The sphere is now a poke ball.

Alpha: Buy We got Toy Story wrong. I looked at the 1995 SkyBox set yesterday and passed. Huge IP, perfect year, but the regular cards looked like standard 90s movie cardboard and I couldn't see the alpha. Then we checked the market. Buzz #32 PSA 10s have sold for $999.99, $1,234.56 and $1,499.99. Woody #31 PSA 10 has sold for $1,149 and $1,250. So collectors have clearly found 1995 Toy Story. What I hadn't done was look properly at the hierarchy inside the set. The regular Woody and Buzz cards are base cards. A 36-pack hobby box contained enough base cards that you'd expect roughly four copies of each per box. The Foil Embossed inserts were 1:18 packs and there were nine different foils. That means you'd average only two foils of any kind per box, and roughly one particular foil every 162 packs, or every 4.5 boxes. Then above those were just two 3-D Motion cards at 1:48 packs. A specific 3-D Motion card works out at roughly one every 96 packs. That's the bit that changed the whole set for us. Collectors are already paying four figures for PSA 10 copies of Woody and Buzz cards that were likely sitting multiple times in every hobby box, while the actual foil and 3-D chase cards were dramatically harder to pull and have barely been graded. So we bought the chase layer instead. We now own PSA 9 copies of the F9 Woody Foil Embossed, Mr. Potato Head Foil Embossed and #1 Mr. Potato Head 3-D Motion. The Woody foil has only two PSA 10s above ours. The Potato Head 3-D had no PSA 10 above ours when we checked. This is the alpha for us. We're not betting that people eventually discover 1995 Toy Story cards. They already have. The Woody and Buzz sales prove that. We're betting that the market hasn't properly worked through the set yet. If collectors are willing to spend $1,000+ on PSA 10 base cards that appeared several times per box, what happens when they start looking at the cards that were actually difficult to pull? Maybe nothing. That's always possible. But we just swept three PSA 9s from the premium chase layers while most of the money is still chasing the regular cardboard. That's a setup I like.

I will never understand the appeal of TCG cards like Pokemon, One Piece, etc. At least sports cards represent real people at the end of the day. TCG just represents imaginary characters someone created.

Happy Birthday to Satoshi Tajiri! The creator of Pokémon, he is responsible for the initial concepts which would lead to the franchise as it exists today. He currently works as the CEO of Game Freak.

Today’s agenda at Apple Park: Introduce the @Pokemon team to John, talk gaming, and politely ask Pikachu to stay out of the pond. Two out of three were accomplished.

Today’s agenda at Apple Park: Introduce the @Pokemon team to John, talk gaming, and politely ask Pikachu to stay out of the pond. Two out of three were accomplished.