Will Lorcana ever be a good investment… well no, it won’t. And the reason why starts and ends with the company called Ravensburger.
Ravensburger AG is a German game, puzzle and toy company, publishing house, and market leader in the jigsaw puzzle market.
Ravensburger has a belief that they should print enough product to meet demand and try to keep product available at MSRP. That’s where the problem is. By printing to meet demand the number of cards increases exponentially… making rare cards less and less rare with each booster pack.
Konami, The Pokemon Company, and Wizards of the Coast all do reprints of course and Konami does reprint cards in a similar way to Ravensburger.
Konami has popular and expensive cards reprinted in new sets because you know… money. In the case of Yu-Gi-Oh Konami wants to capture the value of cards that are in demand. In contrast Ravensburger doesn’t create new sets with expensive cards but rather just reprints the sets that are running low at MSRP.
The Pokemon company does reprints. Their reprint policies are not really public knowledge. Which set gets reprinted and why is all up to The Pokemon Company. They’ll reprint a set for years and then suddenly stop. Due to the sheer popularity of Pokemon and the seemingly random / unknown supply of cards, Pokemon cards make for a much better “investment”. The Pokemon Company does seem to try to meet demand with their reprints, it’s just that demand for certain sets is just so strong that availability is poor… at least that’s what it sounds like anecdotally.
Wizards of the Coast also reprints cards. But Wizards of the Coast goes the furthest away from Ravensburger. Where Ravensburger makes no promises about cards getting reprinted, Wizards of the Coast has a reserved list. The reserved list is a list of cards that won’t get reprinted by Wizards of the Coast so as to support the value of cards on the secondary market. Which is the complete opposite of Ravensburger. Like Pokemon cards, Magic the Gathering cards make for a much better “investment”.
So Lorcana ends up being the worst possible investment of the lot. Reprints are a normal part of trading card games but Ravensburger simply takes things a little bit further. I should also mention that Lorcana is the newest game and doesn’t have the popularity of say Magic the Gathering. That alone depresses card prices. But with the addition of reprinting card prices don’t stand much of a chance compared to the card prices you’ll find in Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokemon.
Lorcana just isn’t a good investment. You can certainly try to invest in the game but I think you’re just going to get burned. If you’d really like to gamble go ahead and try Magic the Gathering collector booster boxes. Lorcana doesn’t have the popularity, the history, or the reprinting policies necessary to make for a good investment.
Unless Ravensburger changes their printing policies Lorcana will continue to be a bad investment. I do hope Lorcana continues to grow in popularity. It’d be nice to have a new popular card game around.