Pokemon SWSH4.5 Shining Fates Revealed! Investment & Reselling Analysis
Yesterday, December 3rd, 2020, the Pokemon Special Set for February 2021 was finally revealed… and with over 100 brand new shiny cards, this is sure to be one of the best sets for investment and reselling of all time. As usual for Special Sets, there will be no Booster Boxes, Blister Packs, Theme Decks, or Single Sleeved Booster Packs, making bulk pack-opening relatively hard. Collectors, kids, and investors alike are sure to go crazy over this set, with a record-shattering over 120 TEXTURED Shiny Vault cards, while Hidden Fates, the insanely popular Fall 2019 set that this is based on, only had around 94. The highlight, and what I am calling the “glue” of the set, however, will certainly be the Shiny Charizard VMAX. While you can’t ever predict the value of a card, I personally would be shocked if this does not sit at the $800+ range after everything settles down demand-wise. Even if it does not reach that amount, that card will still drive the demand through the roof, not to mention the other 119+ Shiny cards. Unlike Hidden Fates, this set basically just has the newer Galar Region Pokemon, and barely any older Pokemon. While I do appreciate the newer Pokemon getting some love, this may slightly impact investing on the whole, and certainly single card value. Other than the Charizard, there really won’t be any heavy-hitting Pokemon such as Shiny Mewtwo, Charmander, Charmeleon, Eevee, or the Eeveelutions like Hidden Fates had. Despite all of this, the Pokemon market is so hot right now, I don’t think the set’s value will be affected too much. As I stated earlier, I personally think this will be the best Pokemon set of all time for reselling (at the time of the release), and likewise one of the best modern sets to invest in. Read on to see my financial opinion on each particular product.
Shining Fates will consist of five different products, with a total of twelve variations. Starting out, we have the Elite Trainer Box, which releases on February 19th, 2021. As usual, this special set will not have any corresponding Booster Boxes, making bulk pack-opening relatively difficult. Each of these Elite Trainer Boxes will include 10 Booster Packs of Shining Fates, as well as a promo card of Eevee VMAX. While I personally do not believe this card will ever reach the long-term value potential of the Charizard V Full Art and Legendary Birds Trio Special Full Art from Champions Path and Hidden Fates respectively, I think this card was a great choice, will add short term value to the product, and will still certainly be good for investment. Just don’t be expecting to make $20 back on each of these cards like the ones from the past two special sets. These ETBs will of course retail for $49.99 in the U.S, with wholesale distributors selling them for a bit less. If you can find them for around that price, or even up into the $60 to $70 range, I would buy as many as you can afford. If you find them for., If they cost any more than that, I would be very weary (of course if you are simply planning on opening them, the market price would always be acceptable). Take Champions Path, which released this past September, for example. The Elite Trainer Boxes were first listed for preorder at around $70 on eBay. They then crept up to around $100, TWICE the retail price. And that’s not all. Champions Path had literally only two cards most people were even remotely interested in. This set, on the other hand, will have around 30 Full Art/VMAX cards… including the ever-popular Shiny Charizard VMAX, as mentioned earlier. Once again, I believe the promo card in this box will not be quite as popular or high-valued as the Champions Path Charizard one, but only time will tell. On the other hand, I believe that the packs included in this (and all of the other Shining Fates Products) will be miles more popular than the ones for Champions Path. It should also be noted that as of December 4th, preorders for this product are selling for a whopping $120, but this number may fluctuate overtime. Overall, I think that this is certainly by far the BEST Shining Fates product for investment and reselling. Once again, I would buy as many as I could possibly get my hands on, whether that means buying them online, or running to stores on the release day.
Next up are the Shining Fates Pin Collections, which retail for $14.99, contain three packs, and also release of February 19th, 2021. There will be four variations, none of which I think will be better than the other. So far, these special set Pin Collections have been very hard to find, even going all the way back to Fall 2018 when Dragon Majesty came out. Unlike the ETBs, the value of these Pin Collections will probably depend on distribution. If these have a similar distribution to the Hidden Fates or Champions Path Pin Collections, these are sure to go through the roof, probably selling for well over double the retail price. However if big-box stores get huge displays of these (which really hasn’t happened before), the value will certainly be affected. Unfortunately, though, it is basically impossible to predict. I personally thought that Pokemon would have been prepared for Champions Path, sending truckloads of product to stores — but I was wrong, as supply seemed to be even lower than Hidden Fates when it first came out. So, I can’t say whether or not any of these products will be heavily distributed. Keep in mind that reprints can also happen in the future. Even so, I think that these pin collections are a great item for preordering and reselling. As far as investment goes, these will be good, but much more risky that the ETBs.
Next on the list, there will be three different Shining Fates Tins releasing on February 19th. These will have the rectangular tin design, which has not been see with a special set so far. Unlike the previous normal tins Pokemon has released, these will cost a whopping $29.99. Even though I personally love the design, and am thrilled that these include exclusive Shiny V cards, the value is just not there if you want to open these. Remember back in March 2019 when you could get on of these with a Full Art promo, a metal GX Marker, and 5 packs, all for $24.99? At the time, I thought that those were a rip-off. Despite the $5 price increase for a single extra pack, these are sure to be popular due to the exclusive V cards. I think that these are great for investment and reselling, but once again, if you can find the ETBs for a good price, I’d go with those instead. These aren’t bad at all though. If you want to know which particular one will be the best, I’d probably say Cramorant. The Boltund one is sure to be popular as well, with Eldegoss probably being close behind.
The last product in the initial release of February 19th, will be the Pikachu V Box. Quite honestly, I am both surprised and disappointed by there only being one regular V Box for this set. This product will retail for $19.99 and include four packs and a Pikachu V card. I predict that the Pikachu V card will probably be around $3 once the price settles down, but it is still a heavy-hitting choice for the promo. It is miles better than Champions Path’s Dubwool V and Haterene V, and will certainly have long-term value. Overall, the $20 V/GX/EX Boxes have never disappointed long-term value wise, so I certainly don’t think that this will either. One thing I am afraid of, though, is once again the distribution. The $20 boxes are known for being heavily printed, and reprinted… and reprinted. The corresponding Hidden Fates $20 boxes, for comparison, once were available in huge 30–40 box displays at Walmart, and believe it or not, due to the September reprint, are STILL being distributed to Walmart stores in very small quantities. So overall, if you have a certain amount of money to spend, I’d go with basically any of the other three products on the February 19th release. These aren’t bad, but probably will come in last place value-wise, due to the expected number of supply. If you can’t find any of the other products, though, in my opinion, you should absolutely grab these up before they are gone.
There are also some different products releasing supposedly on March 5th, 2021, just two weeks after the initial release. These will include a Shiny Crobat VMAX Premium Collection, a Shiny Dragapult VMAX Premium Collection, and five Mini Tins. I’m not even sure if many people will read this article, so I won’t go very far into those. To make a long story short, the Premium Collections should also be fantastic buys, but probably won’t trump the Tins or Pin Collections. They will each include 7 packs and retail for $39.99, which is a bit steep in my opinion. The Mini Tins are interesting, as they will be the cheapest way in history to get special set booster packs. Each mini tin will retail for $8.99, and include two packs. They will also have the best price-to-pack ratio of all the products, with the packs equating to around $4.49 each. Hopefully these will not be overly distributed, but as I said earlier, you can never predict it. Regardless, even if they dump three times more Shining Fates packs into the market than they already have printed, I don’t think that the flames of the fans can ever be diminished, because the Pokemon market right now gobbles up packs faster than they can be printed, and then some.
My overall advice to anyone looking resell this set is to buy as much as product as possible while the value is still low. The ETBs are definitely the best product by far, but the rest of the products are also fantastic. In terms of long-term investment, we’ve certainly got a long road ahead of us. In the current market climate, I would not be at all surprised if Pokemon is still printing this set two years from now. After that, there may be a stalling time, and after that, the products will start to rise in price. I am personally going to hold off on investing in this set until right before the products start diminishing, which I think is the best tactic for all major Pokemon sets.
If you have made it this far, I really appreciate your interest, and I hope that you enjoyed reading this analysis and found it to be helpful. Please feel free to leave a comment!
