Will tariffs impact card prices?

[Rictor]

I know a lot of trading cards and comic books used to be printed in Canada, but I'm not sure if that's still the case. Anything still printed there or overseas?

I did order some plastic comic book boxes in bulk from Comic Pro Line in Canada in Feb., and they asked me if still wanted them because I was going to get hit with tariffs because they were made in China. I said yes, and they shipped them, but I didn't get hit with any tariffs because Trump stopped the tariffs at the last second back then.

I believe a lot of trading card supplies are produced in China, like penny sleeves, trading card boxes, one touches, etc., from some brands, so card supplies may see a price increase.

I tend to order my comic and trading card supplies in bulk (1,000 bags/boards at a time and 10,000 penny sleeves at a time), so I am probably good on buying any for quite a while at this point.

[finfangfan]

You mention comic and card supplies coming from overseas (I have no idea if that is correct but it seems plausible) what about the actual slabs that the grading companies use? Do they come from China too? That could be quite disruptive.

[Rictor]

Originally Posted by finfangfan

You mention comic and card supplies coming from overseas (I have no idea if that is correct but it seems plausible) what about the actual slabs that the grading companies use? Do they come from China too? That could be quite disruptive.

I believe BGS slabs are made in Taiwan. My guess would be PSA and CGC slabs come from China. Ultra Pro has a factory in Hong Kong.

[finfangfan]

I just checked my comic and card bags and both made in China…

[HiltonL]

Based on what we just saw from COMC, the card hobby is going to get wrecked by tariffs

[finfangfan]

I would guesstimate 60% of ePack’s hockey sales are to Canadian accounts. I could imagine many boycotting the site due to the high duty fees… also you can’t fault them if the whole thing makes them feel a sense of nationalism and want to keep their $ in country.

[Chrominator]

If it's 100% plastic, it's from China

[finfangfan]

Make Plastic American Again

[YayNJ]

Don't worry, Trumpy is playing 4D chess with the world, and soon the USA will have bestiest best plastic sleeves available known to man. Truly the best.

[GFD18]

Many hobbies will be affected. I'm hearing about more and more every day.

Kickstarter campaigns that were funded last year and nearing production completion now are going to get screwed. I pledged for a $150ish designer vinyl figure by Huck Gee and he recently posted scary news. He is going to get hit by 80K in tariffs for a project he essentially broke even on. And he doesnt have the 80K to pay...so...what happens now? Its awful.

Even in our trading card industry, there have been recent kickstarters by indie artists. Or even the Joe Jusko style art books.

[finfangfan]

Funko stock plummeted last week. Perfect opportunity for the Amish to carve out Squid Game wood figures!

[finfangfan]

Originally Posted by GFD18

Even in our trading card industry, there have been recent kickstarters by indie artists. Or even the Joe Jusko style art books.

lol… that project was a delayed dumpster fire even when the world was functioning normally. Imagine the delays with tariffs tacked on!

[greatgradegrate]

If these tariffs go forward as planned I can see all collecting hobbies cratering. People are going to have to sell off and disengage from hobbies completely. Will be good for the wealthiest collectors to hoover everything up, but lots and lots of exiting hobbies completely.

[PurplesaurusRex]

Apparently a large portion of our adult population has no clue what tariffs are and how they work. I guess that's the American education system for ya. MAGUHH

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by GFD18

Many hobbies will be affected. I'm hearing about more and more every day.

Kickstarter campaigns that were funded last year and nearing production completion now are going to get screwed. I pledged for a $150ish designer vinyl figure by Huck Gee and he recently posted scary news. He is going to get hit by 80K in tariffs for a project he essentially broke even on. And he doesnt have the 80K to pay...so...what happens now? Its awful.

Even in our trading card industry, there have been recent kickstarters by indie artists. Or even the Joe Jusko style art books.

Can you imagine if that FPG Jusko project had this going on as well. I shudder at that thought!

[PurplesaurusRex]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Can you imagine if that FPG Jusko project had this going on as well. I shudder at that thought!

Lol. Oh man. If anybody just had a KS project recently delivered, consider yourself extremely lucky!

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by greatgradegrate

If these tariffs go forward as planned I can see all collecting hobbies cratering. People are going to have to sell off and disengage from hobbies completely. Will be good for the wealthiest collectors to hoover everything up, but lots and lots of exiting hobbies completely.

I'll get the vacuum ready...


The sky is always falling, at least once or twice a year and it never fully falls. Dips, yes, but also peaks. If I remember right, when the country basically shut down via Covid, this same type of talk was going on at the beginning. That didn't turn out like a lot of people thought it would(in the card world)

Some items will be more expensive though, no doubt. If you do cards as a business, I could see being worried. But I suspect the vast majority of people in this hobby are not(a business). And if you are not in the card BUSINESS, you shouldn't be worried overly worried about cards going down, or up for that matter...since it is your/our/most peoples HOBBY...you know, for fun.

[Xiarmadillo]

You guys are looking at the primary market....the real crux is if these sticks the secondary market will get annihilated
Like worse than 2007-2009, esepecially at the super elevated levels cards are at

[greatgradegrate]

Originally Posted by orion9578

The sky is always falling, at least once or twice a year and it never fully falls. Dips, yes, but also peaks. If I remember right, when the country basically shut down via Covid, this same type of talk was going on at the beginning. That didn't turn out like a lot of people thought it would(in the card world)

This isn't like Covid, I don't think we should be trying to apply what happened there (people locked down looking for stuff to do, with the funds to do it, turning to collectibles) with what is coming down the pipe when necessary goods are more expensive.

I'm not calling the end of the hobby, but personally if the goods I have to buy are more expensive the first thing I'm laying off is the goods I don't have to buy.

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by greatgradegrate

This isn't like Covid, I don't think we should be trying to apply what happened there (people locked down looking for stuff to do, with the funds to do it, turning to collectibles) with what is coming down the pipe when necessary goods are more expensive.

I'm not calling the end of the hobby, but personally if the goods I have to buy are more expensive the first thing I'm laying off is the goods I don't have to buy.

I wasn't calling this situation and Covid the same thing. I said when Covid first started, people were calling for cards to fall off the face of the earth and they didn't.

That makes sense to lay off of your hobby to buy goods you need, if that's what you have to do. I personally don't think things will play out like that, but hey, I'm wrong constantly about all sorts of things .

[YayNJ]

Originally Posted by PurplesaurusRex

Apparently a large portion of our adult population has no clue what tariffs are and how they work. I guess that's the American education system for ya. MAGUHH

Wait... you mean it's *not* constant, non-stop winning?

[PoPCulture]

Personally, I think the only items that will affect me are the HasLab crowdfunded items that are in various stages of completion. My guess is that these will be greatly delayed. These aren’t cheap so any delay is not ideal.

[NatsSBR]

As a collector by night and an econ professional by day, I hate to see my worlds collide like this. I could write a lot about this but will do my best to be brief.

The bottom line is that the level of disruption will depend on how long the tariffs actually remain in place. Immediate and near-immediate impacts (taxes imposed by the U.S. government and foreign governments on plastic supplies, padded mailers, and the collectibles themselves) will be noticeable but relatively easy to incorporate into your buying plans. Enforcement variance could cause big issues, though; for example, many people already have horror stories of buying a sealed box and being charged duties on the stated MSRP of each individual pack in the box. Those unpredictable events will hurt much more when tariffs are much higher.

Tariff boosters expect to see positive impacts in domestic industries, and they probably will, but it's likely that consumers will pay increased prices even for wholly domestic products. Existing supplies of finished goods (e.g., the collections we already own) and supplies with completely domestic supply chains (e.g., many products made exclusively out of paper or cardboard, like paper envelopes and storage boxes) won't be affected directly, so they'll be more competitive against taxed products. The rosy view is that this will drive sales of domestic products that are suddenly less expensive in relative terms. That said, people selling these products may just as easily take advantage of the opportunity to increase prices and pad their profit margin per sale -- even though they aren't paying tariffs on their production -- because the products they're competing against are suddenly more expensive. This happens often; the 2018 tariffs on imported washing machines make for a great example.

Second-order effects (increased domestic labor costs to compensate for inflation, increased costs of essential capital equipment/replacement parts/industrial inputs) will take longer to show up but will ultimately be felt at the retail level. There are not THAT many companies that produce printing presses, automated cutting machines, sorting machines, etc. There are probably even fewer that produce their components. I am almost sure that nobody on the industrial side has taken a look at how many border crossings it takes to go from raw materials to component parts to functional machines delivered to factories. This problem will affect the value proposition for end users, potentially in terms of both increased costs and lower product quality as the producers weigh trade-offs.

These dynamics are pretty easy to see coming because in a world with blanket tariffs, this is going to happen in all industries, not just collectibles.

If Trump reverses himself soon, or if Congress reverses him through a veto threat -- both possibilities, but not strong ones IMO -- the disruption will be a short-term bump in the road. If the tariffs remain in place for a moderate length of time, we will see major direct and indirect impacts on collectors. If tariffs remain in place for several years, the economy will incorporate them into the baseline and we will see the country accept them as the new normal.

That's not to say we will be better off in the long run with the tariffs, just that we will get used to them. That adaptation will take much longer than tariff boosters seem to think, so my gut says we ride a painful wave for a few months and the White House shuts them down (not because our trading cards cost more, but because everything costs more). Presumably they will declare victory over our global trading partners in public while acknowledging the political damage in private.

[YayNJ]

Originally Posted by NatsSBR

Presumably they will declare victory over our global trading partners in public while acknowledging the political damage in private.

this is perfect

[Stifle]

Prices are raised because there is a group that controls the masses while compiling wealth. Of course this group will find a way to spin the circumstances as a way of increasing prices. After all, the United States is no longer about the people controlling the government but the elite selected within the government controlling the people.