DropForecast logs every trading-card, TCG and collectible drop the moment the manufacturer announces it, dates it, and shows what it really sells for — real sold prices or no number at all, with every call kept on a public ledger. Every call is filed on a public ledger and graded once the drop has happened, including the ones we get wrong.
DropForecast is built and run by Hayden Simerly, an active collectibles reseller based in Houston, Texas. Not a media company and not a marketplace: the models here were built to answer questions that came up while actually buying and selling this stuff — is this box worth preordering, and when should I sell what I already have.
That matters for one reason. Every forecast on this site is a bet the operator is also taking. There is no incentive to publish a number we do not believe.
One page per upcoming drop, answered first: COP WATCH or PASS — but only when real sold prices for that exact product back the call. Where no human has paid a price for it yet, the page says No call and prints no multiple, because a number nobody paid is not worth showing. When there is a call, the projection is a humble range (for example 2–4.5× retail) with its confidence and the number of sales under it, never a two-decimal figure. The Pre-Drop Forecaster reads public pre-drop signals — search interest, video coverage, reference attention, breadth of retailer listings. Every number on the page has a name and a definition:
The signal decomposition is printed on each page, so the call can be argued with rather than taken on faith. Low signal coverage is labelled as low signal coverage — it is not confidence, and we do not call it that.
A dated sell-by call for product you already hold, from a hype-decay curve: when the resale premium peaks, and what holding past that costs. Where a product has real price history in our comp index the call is fitted to that history. Where it does not, the call falls back to a category prior and the page says "category prior" on the pill — most current calls are in that state, and the page says so rather than dressing up a guess.
Completed public sales for the exact product, indexed continuously and re-priced. Where the index has a product, the page shows the sold median and how many sales it rests on; where it does not, the page says "no sold comps yet" rather than inventing a number.
The hobby news cycle, refreshed hourly. Two engines: sixteen publisher feeds read directly, plus an open-web sweep that runs a search for every product already on our board. Each story is typed as an event — preorder, delayed, restock, checklist, pricing, announced, release — and carries a date only when the source states one. We never infer a date to fill a field.
Everything is gathered from free, public sources under a self-imposed rate limit. Where a source blocks automated access, we say so on the page rather than working around it.
These are forecasts, and forecasts are wrong on a schedule. The honest limits, stated plainly:
Thin history is the big one. A product with no sold-comp history gets a category prior, which is a considerably weaker claim than a fitted curve. Those pages are labelled category prior. Treat them as a starting point, not a signal.
Resale markets move on things no model sees. A reprint announcement, a licence change, an injury, a lawsuit. A dated call made before the news is a call made without it.
Correlation is labelled as correlation. The catalyst feed links dated events to comp movement. It does not prove the event caused the movement, and the page says so.
Nothing here is financial advice. Collectible resale carries real risk of loss, including total loss. Verify live comps before you buy or sell anything.
Every call is filed on a public ledger the day it is made, and graded once the drop has happened on the track record page — hits and misses both, with the original call shown exactly as filed. A call is graded by dividing the post-drop sold median for that exact product by its retail price on record: a COP is a hit at 2× or better, a WATCH between 1× and 2×, a PASS under 1.3×. When there are no sales yet, or no retail price on record, the ledger says the call is unresolvable and says why, rather than guessing. A forecasting site that only shows its wins is a marketing site.
157 calls filed since Jul 22 · 109 matured · 0 graded (0 hits, 0 misses) · 109 unresolvable so far — every one listed on the ledger.
That sentence is the whole record, and it is stated only in counts. The model's historical backtest — run after the fact on past drops — is published on the same page, labelled as history, and is never quoted here as a track record.
If a number here is wrong, we want to know and we will fix it. Reach us through the contact form. Corrections to a published forecast are made on the page itself, with the original call left visible.
DropForecast is independent. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Topps, Panini, Upper Deck, Nike, Pokémon, Wizards of the Coast, LEGO, or any manufacturer or retailer named on this site. Product names and images belong to their respective owners and appear here for identification and commentary. Last updated October 18, 2026.
