Post Updates:
March 20, 2021: Legendary Treasures RC Set Completed
April 22, 2021: Random Additions
September 19, 2021: Japanese Neo Discovery Master Set Completed
September 21, 2021: Cynthia and Random Stuff
November 5th, 2021: Collection Update, Slabs, and Video Games
May 1st, 2023: Construction and Destruction
Sets In Progress/Completed:
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Japanese Neo Discovery Master Set - COMPLETED (set images)
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Legendary Treasures Radiant Collection Set - COMPLETED (set images)
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Arceus Movie Complete Set - 5 cards left (set images)
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Legendary Heartbeat Complete Set - 8 cards left (set images)
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English BREAK Complete Set - 9 cards left (set images)
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Generations Radiant Collection Set- 14 cards left (set images)
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Japanese and English Cynthia Master Set (set images)
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Platinum: Arceus Complete Set - 53 cards left (images unavailable)
Planned Sets:
- All Japanese Neo Sets in a Master set
- Spanish HeartGold & SoulSilver Complete Set
- All POP Series sets
Binders (Still Under Construction) :
Binder 1: Cynthia and Stuff
Binder 2: Idk What to Call This
Binder 3: It’s a Binder
Binder 4: Celebrations Crack
Binder 5: Miscellaneous 1
Now you can look through my binders and see all the random stuff I own and the stuff I haven’t made dedicated posts for! As well as judge how dirty my pages are
Summary
It’s autumn in the year 2009.
In the little jacket room of a 2nd grade class, two young kids were quietly huddled over their backpacks in a corner, unaware someone had joined them in the small room. They quietly murmured, their words flying out fast as if they were almost certainly arguing over something.
Suddenly, one of them whip their head around, becoming frightened as they became aware of a new person in the room.
In their hands, something glimmered under the low light.
That was my first introduction to Pokémon, not the anime or the games. Some kids bringing their cards to school (Pokémon cards were banned, something about gambling and theft. More likely something else because this was an elementary school in Oklahoma). Unaware, I had walked into the middle of a card trade. I remember distinctly, that in one of the kids hands was an Arceus LV.X jumping out at my 7 year old eyes, the holofoil pattern capturing my eyes and my heart. The other kid had a Machamp LV.X. The absolute shininess of the cards taking me away.
I think this is a very one sided trade but imagine how my tiny, little,
7 year old brain blew up when I saw these for the first time.
The kids knew what they were doing was against the rules, and although I live by the fact that “snitches get stitches,” I didn’t even know what Pokémon was and that having the cards were against the rules. Those two kids bribed me to stay quiet, and they did this by giving me a Machamp LV.X (the kid had an extra one, it was a bit more damaged) and that was the moment something just clicked in my small brain.
In the time since, I became friends with the kid with the Machamp LV.X, eventually, I had bought my first pack. My mom had given me a $5 bill for candy at school, but instead I saved it and when we went to Walmart on the weekend, I had snuck away and bought a pack. It was a Diamond & Pearl: Stormfront pack with Infernape as the pack art. And I saved it through the weekend, excited to go show my friend at school the first pack I had bought. They were just as excited as I was when I procured the pack to show them, and we waited until recess. We could not contain our excitement as recess came, running out to the empty field that kids sometimes used to play soccer.
We tore into the pack, excited, yet…
The pack was a dud.
But I was hooked.
Somehow, after nearly 12 years, I still have the very pack wrapper in my hands.
And it will stay in my hands until I kick the bucket.
For nearly 2 years, I bought packs when I was given money, every weekend my uncle would take my brother and I to a store and let us get anything under $5 and I always chose a Pokémon pack. I gathered a small hoard of cards, losing many in the process as well, like the gift Machamp LV.X, but I still gathered cards up.
Until one day, my shoebox hiding most of my cards had gone missing. Running through the house, I searched and searched, and found it in my brother’s room. He had taken some of my cards and traded with his friends. I went to my mom with the news, and she had become fed up because this was a common occurrence. She took the shoebox away, most of my cards becoming lost, only a couple surviving the first “mass extinction.”
I had stopped collecting then, but not for long, as soon enough, I came back with Black & White: Plasma Storm, but not in the same force as I once had. I rarely bought packs, I was more interested in Club Penguin and Webkinz, and spent money there instead. Once again, my small collection of cards, with the first survivors, would meet it’s second mass extinction. My brother once again took my cards to trade with his friends, and this time my mom had took the nuclear option.
She took the new shoebox and sat by the trashcan with scissors, snipping nearly every card in half as she dropped them into the trashcan. There were few survivors, but those cards were collected and thrown in a small drawer, I had given up. And I gave up for a long time.
Survivors of both mass extinctions, you can see how much they’ve been through
I can’t really tell you when I came back for good, it could have been Generations when I saw an ETB and impulse bought it, it could have been when I went to an Evolutions prerelease with a friend and got the zard (I no longer have the zard, sold it to pay for college), or it could have been when I introduced said friend to Pokémon. In the end, I came back, and I’ve stayed. And I’m happy to say my collection will probably never go through another mass extinction. I’ve lost contact with the friend who introduced me to Pokémon, but I am so happy that I randomly walked into a room and I met such an awesome person who got me into this hobby.
I’m not a zard fan, but even I can say this was an amazing card to own and
I regret selling it, but I’m happy that I can pretend to dislike zard so much when in fact
I am forever grateful that it helped cover part of my tuition and there will never be another zard like this one for me.
My collection goals are pretty simple now, to just collect cards or sets that I think are interesting. I’ve recently gotten into the vintage sets (let’s not count gen 4 as vintage please, or I’ll be vintage ;-; ) and it’s all thanks to a Japanese Neo Discovery pack I impulse bought at $70 and opened before it shot up to $140.
I’m going to use this thread to show any major additions to my sets (or if I complete them), new additions to my collection, or anything I want to share overall. I can’t get anything super cool because I am paying for school, but something I’ve learned in the last year is that I don’t need a collection I can flex for people (or me, even) to enjoy it, it just needs to be what I want or like, because it is my collection.
A sealed Grass & Fire Arceus LV.X deck with an open (and mostly complete)
Lightning & Psychic Arceus LV.X deck, both 1st Edition. The Yanma being from my
Japanese Neo Discovery pack, and the first vintage holo I ever owned and graded.