r/Gameboy • u/Pumpz_ • 13h ago
Games I tracked loose Pokemon cart asking prices on eBay daily for 3 months. They've been flat to slightly down.
Everyone assumes Pokemon carts only go up, so I compared the first 30 days of my tracking against the last 30. Loose carts, US eBay Buy It Now listings, average of the daily median asking price.
| Game | Jul 19 - Aug 18 | Sep 17 - Oct 16 | Change | Listings per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emerald | $243 | $230 | -5% | ~25 |
| Crystal | $179 | $168 | -6% | ~16 |
| Ruby | $99 | $97 | -2% | ~13 |
| Sapphire | $98 | $98 | 0% | ~15 |
| Gold | $74 | $71 | -5% | ~17 |
| Yellow | $69 | $70 | +2% | ~18 |
| Red | $69 | $69 | 0% | ~16 |
| Silver | $67 | $63 | -6% | ~15 |
| Blue | $64 | $62 | -3% | ~17 |
FireRed is around $115 but I only started tracking it in late September, so no comparison yet.
What stood out: - Nothing moved more than 6% either way. If anything the trend is slightly down. - Emerald is still in a league of its own at ~1.4x Crystal. - Gen 1 and Gen 2 carts all sit in the same $60-70 band.
How it's measured: new listings matching each game, loose carts only, excluding lots/bundles, Japanese and PAL copies, and anything labeled repro, bootleg or fake. Days with fewer than 8 matching listings are left out.
Big caveats: these are asking prices, not sold prices, so actual sales land lower. And fakes that aren't labeled as fakes can still slip in, which is a real issue with Pokemon carts.
Disclosure: the tracker is a project of mine (CresvaMent, it does eBay deal alerts). Daily numbers for each game are here if you want to dig in: https://cresvament.com/deals?ref=reddit

