The products will release in waves on September 16th, October 2nd, October 30th, November 6th, and December 4th, 2026. Across all these waves, there are A LOT of 30th Celebrations products releasing.
This includes an Elite Trainer Box (ETB) and Pokémon Center ETB, and also two separate Ultra Premium Collection (UPC) boxes, each with unique promos and accessories.
But wait, there’s more: There are a grand total of 21 30th Celebrations products and 15 of them include unique promos.
Image showing most of the revealed 30th Celebration products.
Compare this to the Celebrations set for the 25th anniversary, which had 11 products, 10 of which included unique promos.
With this many products, The Pokémon Company will be distributing their already limited print capacity across nearly twice the product SKUs. While I’m sure they are printing this set “at maximum capacity”, the need to print so many different types of products makes it inevitable that the total supply of any given product will be lower.
They can’t print more ETBs when they need to the packs for the Binder Collection Box…
This does not bode well for prices.
We've already seen leaks of Gamestop's 30th Celebration prices, where the already high-priced UPC product, with an MSRP or $179.99, will be sold for $600 USD: more than 3x the MSRP price.
(Note: The Polygon article I linked incorrectly using $120 MSRP for the 30th Celebration UPCs; however, the confirmed MSRP prices for the UPCs are $179.99: a $50 increase over past $119.99 UPC MSRP prices.)
These prices are crazy expensive, and it's a shame collectors are being faced with them.
Leaked Gamestop prices for 30th Celebration products.
The problem is, it would not surprise me if the Gamestop’s prices actually reflect the true market price for 30th Celebration products, at least when we look at the supply and demand dynamics for this release. Demand is enormous, and we know Pokémon can't print enough. Under the circumstances, 3x MSRP might be the best we’ll see.
Of course, I would love to be proven wrong here.
For example, during the 25th anniversary, Celebrations products were also selling for above MSRP at release. But, The Pokémon Company released so many print waves over the months that followed that Celebrations prices got down to MSRP or less within 4 months.
For the patient collectors like me, it meant we were able to get our hands on these coveted products at affordable prices.
It was perfect.
And, the lessons I learned by being patient with the 25th anniversary release are one of the many such lessons that have led to me preaching patience throughout this market boom phase. But, so far, we have yet to see new supply have a meaningful impact on market prices.
I hope the 30th Celebration set is different, but I just don’t see anything changing for us yet…
I've written many times about the planned expansion of the Millennium Print Group facilities and the implication that The Pokémon Company cannot print more without it. With the expansion not being expected to finish until 2028... what hope do we have to see more supply for this 30th anniversary release?
Do you plan to buy any 30th Celebrations products as they release? Are you placing pre-orders? Or, are you going to wait and hope prices fall with time as the 30th anniversary hype fades?
As usual,
Thanks so much for reading the TCG Buyers Club newsletter. My name's Grey, I buy cardboard, and I'm on a mission to make collecting and investing in Pokémon simple.
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