Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Only by artificially creating new scarcity can we open the gap in the market price of these cards and create an opportunity to get rich overnight.

A few days ago, a Japanese card collection store put on the shelves their latest blockbuster product, a Pokemon exchange card, commonly known as "Twilight Liai", which sells for 1598 million yen, or about 810000 yuan.

Some readers may have heard that Bao Ke Meng Card has experienced quite crazy secondary market speculation in the past two years, and some rare cards have been hyped to sky-high prices, and there is still no sign of stopping.

The painter Pikachu, which was auctioned for $200000 in 2019, is usually seen as the starting point for the hype, except for out-of-print "girl cards" featuring lovely female trainers. Although the overall stock is OK, the circulation price is much higher than the average card.

As one of the most popular female characters in the series, Liliai's related cards are the darling of the collection market, each limited edition of the full picture version has been sold to a high price, "Twilight" is one of the rarest and most expensive.

The use of these Lili Aika cards in the actual battle is completely equivalent, and in the collection market, when each has its own price in March 2021, a Japanese version of "Twilight" sold for 1 million yen, which shocked many Japanese players at that time. A year later, a Japanese version of "Twilight" usually sells for nearly 3 million yen (about 150000 yuan) and is in short supply in the market. Even the traditional Chinese version with relatively low circulation has gone up with the tide and can sell for nearly 10,000 yuan.

In the previous domestic uproar of the "pure gold green eye white dragon judicial auction", the figure of the prosperous version of "Twilight Liliai" appeared in the same lot, which can be regarded as a side reflection of its collection value.

This dusk Liliai was eventually cancelled together with the pure gold blue-eyed white dragon. In addition to its own market value, this dusk Liliai was also accompanied by the signature of Naoki Saito, the original painter who drew the card, and was considered to be the only collection on the market, valued at 800000 yuan by the auctioneer.

In other words, a signature from the painter makes the card appreciate by more than 600,000 yuan.

The new generation of "sky-high price cards" has attracted a lot of attention, followed by the clarification posted by Naoki Saito on Twitter. The painter said that when he signed the card, he did not expect the card to be resold, and had no intention to participate in such hype. I'm afraid of the situation.

Someone tracked down the former owner of the card, a seller named Akira, whose Twitter partly confirmed the painter's claim that he had found Mr. Saito to sign the card at the MEGAMI exhibition in September and that he would "cherish this card for the rest of his life." However, just two months later, the card appeared in a high profile on the trading market.

Although there is the possibility that the person concerned will have to sell his card after a sudden accident in the past two months, the Twitter account was quickly cancelled after being asked about the matter, and it seems to have run away because the story was revealed.

Naoki Saito, who was disappointed, complained on Twitter: "Akira! I still remember your face clearly!"

And this is just the beginning.

As the news spread further, some domestic fans of juju cards noticed that this signature card once appeared on Douyin-- a Chinese in Japan called "Pokemonka in Japan" once posted a short video claiming to have bought some rare cards from a closed card store for 2 million yen, including this "Twilight Lilier" signed by Mr. Saito.

At first, the video was seen as proof that "Akira was planning to sell the signature card at the very beginning, and this dusk Lilier had already entered the market", but then someone said that he had seen the card on Xianyu and showed a chat with the seller-the other party admitted that the signed version of "Twilight Liliai" on Douyin belonged to him, and the so-called "picking up leaks" short video was just a live joke. He is considering selling the card at a price of 15 million yen.

At this time, there were several chats from "Douyin Dream President fan base". A person who called himself "Dream President" said he was looking for Saito's autograph. he did not think there was anything wrong with his practice of "the love of his forefoot all his life and reselling his hind foot". He felt that the person who accused him was just hating the rich, and even threatened that "if the price reaches the price, it is sb".

Most of the fans in the group agree with him, and the seller who peddles signature cards on Xianyu is also the "card dream president" in his self-introduction.

There are signs that this "Dream President" is the "Akira" who got Saito's signature and resold it to the store at a higher price. His speech was also translated into Japanese and tweeted, and the news that "China swindled the artist to sign and sell for a sky-high price" became a hit for a moment.

The incident was forwarded by Japanese online celebrities to get more attention and then exposed to the eyes of the public, as well as the special trick of "deceiving painters to sign and resell" in the domestic card circle.

For example, the "Akira" in this incident is not the common name of the party "Dream President". Choosing such a name for the painter's signature is probably just because it is more common, and it is more likely to encounter sellers who also use the nickname "Akira" to facilitate resale at high prices.

Some people in China even use the information gap of Japanese painters who do not understand Chinese, claiming that the Chinese names of card characters are even "small wits" to swindle the artist's signature. Originally, the exclusive "to signature", which was not conducive to reselling, has been transformed into a "Chinese character signature" with more collectible value.

Xianyu, the last seller called "flying president", is looking for a buyer for these cards, which are suspected of obtaining signatures through improper means, while he himself is a UP owner with more than 2 million followers on bilibili. The main content of the video is to visit various twisted egg raffle shops in Japan and once linked with the "dream president".

President Fei also released a video of visiting the Bao Ke Meng brand store in September to extract the store's lucky bag because the names of "President Fei" and "President Dream" were similar, and some Japanese netizens mistakenly thought they were the same person. the incident further escalated to "Chinese online celebrities with 2 million fans systematically fraudulently obtained the signatures of Japanese painters and resold them at high prices."

The nationality of the resellers naturally caused some controversy, and comments such as "it is worthy of what the Chinese can do" inevitably appeared in the relevant comment area; on the other hand, whether on social networks in China or Japan, there are also similar remarks like "I would sell, after all, lie down and earn 600000", which makes people feel that such a phenomenon may be inevitable.

But in both China and Japan, there are more voices condemning the practice itself.

The card trading store that put on the signed version of "Twilight Lilier" immediately attracted bad comments from many Japanese netizens, condemning his family's purchase and resale of the cards as no different from "selling stolen goods."

"close down early" many domestic netizens went to the video message of "Flying President" bilibili to accuse him of reselling his signature card, forcing him to hold a live broadcast in the name of "apology meeting", clarifying that there was another person of "Dream President Akira" and said that selling autograph cards in Xianyu was purely a show-off, and those cards belonged to others. Although he sold a lot of surrounding areas, he was not directly involved in deceiving the artist's signature.

However, when asked who was the owner of President Meng and these signature cards, and whether there was really a gang specializing in fraudulently obtaining the signatures of Japanese painters and reselling them at high prices, he was vague and refused to disclose the identities of these people on the grounds of "putting an end to Internet violence."

President Fei also confronted a number of viewers, but what he said was nothing but chatter, and the "apology meeting" was also questioned as an opportunity to rub traffic. As for the founder of this farce, "Akira" Dream President, although he successively talked nonsense among fans, showed no shame about what he had done, and threatened to let people come to him for "alignment", in fact, he deleted the relevant content on various social accounts. Once asked, he deleted and blocked him and became a "tortoise".

Chinese and Japanese netizens coincidentally arranged jokes that satirized him, returning the other way to the other, wishing this "dream president" his dream come true and be born like a summer flower.

In recent years, the prosperity of the collection market has naturally promoted the sales of Pokemon cards, which has surpassed the "game king" and become the first card game in Japan.

However, with regard to the increasingly frenzied secondary market hype, Pokemon officials have always shown a discouraging attitude and have taken a number of measures to control the premium, such as increasing the circulation of new versions of some rare cards and lowering the threshold for acquisition. limit the number of purchases by individual customers, and some stores even require customers to show their collection of cards or answer the names of the cards shown before they can buy newly sold cards.

In the classic "who am I" link, it is not difficult to understand why the painter Naoki Saito showed such panic at the beginning of the incident-if it is officially believed that the painter and the reseller colluded to drive up the card price, not to mention being held accountable, it is also likely to affect future cooperation.

Naoki Saito is a Japanese painter who pays more attention to Chinese fans. He has his own account on bilibili, and a version of his painting course published on YouTube will be uploaded here with Chinese subtitles. Most of his video content is practical and approachable, and he is very popular in bilibili and YouTube.

From discussing the annual income of painters to imparting specific painting experience, Naoki Saito's demands on fans should be almost everything. In this incident, many bilibili viewers came to his comment area to comfort him. I want him to know that there are still many sincere fans in China. I hope he won't be affected by this incident and change the way he gets along with everyone.

But even after distancing himself, Saito said he would take signing activities more cautiously in the future, and his experience will no doubt serve as a warning to other painters, especially when signing Chinese characters they are not familiar with.

The storm has also made more people pay attention to the distortions in the card market-painters are usually paid less than 100,000 yen for drawing these rare cards, and signatures are purely for fans, except for the appearance fees of some exhibitions. it's almost impossible to cash it out. However, as long as willing people can deceive them into signing rare cards, they can earn millions of yen if they change hands, and the risks are borne by the painters themselves.

Naoki Saito himself mentioned in the video that the market price for drawing rare special cards is usually 100, 000 to 300000 yen, which is equivalent to 60, 000 to 20, 000 yuan. For example, people try to give advice to painters, such as publicly declaring that these signatures sold are fake and devaluing cards, or a large number of wholesale signatures so that similar signature cards are no longer scarce. But these practices are obviously impractical, painters are most afraid of because their own personal behavior affects the market value of these cards, which is the professionalism of commercial illustrators.

The value of painters is reflected through illustrations, which is the principle adhered to by many painters, including Saito. In fact, it is also a trade rule in this industry. Painters who abide by this rule will have more stable commercial development.

However, when the "Dream President" tried to increase the price to sell this "Twilight Lilier", he even mistakenly spelled "Saito" in the artist's name as "Saito", which can be said to be an amateur as a "scalper", but it did not affect him to make huge profits from it.

Such a contrast undoubtedly makes people feel that the illustrator's dignity has been trampled on, but there is nothing they can do about it.

In fact, even the measures taken by the authorities to deal with the hype of scalpers are rarely effective.

The Bao Ke Mengka card was officially released in simplified Chinese last month, and an exclusive gift box of "Lilier's Solidarity" was put on the shelves on Singles' Day, with a price of 1111 yuan. It contains a limited edition of "come on Lilier" and many other goods.

The card installed in a special picture frame is "come on Lilier." needless to say, everyone can guess that this Japanese version of "come on Lilier" is also a hot product in the hype market, which usually sells for 300000 to 600000 yen depending on the appearance. A well-preserved high-grade card is not difficult to reach the transaction price of 1 million yen, while the traditional Chinese version can also sell for 30,000 yen (1500 yuan).

The thousand yuan price of the gift box in Jane is slightly higher, but compared with the pure raffle draw, it still lowers the threshold for obtaining this card, which is acceptable to most enthusiasts who really want it. Officials also announced that they would print gift boxes after the first order sold out, which is tantamount to publicly saying that they will not let the card fall into scarcity, control its circulation price and discourage hoarding hype.

But this still failed to stop the flocking resellers. On the day the gift box went on sale, the offline store, which was limited to one box per person, as expected, there was a scene of queuing and scrambling, and many faces at the scene obviously did not look like ordinary card enthusiasts.

In Japan, where card sales are more popular, such out-of-control chaos is only increasing.

In Japan, there are many self-employed card shops that offer the so-called "fortune box" and "fortune bag" game. these are not official products, but individual stores pack rare and high-priced card cards into blind boxes to attract customers to spend much more than the price of official cards and bags. In addition to taking the card home, customers can also allow the store to recycle it on the spot at a market price of 6 to 20% discount.

To put it bluntly, this kind of play is a disguised betting. Bao Ke Meng card is only used as a lottery because of its high premium and liquidity, but as long as such a market is widespread, the circulation price of the rare Bao Ke Meng card will inevitably remain high.

The out-of-the-box video of this blessing bag has supported a group of anchors, who in turn have driven customers to these stores, and it is not just "scalpers" and "speculators" who have formed a complete industrial chain to fuel the market.

In some Japanese connoisseur TV programs, the Bao Ke Mengka card has appeared many times, and the public's impression that "the Bao Ke Mengka card is a high-priced collection" has been deepened.

Specialized card rating agencies are an integral part of the collection market, and these third-party agencies provide identification services for the preservation of cards and charge a service fee according to their market valuation.

Cards rated above "9 points" by credible agencies usually get a certain degree of appreciation, while cards that reach "10 points" are called "full products", and there are many people whose value doubles accordingly.

Take the industry's most recognized PSA and BGS as an example, these rating agencies are usually more concerned about the collection of cards, such as whether there are stains on the surface of the card, whether there is missing wear and tear, and relatively lenient judgment on the differences in the appearance of irresistible products caused by the printing process. Even if a card is well preserved, it still has a chance to get a full rating.

This card has a more obvious "border wide left and right thin" phenomenon, but does not affect its access to the PSA full product rating standard is obviously beneficial to ordinary collectors, a card as long as we try our best to improve and preserve, we can better maintain its value, do not need to worry too much about its congenital deficiencies bring significant price gap.

Paradoxically, nowadays, many collectors are not satisfied with this scoring standard, but are more demanding on the printing of cards than rating agencies. They pay more attention to the side details such as "frame center", "printing line position" and "colored white spot", which have little effect on the overall look and feel of the card face. I wish there were more subdivision criteria to distinguish the card value.

The reason, of course, is that more players are aware of the collection value of the cards in their hands. As soon as they get the rare cards, they are "covered with film, bagged and sealed bricks". It has been very difficult for the new rare cards to appreciate through collection means in a short period of time. Only by artificially creating new scarcity, can we open the gap in the market price of these cards and create opportunities to get rich overnight.

Everyone knows that this utilitarian atmosphere is the root cause of the increasing distortion of the Pokemonka card circle, but it is difficult to deny that such greed is an indelible part of human nature. Fraudulently obtaining the artist's signature and reselling this farce is just the tip of the iceberg, and many of the most ordinary players are already caught up in it, and can't help but weigh the value of each card in their hands by looking at money.

Whether to stick to the original heart or embrace temptation-a little card is just another mirror.

This article is from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag), author: Lushark

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