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Promo Card Prices are Way Up - Is it Justified? One Piece TCG Population Analysis — Transcript

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0:00Hello and welcome to One Piece of
0:01Insight. In today's video, I will be
0:04estimating the population of popular
0:06promo cards that have spiked in price in
0:09recent weeks. I'll be honest, when I set
0:11out to do this analysis, I had no idea
0:12what the results were going to be and
0:14the results have changed my opinion on a
0:16number of these different promo cards.
0:17So, hopefully you find this as
0:19interesting to watch as it was to make.
0:21As always, this is intended to be
0:23interesting and informative, but not
0:24financial advice. So, before we jump
0:26into the actual numbers, I have to
0:27explain a little bit about what I did to
0:29get here. So, the first thing I needed
0:31to do was identify the population of
0:33cards in booster boxes using PSA and BGS
0:37graded card data. But, that doesn't work
0:40as well for a lot of these promo cards.
0:41So, we needed to come up with an
0:42alternate method to look at that. The
0:44best data set that I had across all of
0:46these different cards is the number that
0:48are sold on TCGPlayer over a given year.
0:51And so, I took a pretty large sample of
0:54different card values, different ages,
0:56and I averaged the percentage of the
0:59total population that are sold over the
1:01last year into a single number. And so,
1:03that's the metric that I'm going to be
1:04using for this video to estimate the
1:06population of a lot of these promo
1:07cards. The last thing I want to say
1:09before we start talking about actual
1:10numbers is to understand that while all
1:13of the data analysis that I do on this
1:15channel are estimates, this is like
1:17super extra double just an estimate. I
1:20think that the analysis is justified and
1:22I think that it's helpful, but I do want
1:25you to take this with an enormous grain
1:26of salt and do not use them as exact
1:29metrics. Please keep that in mind as we
1:31go through this analysis. Okay, so first
1:33let's talk about the first anniversary
1:34set. Obviously, this has been like the
1:36biggest boom
1:38moving from just like, you know, a
1:40moderately popular card almost into like
1:42grail status. And is this justified? I
1:45think is the question. Or at least is
1:46this justified by the population of the
1:48card. So, because this Luffy card has
1:50been a relatively popular card for a
1:51long time, I was actually able to look
1:52at both the graded card data as well as
1:55the TCGPlayer sales data. And so, I
1:59looked at three different sets of
2:00assumptions for the graded card data. I
2:01looked at an assumption that 50% of the
2:03total population was graded, I looked at
2:0540%, and I looked at 33%. Those numbers
2:09gave us a range of 3,590
2:11all the way up to 5,385.
2:14Then when I looked at the TCG Player
2:17data, so again, I assumed that only
2:194.21% of the total population of the
2:22card was sold on TCG Player over the
2:23last year cuz that was the average I got
2:26from looking at other cards. That leads
2:28to an estimate that there were a total
2:29of 4,904
2:32of these cards in existence. So, my
2:34takeaway from this is that actually
2:35these numbers seem to gel pretty well
2:39together and tell a pretty similar
2:40story. I've often seen the estimate in
2:43the community be that there are about
2:455,000 of these out but that is basically
2:48the answer that [laughter] I'm getting
2:49from
2:50this analysis as well. Obviously, some
2:52percentage of them were sealed. It's
2:53really hard to know how much, but my
2:56best guess is that we have about 5,000
2:59of these that have been opened and about
3:016,000 total, so about 1,000 still left
3:04in boxes. The last one of which really,
3:09really is just a guess. Okay, so given
3:12the population, the natural question is
3:14is this card overvalued at its current
3:16price? I will be honest, when I decided
3:19to do an analysis of this card, my
3:21assumption was this card was going to be
3:23overpriced
3:24based on how quickly it's risen and how
3:27expensive it's gotten.
3:28So, in order to answer that question, I
3:30went through all of my population
3:32reports for different cards and said,
3:34"What other Luffy cards have about this
3:36same population and what are their
3:38prices?" And I did not cherry-pick
3:40these. These were the two closest Luffy
3:42cards in population that I found to this
3:46card. And they're the Gear 5 Luffy from
3:48OP-05, and they're the Oda signature
3:49also from OP-05 with very similar
3:52populations. Now, obviously these are
3:54both fantastically expensive cards. Am I
3:56saying that the first anniversary Luffy
3:58should be the same price as these cards?
4:00I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that
4:01I think this card is underrated, but
4:03when I stacked it up against these two,
4:05it was really a lot harder for me to say
4:07that I think that this is overvalued at
4:08its current price. Like it certainly
4:10doesn't look ridiculous stacked up next
4:11to these cards. The last thing I want to
4:13say about this first anniversary card
4:15has to do with language exclusivity. So,
4:18this is an English exclusive product
4:20with a population of approximately
4:215,000, whereas the Gear 5 Luffy not only
4:25had a reprint in PRB01, but also is not
4:28language exclusive in any of those
4:29cases. So, the total number of these
4:31Gear 5 Luffys out there are going to be
4:33a lot higher. And then the same thing
4:35with the Oda sig, right? Which also is
4:37not language exclusive. So,
4:39if we think about the total global
4:41population,
4:42um I think there's a pretty good
4:45argument that this is like
4:48rarer than those cards and has potential
4:51uh to have really good global demand
4:54long term. So, I'm
4:55I am like shocked to hear myself say
4:57this because I came into this assuming
4:59that I was going to say that this was
5:00overvalued. But like I I see the
5:03argument, right? You know, I can make a
5:05case that this deserves to be in this
5:07category, especially when you factor in
5:08the fact that the gem rates on this card
5:10are like so low compared to other cards.
5:13I just mentally struggled to wrap my
5:14head around the idea that something that
5:16was so cheap so long ago could be worth
5:18so much, but this this kind of blew me
5:20away that these might be the closest
5:22comps in terms of population and
5:24popularity uh to this card. So, now
5:27let's move on to the second anniversary
5:29set.
5:30So, we knew that the second anniversary
5:31set had a larger population than the
5:33first one, but how large I think was
5:35very much an open question. So, I did
5:37the same thing that I did with the last
5:38one. I looked at both the greater card
5:39data
5:40as well as the sealed on TCGplayer for
5:43this Luffy leader card. And so, the PSA
5:46BGS data gave us a range of 6,926
5:50up to 10,389.
5:53Um even though this card is less
5:55expensive than the first anniversary
5:57Luffy,
5:58um there were actually more of these
5:59that were graded. So, I feel quite
6:00confident that there's more population
6:03of the second anniversary than the first
6:04anniversary.
6:05The TCGPlayer sell-through gave us a
6:07number of 11,804,
6:10um which I actually think is pretty
6:11consistent with the estimate of 33% of
6:14the cards being graded. You know,
6:16typically if a card is very expensive,
6:19um I assume that about half of that
6:21population has been graded. If it's a
6:23moderately expensive card, I often bump
6:25that down to about 33% for my estimates,
6:28which is why I choose to use this range.
6:30And so, the fact that the TCGPlayer
6:31sales data is pretty consistent with the
6:3333% estimate leads me to believe that
6:36there probably are around 10,000 of
6:39these that have already been opened with
6:41probably an extra 2,000 that haven't
6:43been opened. Part of the reason that I
6:44picked these numbers is because, you
6:46know, I'm trying to think about what
6:48logic Bandai may use in making their
6:49decisions. And so, doubling the
6:51production of the first anniversary set,
6:53I think just makes a ton of sense. So,
6:54that's part of the reason why I settled
6:56on these numbers, but I also think that,
6:58you know, I was led to this general
7:00conclusion based on the 33% estimate and
7:04the sell-through data on TCGPlayer. So,
7:05then naturally, the question is, is this
7:07card overpriced based on its population?
7:10So, again, I picked two Luffy cards that
7:11have pretty similar populations to
7:13compare as different price points. You
7:15know, the first one, we have the Luffy
7:17manga from OP11. OP11 had a really big
7:20print run compared to a lot of other
7:21sets, and so there are quite a lot of
7:23these out there at around 10,000. Um you
7:26know, this is significantly more
7:27expensive than this Luffy. You know,
7:30obviously that one's a manga, this one
7:32isn't. Whether how much you care about
7:33that and think that should affect price,
7:35I think is a really open question. And
7:37then on the other hand, we have the
7:38Luffy leader from OP01, which has a
7:40slightly lower population at only 8,000,
7:43and a price of about $1,000. You know,
7:46we call this like the base set
7:47Charizard, right? You know, this is like
7:49the first like big Luffy card that you
7:51could pull out of a box. So, you know,
7:53that is different and special. I do
7:56think that the second anniversary Luffy
7:57though is really, really awesome and
7:59iconic. I mean, you he's Gear 5, he has
8:02all of the Straw Hats. We haven't seen
8:04too many cards with all of the Straw
8:06Hats on them, although we have seen more
8:08and more as time has gone on. So, I do
8:10think this is a really, really great
8:11card. You know, I think at $540, I'm
8:14again, I'm not going to say that I think
8:15that this is like crazy undervalued or
8:17anything, but I do think that there is a
8:19lot of upside to this card at this price
8:21when I look at other similar
8:23populations. Um you know, 10,000 is a
8:27moderately small population in the world
8:30of One Piece. There are plenty of cards
8:32that are less than 10,000 that are less
8:34expensive, like Gold Dawn or way less
8:36than 10,000 and way less expensive than
8:38this. Um but there are also cards in
8:41this range of population that are more
8:43expensive. So,
8:44I could see this being worth more, um
8:47but I also don't think it's like wildly
8:48underpriced at its current value. Okay,
8:50so before we jump into like some of the
8:52premium Bandai folders we're going to
8:53talk about, I want to talk about the
8:55only hard piece of data that we actually
8:57have from Bandai, which is that when
9:00they announced that they were doing the
9:01live action season 2 uh folders for both
9:04Baroque Works and for the Straw Hats,
9:06they announced that they were doing
9:0830,000. Um which I thought was pretty
9:11interesting because that suggests to me
9:13that like their initial print run
9:15uh on these sets maybe set to like
9:1730,000.
9:19This sort of also gels with the data
9:22that we're going to see for a lot of
9:23these other sets, which is why I thought
9:25it was worthwhile to share here. Okay,
9:26so first up, we're going to talk about
9:28the premium collection 25th anniversary.
9:31Um this is a set that has gone up a ton
9:34uh over the last few months. People
9:36really like that it's like the first of
9:37the premium Bandai products. Some people
9:39feel like these are like, you know,
9:41essentially light versions of mangas
9:44that they have some of the most iconic
9:46art from early in the manga in the
9:48background. In terms of how rare these
9:50actually are, so I looked at this Luffy
9:52card and we're starting to get into
9:54cards where because the prices have gone
9:56up so much over a short period of time,
9:58I don't trust the graded card data at
9:59all. And so we're just going to be
10:01looking at TCG Player sales data, which
10:03inherently means that this is going to
10:05be less reliable than the previous two
10:07cards that we just looked at where we
10:09have a better sort of set of data to
10:11triangulate off of. So, if we use our
10:13same metric of 4.21% for TCG Player
10:16sales data for this individual Luffy
10:17card, that estimates a population of
10:2032,500.
10:22And then, if we look at the sealed
10:24folder data, that estimates a population
10:26of 11,000. Now, this is really, really
10:29tricky.
10:31Um, normally I don't try to estimate how
10:33many like boxes remain unopened because
10:36if we look at just TCG Player sales
10:38data, some of those boxes that were sold
10:40over the last year have been opened and
10:42then the cards have been resold or are
10:44included in the general population. So,
10:47I'm kind of ignoring the data from the
10:48sealed folder because I'm just not
10:50really sure what to make of it. And so,
10:51I'm going to guess that there are around
10:5330,000 of these cards that were printed
10:57with some, you know, amount of the
10:59sealed folder still left. My guess is
11:01that it's like 5,000, but again, that is
11:03like just a guess. Part of the reason I
11:05showed the population for the first
11:06print run of the premium Bandai folders
11:08from live action season 2 was 30,000 is
11:11that it actually like gelled with the
11:13estimate here for this set. So, it's
11:16possible that Bandai, like that their
11:19initial print run for these things tends
11:21to be 30,000. I will also say that this
11:23is not a language exclusive card unlike
11:25some of the other promos that we've been
11:27looking at. There is a Japanese version
11:29of this as well. So, the total
11:31population of this art is going to be a
11:33lot higher.
11:34So, in terms of comps for this card,
11:35first we have the Luffy leader from
11:38OP-05, which has a population of around
11:4025,000 going for $86. We have the
11:43treasure rare Zoro from OP-09, which has
11:45a population of 34,000
11:48uh going for $150.
11:50The treasure rare Zoro is actually
11:52language exclusive, so there's only
11:5334,000 total uh unlike this Luffy where
11:56there's also going to be some amount of
11:58Japanese product. I don't know how much,
12:00but there will definitely be more of
12:01these Luffys out there than the Zoros.
12:04So, for me at $180, I find this to be
12:07quite expensive. Uh I don't think that
12:09this is necessarily justified. Now
12:11again, major caveat,
12:14like this is a very rough estimate,
12:16right? So, this could be wrong by an
12:18order of magnitude, which could in turn
12:20justify the price for this. Next up,
12:22we're going to talk about the Film Red
12:24collection. It's very similar to the set
12:25that we just looked at in the sense that
12:26it's a premium Bandai product. It was
12:28released pretty early into the game's
12:30history. It has a similar number of
12:32cards, and it has a similarly cohesive
12:35artistic style even though the art
12:36itself is very, very different. And so,
12:39in terms of the number for this, again
12:40we're seeing a pretty similar story to
12:42what we saw um for the 25th anniversary
12:45set. Um the estimate here around
12:48TCGPlayer sales data is 28,500,
12:51which is slightly lower than what we
12:52looked at for the 25th anniversary set,
12:54but the estimates for the sealed folders
12:57are higher at 17,500, suggesting that
13:00maybe just fewer of these folders have
13:02been opened uh for cards to be sold on
13:05TCGPlayer. So, all of that to me, and
13:08based on sort of the logic of how I
13:10think about Bandai, is that these two
13:11sets probably have the same print run.
13:14So, which one that you prefer is really
13:16just a function of our artistic
13:18preference and how much you care about
13:20the fact that the 25th came first. But
13:22otherwise, for me, I think they're
13:23relatively comparable and equivalent
13:26sets.
13:27Which is why I included the promo card
13:28from the last one on this as a point of
13:30comparison. So, this Luffy is going for
13:33$72,
13:34which is obviously far cheaper than the
13:36180 for the other one. So, again, I'm
13:39not here to say that I think that this
13:40is undervalued, but this feels much
13:41closer to fair to me than the other one.
13:44And this is part of the reason why I
13:46feel like the other one is overvalued. I
13:49personally don't see over a $100 premium
13:51for that one coming first. The big
13:52outlier here, and this is going to be
13:54like the outlier for this entire
13:56conversation that is very difficult for
13:58me to square, is these promo cards have
14:01similar populations to like the regular
14:03alt arts that you open in boxes.
14:06And yet, you have like this Luffy here
14:09that's $15 with what I believe is a
14:11smaller population than either of these
14:14promo cards. If we're doing it based on
14:16rarity, how do we square the difference
14:18in prices there, right? Don't get me
14:20wrong. I think both of the 25th
14:23anniversary set and the red set are more
14:26artistically interesting than this
14:27Luffy, but I do think that this is going
14:30to be a recurring question as we think
14:32about these promo cards. Like, why is
14:35there an inherent premium cards as
14:37opposed to cards we get in boxes? Is
14:39that justified or is that hype? I will
14:42be honest that like promo cards often do
14:44feel more special to me.
14:47I don't know why. Um but whether or not
14:50that's actually justified in the price
14:51premium, I don't really know the answer
14:53to that question. Next up, we're going
14:55to talk about one of my favorite of the
14:57promo cards. And this is the gift
14:59collection from 2023. I've been on the
15:01record of saying that I think this is a
15:02really great set. I really, really love
15:04the art. Um I didn't think the
15:06population of this was enormous.
15:09I was wrong, I think, about the
15:10population of this. This one was really
15:13disappointing uh to me, to be honest, uh
15:15to learn uh how wrong I was because the
15:17population on this does seem to be,
15:20frankly, enormous. When I did the
15:22analysis of this, it showed for this
15:24Luffy card that there were likely 41,500
15:27of these out there, which is by far the
15:29largest number of anything that we've
15:31seen so far. And also that the sealed
15:34boxes suggested that there were still
15:36like 13,780
15:39of these out there. So, overall, my best
15:42guess is that there's like 40,000 of
15:44these Luffy cards out there and that
15:45there are probably like 6,000 more still
15:47in sealed boxes.
15:49It's hard to know exactly how many are
15:50in sealed boxes even if I know the
15:52population because there were, you know,
15:55a bunch of different cards that you
15:56could pull out of packs and you only got
15:57three in each box, so it's hard to know
15:59exactly how many there were. You know,
16:00bottom line, I think there's more gift
16:02collection out there than either the red
16:04or the 25th anniversary set.
16:08And so I think just based on rarity,
16:09these cards probably should be less
16:11expensive than those with a couple
16:12exceptions, right? I think the Chopper
16:14Santa is just like a standout card and
16:17frankly even at a massive population,
16:19there's just so much demand for that
16:21card. Now, whether $275 is the right
16:23price right now, I still think it's
16:24probably pretty high
16:27for, you know, where we are in the life
16:29cycle of One Piece, but like I do think
16:32it is a $275 card at some point in the
16:34future. I just wouldn't be surprised if
16:36it goes down.
16:38But this Luffy at $375,
16:41this feels really high to me. And it
16:43pains me to say this because I love this
16:45card, but like should this be twice the
16:48price of the 25th anniversary when
16:50there's probably a higher population of
16:52these than the 25th anniversary? I can't
16:55come up with any arguments to justify
16:56this price. I mean,
16:58this feels like more than double what
17:00this card should be, right? I mean, I
17:02think that this like at $100
17:05is probably still a little bit
17:07expensive, but like maybe more
17:08reasonable. The art justifies it, right?
17:11You know, the film red Luffy is like $72
17:13and this is like $300 more expensive
17:16than that. As much as I absolutely adore
17:18this card, like that just feels wildly
17:20out of whack to me.
17:21The other card I wanted to look at here
17:22was the special Oda art from OP-05.
17:25These were two per case, so these are
17:27super, super common cards at a
17:30population of 74,000 uh and at a price
17:33of $90. So again, I actually, you know,
17:35I think the OP-05 card, frankly, is
17:37extremely iconic, even though it's an
17:39extremely high population card. So I
17:41wanted to include that here as an
17:42example of like
17:44yes, even though this is a very, very,
17:46very, very high population, it's still a
17:47very in-demand card, so the price is
17:49still pretty good, but also like it's
17:52not $375, right? Um so all of that is to
17:56say, I think that the people who are
17:57paying this price for the gift
17:59collection are paying too much. I think
18:01if you're paying $100, you know, for the
18:03Nami, $80 for the Zoro, whatever, that
18:05feels less crazy to me, but I think this
18:07Luffy is like way out of whack. The last
18:09promo card that I wanted to talk about
18:11is the PSA promo Luffy. I had an
18:14assumption that this was going to be a
18:16really, really huge population coming
18:18into it, uh and that this card was
18:20probably pretty overvalued based on how
18:21large the population was, and this is
18:23another one that I think I was a little
18:25bit wrong on, but in the opposite
18:26direction from the gift collection. You
18:28know, when I did the PSA and the BGS
18:30analysis, it gave me a range of 16,500
18:33to 24,500,
18:35which is pretty high. Uh it's not as
18:37high as most of the other ones we looked
18:38at, but it's still pretty high for a One
18:40Piece card. But then when I looked at
18:42the TCG Player sales, it gave an
18:43estimate of only 6,500.
18:46And the reason why I think there's such
18:48a difference here is because if you
18:50think about the fact that this was
18:51through PSA magazine, like this is
18:54deliberately going to people who grade
18:55their cards. And so for that reason, I
18:57think the the estimate of 50% of these
19:00cards being graded is probably much
19:01closer uh than the 33%, and so my best
19:05guess is that there's like 17,500
19:08of these, which again, is a pretty big
19:10population, but we're still talking
19:12about like half the population of the
19:1325th anniversary set and the One Piece
19:16Film Red and only like 50% more of a
19:18population than the second anniversary.
19:21So, I wanted to compare this to a couple
19:22different cards.
19:24Uh first, let's talk about the wanted
19:25Luffy. There's only 8,000 of these and
19:28this is only $400. I think this is the
19:30argument against this PSA card.
19:33Obviously, the art is very, very
19:34different. This is the first appearance
19:36of all the Straw Hats on the same card,
19:37which I do think is meaningful, but
19:39given that about half of the wanted
19:41Luffy's and it's lower than this price,
19:43like
19:45that kind of argues that this may be a
19:47little bit overpriced. But then on the
19:49other hand, you have the Treasure Rare
19:50Luffy from OPO8, which is currently
19:52selling for $600 with a population of
19:5520,000 being, you know, greater than
19:57this PSA population. I know lots of
20:00people will disagree with this, but I
20:02can't say in stronger terms how much I
20:04think this card is overpriced and
20:06how I think that if you love this card
20:09and you want to buy it for your
20:10collection, you should wait because it
20:11is going to come down in price again, I
20:13think. Anyway, back to the second
20:15anniversary card. So, I think this card
20:17is like a little bit difficult to price.
20:19I think that it's about the same price
20:21as the second anniversary Luffy given
20:22that there's like 50% more of these
20:25than the second anniversary Luffy. I
20:27would rather have the second anniversary
20:28Luffy. But it's hard for me to argue
20:30that this is like wildly overpriced at
20:33this value, which was a little bit of a
20:35surprise to me because I expected was
20:37going to think that this was wildly
20:38overpriced. So, I guess what I would say
20:39is I think it's like expensive because
20:41it's gone up a lot over a short period
20:43of time, but like longer term, this
20:44doesn't feel ridiculous to me based on
20:46how many there are
20:48and how important this card kind of is.
20:50One last note on these PSA cards, while
20:52I did not include the other ones here
20:54just because this video was going to be
20:55too long, it does seem like the total
20:57population of these PSA cards have gone
21:00up and up and up. So, I think the Luffy
21:02is going to be the smallest population.
21:03I think the Boa is going to be a bigger
21:05population than the Luffy and I think
21:07that the Shanks is going to be even
21:09bigger than the Boa and then probably
21:11the Mihawk that we're due to get soon is
21:13going to be the biggest of all. So, I
21:14would not assume that this population is
21:16the same for the others. We've seen like
21:19far higher grading rates through PSA for
21:22those than we have for this card. So,
21:24that's all I have for today. I hope you
21:25found this interesting. I'm sure there's
21:27going to be a lot of disagreement to
21:28what I have said in this video. I'm sure
21:31there's also going to be like criticism
21:33and ideas for improving the methodology
21:34in the future. I welcome all of that.
21:36So, please hit me up in the comments. If
21:38you did find this helpful, please give
21:39us a like. If you haven't already
21:40subscribed. As always, you know, we have
21:43our TCGplayer affiliate link and our
21:44eBay affiliate link in the description
21:46if you want to support the channel. It
21:47doesn't cost you anything but helps us
21:49out a bunch. So, with all of that, as
21:51always, I appreciate your time and I
21:53will see you in the next one.

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