Aug 24, 2026 · 10 min · 8 segments
“The Hobbit Collector Booster Display gained 2.6% in its second week of open-market trading while supply and sellers both grew 60%+. Crack the Plates reversed three weeks of decline after supply…
That's the pullback you'd expect after the biggest release week of the year.
What you might not expect is that what happened inside those numbers.
Quick note for anyone new, when I say supply in this segment, I mean the average number of listed units on TCG Player on any given day, not total printed or distributed product.
The Hobbit Collector Booster Display gained about 3% in the second week of open market trading.
Supply grew 28%, sellers grew 62%, and the price went up anyway.
Sell-through was 2.5 times the shelf.
Last week, I asked whether the $853 pre-release price was real demand or scarcity pricing.
The open market has now answered twice.
The demand is real.
Scarcity may be still helping the price, but it can explain away a 28% supply increase, 62% more sellers, and the box still moving higher.
When listed inventory grows 28% across 68 sellers and buying still pushes the price higher, that usually means the collector base is deeper than the pre-release hype suggested.
Cracked the plates, reversed.
Three weeks of double-digit declines, and last week I said the box was $7 from MSRP and predicted sellers would leave when margin disappeared.
That's what happened.
Supply created 59%, sellers dropped 12%, and the price bounced about 9%, still clearing twice its shelf.
The demand was there the whole time, the sellers were the variable.
Either sellers pull their listings entirely because the math doesn't work, or someone swoops in to buy the dip.
This week, it was the first one.
Sellers left, supply collapsed, and the remaining inventory repriced upwards.
Treasures of Smog, the other seen box, didn't follow.
Its sellers grew 48% while supply barely moved, and the decline continued at about 8%.
One box hit its floor and bounced.
The other one hasn't found one.
That's the pullback you'd expect after the biggest release week of the year.
What you might not expect is that what happened inside those numbers.
Quick note for anyone new, when I say supply in this segment, I mean the average number of listed units on TCG Player on any given day, not total printed or distributed product.
The Hobbit Collector Booster Display gained about 3% in the second week of open market trading.
Supply grew 28%, sellers grew 62%, and the price went up anyway.
Sell-through was 2.5 times the shelf.
Last week, I asked whether the $853 pre-release price was real demand or scarcity pricing.
The open market has now answered twice.
The demand is real.
Scarcity may be still helping the price, but it can explain away a 28% supply increase, 62% more sellers, and the box still moving higher.
When listed inventory grows 28% across 68 sellers and buying still pushes the price higher, that usually means the collector base is deeper than the pre-release hype suggested.
Cracked the plates, reversed.
Three weeks of double-digit declines, and last week I said the box was $7 from MSRP and predicted sellers would leave when margin disappeared.
That's what happened.
Supply created 59%, sellers dropped 12%, and the price bounced about 9%, still clearing twice its shelf.
The demand was there the whole time, the sellers were the variable.
Either sellers pull their listings entirely because the math doesn't work, or someone swoops in to buy the dip.
This week, it was the first one.
Sellers left, supply collapsed, and the remaining inventory repriced upwards.
Treasures of Smog, the other seen box, didn't follow.
Its sellers grew 48% while supply barely moved, and the decline continued at about 8%.
One box hit its floor and bounced.
The other one hasn't found one.
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