How I managed to get my hands on a Prismatic Evolutions ETB
I got one! It’s been sold out since it released in mid-January. Actually, it was sold out even before being released.
The secret is that I went to Merida, a city in Mexico. The price is actually in Mexican pesos, so I paid roughly $90 for this box. It’s pretty neat that you can find cards anywhere in the world, and you get a really authentic experience. Unlike souvenir shops or fancy restaurants, which are geared towards tourists, a card shop should be very local because who’s going to another country just to buy Pokémon cards?
(I was too early to get a box localized to Latin American Spanish unfortunately.)
I think the fate of Pokémon Cards today can explain a lot of the economy. In a period of severely undersupply, prices go up. Even if The Pokémon Company are trying to sell products at a reasonable cost, it leads to scalpers buying up inventory and reselling at a high markup. And they do this because people will pay that markup, even if they grumble.
If my wages increase, I should be able to buy more Pokémon cards. However, if there’s not enough, then I end up competing with others over a small pie. And I am part of the problem as I am competing.
The Pokémon Company should’ve known that a set dedicated to Eevee would be huge. They already saw huge demand with Surging Sparks. They had to apologize for not printing enough cards this time.
Three years ago they bought a printer company so that they could meet the demand happening at the time and that did seem to work for a period. But now we’re seeing scalpers return and ruin the hobby for everyone.
I think a lot of economic stories are like that. There’s just not enough supply of houses, of eggs, of all kinds of things. We end up competing when there really should be enough for everyone.
This is a problem more complex than a simple political slogan. You can’t blame this on billionaires. I don’t think any billionaire is going to Costco and buying a bunch of cards. You can’t just tax the rich and make the problem go away. It’s a problem largely relegated to the middle class versus the upper middle class.
Tomorrow will be the release of the next expansion, Journey Together. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get any cards for a while. I should be able to, but it requires hard work and productivity to meet demand.
