'm curious to find out what the biggest lesson is you learned in collecting pokemon cards/products so far.

I'll go first: Dealing with FOMO.

When I got into collecting modern cards, 'fear or missing out' really hit hard in the beginning. I had quite an information overload and was worried I was missing out on deals/sets/cards. Naturally I made some dumb buying decisions because of this. Sometimes I didn't really understand why I was buying something, but I just went with the hype.

This didn't feel right and instead of enjoying collecting I felt worried a lot.

I talked about this with

@Jesse Kroon

and he told me had the same issues in the beginning and gave me some really good advice on how to deal with it:

1) Stop watching too many Youtube videos where people over hype cards and news etc. Now I understand that Pokemon Youtubers are trying to grow youtube channels, and to do so they need clicks and views because they need to please the Youtube algorithm. To get views and clicks, some/a lot of them get tempted into hyping news/cards/rumours in their videos. Good to grow their channel, but not always good for my own state of mind. There are good Youtube channels out there, but to me it feels like for every good channel, there are 10 lower quality ones.

2) Understanding actually how long after release cards are readily available, which to my surprise is most of the time 2 years or more.

3) Knowing that it's okay to not have it all and miss an opportunity, if by doing so I prevent myself from overspending on cards/products because of FOMO.

4) Understanding when FOMO actually IS reasonable, which is usually the launch of a made to order product releasing on the Japanese Pokemon center. English products are much more readily available and the FOMO that people are feeling is a left over residue of the 2020 scalpers during the pandemic.

Just look at the Charizard UPC. Major fomo, price went up to €200+, now it's sold below MSRP.

What is the biggest lesson you learned so far in collecting?

22 comments