Should I buy? Paldean fates Charizard ex tin | Pokemon TCG investing

As I am writing this, my 3 week year old son Ryu is lying on my belly. He is entering his fussy stage and he appears to rest more contently with direct contact.

By the time he is taking an interest in Pokemon (3 years I'm hoping) is about the time frame I'm looking at if this is a worthwhile Pokemon TCG investment. If you are looking for quicker turn around times this one may not be for you.

Paldean fates shiny Charizard ex tin

The product is the Charizard ex tin from the Paldean fates set in scarlet and violet. It contains 5 booster packs of Paldean fates and of course the shining Charizard ex promo card.

Why Paldean Fates Charizard ex tin?

My interest was peaked when I noticed it's selling price of $39 on TCG player. There are very few products in Scarlet and Violet TCG that are selling above their MSRP (are there any outside 151?) and Paldean fates is only 6 months old at this point. The ebay price is also slightly above the MSRP at $32. Checking the Pokemon center shows us this product is currently out of stock which is also a rarity for Scarlet and Violet products. This quick increase in price suggests a future strength for this product.

So where can I get this product at (almost) the original MSRP price?

Walmart!!

That's right, as of right now you can still pick this up online, along with free shipping for $29.98. This is an astounding 30% differential. Its not too far away from making a profit today if you bought it from Walmart and sold it immediately on TCGplayer. Crazy right!

We have to remember each outlet (ebay, tcgplayer, walmart, your local TCG store) are their own market, each with their own liquidity and buying pool.  Therefore we need to check them all when we are looking for the best price as inefficiencies in one can be put to our advantage.

Walmart is very much focused on retail buyers and not collectors, and they have a high liquidity for modern products. This suggests collectors (and investors?) are very much picking this up but in the retail space there is still a higher supply. This is maybe where our advantage is as we are being hinted at the future potential by the TCGplayer price but we can still pick it up at near retail prices.

How is the set doing?

Personally I do like the Paldean Fates set. I love the shining Mew SIR which i have for my collection as well as the shining Pikachu (both pulls!!). I am still on the lookout for the Gardevoir and Charizard. However I do have a little bit of Charizard fatigue from Scarlet and Violet so I'm not too concerned if I don't manage to get that one.

That Charizard fatigue may be a bad sign for this product. The promo's design is very similar to a lot of other Charizard pulls from the Scarlet and Violet era.

As with most Scarlet and Violet sets most of the Paldean Fates products are either at or under MSRP. The premium collections (which I really like) featuring the starters are currently selling for around $35-$40 (MSRP $50). The booster packs are going for around $5 (MSRP $4.50) and the other tins featuring some of the paradox Pokemon you can pick up for about $22 (MSRP 28.99 the same as the Charizard version of the tin). This suggests the booster packs themselves are showing some strength but not the other sealed products from the set. This is expected where rips make up a lot of demand.

Paldea fates card prices trend

Looking at the prices of the cards themselves both the median and average prices are high for Scarlet and Violet which is a good sign for the set overall. However the average price is trending down (not unusual for a set of this age) but it is suggesting the most expensive cards are currently losing value as the median price is steady. This is currently inconclusive then if the set as a whole is going to be valuable.

So why not pick up the other products that are currently under MSRP? I want to pick up products that will go up in value significantly. A couple of dollars here or there does not really change the how much you can make if held for a few years.

I do believe most of the Paldean Fates products will go up over time but will they go up more than the Charizard tin? I don't think so. If you just want to get cheaper booster packs then please do pick up some of these cheaper products. I believe the future value of this product is not primarily in the booster packs but it being a Charizard promo.

We have already seen strength from this product in a short amount of time so let's compare it to similar products.

How does it compare to other Charizard products?

If we look at Charizard promo tins from other sets this may give us some hint at what this can do in the future.

Product	Release date	Current TCGplayer price	Avg. increase per year
Charizard hidden fates tin	September 2019	$70	%29
Celebrations Lance's Charizard V tin	October 2021	$50	%35
Detective Pikachu tin Charizard	April 2019	$70	%29
Charizard Ex power trio tin	October 2014	$210	%27

Note we use TCGplayer selling price for these calculations. So if you sell on a different platform the numbers here could be very different. We used a base price of $20 for each tine (note these are regular 4 pack tins and the one we are reviewing is a large 5 pack tin).

If we assume the median price increase of 29% and extrapolate it out for this product at $28 MSRP we get a 3 year price of $60, 5 year price of $100 and 10 year price of $350. Now these are only predictions that should be taken with a pinch of salt but what I like here is every Charizard promo tin over the last few years has followed this pattern suggesting the downside is limited here.

Pokemon TCG investment Conclusion: Buy

Price target: $80 Time frame: 4 years

Is it out of stock at the Pokemon center?
Can get it for MSRP or less?
Is the product increasing in value?
Is the set increasing in value?
Are the comparisons up in value?

Overall I rate this product a buy at this price. It's too soon to know if Paldean Fates overall is a good investment, however given the historic precedence of Charizard promo tins, the fact this product is already showing strength and we can still pick this up for MSRP I think this is a good product to stock up on. In fact I just bought 6 for storage and may get some more. Of course this could all change, the main risk is if the Pokemon center stock up some more, so I wouldn't go crazy buying too many however even if they do I think the limits the upside potential and time frames it will increase in value as the other Charizard tins show the downside seems limited here. Also as mentioned there have been a lot of Charizard 'big hitters' in this series so far which could limit this promo's appeal. Although Pokemon have backed off on this since Paldean Fates was released in the last few sets.

I'll have to remember to check back when Ryu is picking up Pokemon to see if i was right :).

If you would like some yourself here is the link to the Walmart listing and if you find it cheaper anywhere else, buy it!