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my kids have been pretty excited about Pokemon cards (World Cup Panini has taken over recently), but their uncle just unveiled his card collection from his childhood and they are in awe. We luckily haven't gotten to the point where they are questing too hard for new cards.
As to the Gresham's Law argument, I'm not sure. I think we see lots of weird collectibles things getting popular, but it feels more like gambling to me than it does like serious savings tech. As you point out, they could just buy gold. I doubt the issue is saggy bulges.
I don't know if I'd call it Gresham's Law, but I definitely think it's related to money supply inflation. For one, there wouldn't be so many scalpers if prices weren't going up rapidly, and I don't think prices would have gone up this rapidly if we didn't have a rapid monetary expansion
I started collecting Pokemon cards recently. I've been buying bulk low value cards and hoping to collect gen 1, cards numbered 1-151. This doesn't mean I'm looking for old cards, because those are very expensive. Instead, there are plenty of newer cards being printed with low numbers, and those newer, lower cost cards are what I'm looking for.
I bring this up because I'm realizing that it's really hard to collect Pokemon cards right now. Every "hit" card in every set gets scooped up by resellers, and the bulk cards I've been buying contain no hits.
You might have heard stories about resellers going to Pokemon vending machines and buying every single sealed product in them. I heard a streamer talking about how it was sad, that kids aren't able to get new cards.
I started to think that this could be Gresham's Law. "bad money drives out good." Is this a correct assumption?
We have fiat-- government deficit spending and bad money policy for the past ~40 years, so things other than dollars start to become monetized. Real estate, Stocks, and now Pokemon cards? The dollar isn't a good savings technology, it loses 7-12% of it's value every year, so people are looking for other things that hold their value better, i.e. Pokemon cards.
Gresham's law means that dollars are the bad money, so all the good money (Pokemon cards) disappear from circulation. Thus, my struggle in collecting "hit" cards.
Heck, I have an acquaintance who recently sold his 1st edition Charizard for $15,000. That seems like a really good money compared to gold. Pokemon cards fit in your pocket, but a $15K chunk of gold would leave a huge saggy bulge.