Each generation has its own “treasures.”
The treasures of the older generation, such as ancient coins, commemorative banknotes, stamps, jade and other collectibles that were once called “hard currency” are now being sold at reduced prices, while the “hard currency” of young people including blind boxes, figurines, limited-edition cards and the like are being snapped up at extremely high premiums. Some people say the older generation cannot understand the treasures of young people, and young people refuse to take over the “old-timer assets”?
In front of the counter at Shenzhen Antique City, Mr. Nan spreads out his “hard currency” that he has collected for many years, waiting for an offer.
The jade he bought for more than 20,000 yuan in 2015 can now be cashed out for less than 2,000 yuan. On the counter also lies a 1980 Gengshen Year Monkey Stamp, which could be sold for 12,000 yuan per piece at its peak in 2021, but is only worth 3,000 yuan now.
On the other side, there are queues at the card stores in shopping malls. Cards priced at dozens of yuan per pack, if you draw a rare version, can be listed on second-hand platforms for three to four digits; a blind box costing dozens of yuan, if you get the hidden version, its price will be multiplied by ten. Most of the people in the queue are around 20 years old.
The treasures of the older generation, such as ancient coins, commemorative banknotes, stamps, jade and other collectibles that were once called “hard currency” are now being sold at reduced prices, while the “hard currency” of young people including blind boxes, figurines, limited-edition cards and the like are being snapped up at extremely high premiums. Some people say the older generation cannot understand the treasures of young people, and young people refuse to take over the “old-timer assets”?
1. “There are fewer buyers and more sellers, so the price cannot be raised.”
“There are fewer buyers and more sellers, so the price cannot be raised.” This sentence from Mr. Nan sounds like a complaint in a vegetable market, but it is particularly piercing in the collectibles market. Thirty years ago he was a buyer, and thirty years later he became a seller. His identity as an “old-timer” has changed, and the market has changed accordingly.
The monkey stamp used to be a myth in the collecting circle. The 1980 Gengshen Year Monkey Stamp is known as “Moutai among stamps”, and a single piece could be sold for 12,000 yuan at its peak in 2021. By November 2025, in the stores of Shenzhen Antique City, ordinary monkey stamps without color marks are priced at 3,800 yuan, and the shopkeeper even nods to a counteroffer of 3,000 yuan, down about 75% from the high point.
The jade market is even worse. The realizable value of high-grade Hetian jade and Tianhuang stone is only about 30% of the purchase price, and ordinary jade is only 10% of the original price. Strange stones and ancient coins are not in a better situation either. A complete set of Collection of Ancient Coins of Past Dynasties that could be sold for 7,000 yuan in 2021 has now dropped to 800 yuan. People have talked about “no market despite a quoted price” for many years, but now even the “price” itself is loosening.
These “old-timer” assets such as stamp albums, strange stones, and ancient coins have one thing in common: their prices are built on the previous generation’s consensus on “scarcity”, “vintage” and “material”. When the group of people who are willing to pay for this consensus grow old collectively and tighten their wallets, the consensus turns into an exhibition hall with no exit. The items are still there, the labels are still there, but the young people who are willing to take over have not come.
2. A single card sells for tens of thousands of yuan, young people are obsessed with “collecting cards”
For young people, the situation is completely different. According to data from CIC, the market size of China’s trading card market has expanded from 2.8 billion yuan in 2019 to 26.3 billion yuan in 2024, nearly tenfold in five years. This is only the card category. Blind boxes, figurines, ACG merchandise, plush toys, every sub-track is creating “secondary market miracles” in batches.
A piece of paper card costing a few cents, printed with a certain character, if you draw a rare version, can get a premium of dozens or even hundreds of times; a blind box priced at dozens of yuan, the hidden version can be listed for four digits on second-hand platforms, and there are still people willing to take it.
It is worth noting that this generation of young people not only spend money, they also “recover cash”. When they draw duplicate items or unwanted items, they resell them on the platform, replenish their wallets and continue to draw. In their words, this is not squandering money, but “liquidity-managed assets”. The monkey stamp in the old-timer’s stamp album has been unsold for half a year, while young people’s cards and blind boxes are like having legs, moving around on the platforms, and some of them are becoming more and more valuable.
Behind the card and ACG merchandise economy is a whole new set of pricing logic. It does not ask how many years you have kept it, it only asks if you like it; it does not rely on “small surviving quantity” to bluff people, but creates social currency by “I got the hidden version”. The dopamine the moment you open the package, the sense of recognition when you take a photo and post it to the group, the moment you are discussed and envied in the circle, all of these are part of the price.
What young people buy is not just a piece of paper, but a certificate that allows them to “be present” in the community. Old-timers think young people do not know the value of goods, while young people think old-timers are playing for nothing. The two sets of logic pass by in the same market, neither convincing the other, but liquidity and the market have already given the answer.
3. Each generation has its own “treasure”
In 2025, a group of fund managers who once heavily held Kweichow Moutai turned around and poured into Pop Mart. A fund manager said a decent but cruel sentence: “Each generation has its own Moutai.”
This is not an empty statement. Calculated from the historical low in October 2022, Pop Mart’s share price once rose by more than 17 times; at the end of the first quarter of 2025, it was heavily held by 168 funds.
While old-timers are still arguing about the skin color and density of a piece of Hetian jade, capital has turned away. You cannot say capital is superficial, capital just recognized a fact earlier than the collecting circle: the carrier of consensus will be replaced, and no one will notify you when the replacement happens.
Young people play cards and blind boxes, and also play commemorative coins, but what they buy is not the same as their parents’.
The 2026 version of China Silver Dragon Commemorative Coin was open for reservation, more than 3.3 million people applied, and only 24,000 people won the lottery, with a winning rate of less than 1%. To put it bluntly, what attracts young people is the “aesthetic value” and “emotional value”, the cultural identity behind the dragon pattern and auspicious clouds. Those ordinary commemorative coins with outdated themes, mediocre designs and huge circulation are experiencing another fate: cold reservations, low enthusiasm for redemption, and a large number of them are deposited back into banks.
For the same word “coin”, on one side more than 3 million people are running for it, on the other side people are queuing up at the counter to deposit it back. What young people buy is what they value and like, putting it in the cabinet is equivalent to putting a part of themselves in it, which has nothing to do with the material, face value or “issued by the central bank”.
The pricing logic of “old-timer” assets looks back: the older the year, the smaller the surviving quantity, the more difficult the craft, the more valuable it is. The pricing logic of young people’s assets looks forward, or in other words, looks at “me”: is it related to the IP I like, can it be recognized, discussed and envied in the community, can it make me secrete a little dopamine the moment I open it. The former logic requires time precipitation and knowledge threshold, while the latter requires emotional investment and presence in the circle.
Every generation has its own hard currency. The reason why hard currency is “hard” is that a group of people are willing to collectively believe that it is hard. Only this time, the group of people who believe it has changed, and no one sent a notice to the old-timers when the shift happened.
This article is from the WeChat Official Account “Finance Gossip Girl Channel” (ID: baguanvpindao) published with authorization from 36Kr
