Hi Scott. I wasn’t sure where to reply to you so I thought this was ok here. Yes, whos_zelda_gilroy was my username then I changed it to Professional_sports_authenticators which is active now. We’ve dealt before.
That young man was quite rude in his comment and the way he phrased it so I let him know how I felt about it lol. I had only admitted to the largest most valuable collection to make a point. I wish I hadn’t though cause like most the guys know I like to lay low and not advertise. He made a big deal out of it.
Since its you and I respect what you’ve done with this site, I can share some and explain why I don’t advertise.
I had six stores through the 90s up till 2002. Because of the tremendous Japanese interest back then I gambled a lot on jpn promos and the first English set. You can pretty well bet that a big percentage of the high end jpn promos, including some of yours, passed through my hands. When sealed bday pikachus w/stickers were bringing 400.00 I had over 1000. Plus I had over 300 PSA 10s when they were bringing 1000.00. I’ve been a PSA dealer since 1996. Yes I sold most of those back then (thank God) but I did very well. I was able to hang onto much of my original base inventory though which turns out will take care of my retirement:)
I’ve been careful to participate on these sights for years. One bungled breakin in 2003 taught me to be very tight lipped. Living in several states and even a stint in Asia since then I remained leery.
Now, I live in Las Vegas and am retired but the bulk of my collection is safely tucked away off site and extremely well protected. So now I feel safe to participate a little with other pokemon enthusiasts.
Unfortunately I’ve run into problems in that search. I signed up on Pokegym but was reprimanded and yanked for the silliest things like wrong category and commenting on old posts. I didn’t even know they were old…I was just surfing around and helping people with some mostly unknown info. A simple polite informational email would have sufficed. It took the fun out of it so I replied with my complaints and it turned out to be your partner on this site who answered and he said they’d love to have me here. He was familiar with my reputation.
So…yesterday I signed up here and started by replying to some posts that pertained to me cause I would know the whole story on what others were speculating. Things I started like psa designated shadowless, psa poke pack grading, PSA authentic, original psa jpn trophy recognization and many more things. These young people today think this stuff all just magically happened. They don’t realize the years and years that went into making it happen.
So I find the discussion on my pack grading and shared some info on it and then that young man attacked me…
My question is, why would anyone want to be involved here and have problems. Maybe cause I’m older than all of you we just can’t relate. That’s ok but it’s not what I wanted. I wanted to help and even maybe learn something myself.
Well does this reply take the record for longest post, or at least the most boring lol?
We’ll talk again, Gary.
P.S. you asked about my collection. It really is daunting lol. You can pretty much figure that any card that you don’t know where it is that I may have it;) Sorry but I rarely sell the good stuff and only talk about them if I’m ready to list it on eBay. I do have a lot of base 1st Ed boxes on auction right now but I have more so I don’t mind selling off things I have multiples of.
I think I bought my vending series sheets from you absolutely ages ago! Wow, that was one of my first purchases in my new collection. How many years have passed since then!
So much for keeping anything private these days right? Lately the only updates collection-wise I have been doing is in the “new additions” section…even then I don’t post everything I get. I can totally understand not want to reveal everything you own…its just sad that you get attacked for being private.
Anyway, I have visited your ebay store in the past…I don’t think I have bought anything from you (yet)
On a side note, this forum primarily deals with Japanese cards/promos (although we have been known to dabble with English ones)…so any information you can provide regarding such cards would be greatly appreciated!
No problem. That is a good question, if you want to post information about cards in general you can make a topic in the “general” board for all to see. If you would prefer to keep it private right here in the insider Bureau would be fine. You may recognize me from the gym, although I hardly post there.
When I said that the forum focuses primary on Japanese cards I meant that collectively its members tend to discuss and collect those the most…at least thats what I gathered from being on here the past few years.
Gary,
Welcome to the forum. Quite an auspicious start to your posting but feel free to share your thoughts and your collection too when you feel it’s appropriate time to do so. I will look forward to that. I’m sure we can learn a thing or two from your wealth of experience and collection.
cool visited your ebay store many times but have never brought from you before looking to in the near future.your collection must be massive if you have so much
I had a long message typed up earlier today but I lost it . I don’t have the time to re-type it as it took me ages but to be short it was something along the likes of: Holy crap Garyis2000 is Who’sZeldaGilroy, I would have never known! An introduction would fare you well when you change a username . Thank you for pioneering so many things young collectors like myself take for granted (I was 6 or 7 when Pokemon came to North America). And that I would love for you to continue posting wherever you feel fit as I’m sure you have lots of intruiging information to share.
It has my real name in it, so I don’t use it often
I for one am very pleased you’re here. We all love to know stuff about old Japanese cards, and even though as a community we know quite a bit, we certainly don’t know everything.
If you eventually comfortable to share parts of your collection on here, that’d be great. Some here (like Scott or Jason) have incredible collections of the trophy cards, others like Clare (of viper.fox fame on collectorviper.com fame) are more set collectors (although she has a trophy card or two herself!)
No matter what the size of your collection, and what’s in it, I’m sure we’ll all be pleased that someone who genuinely likes Pokémon owns it
Hi Jason. Thanks for the kind words. Great to see you. Seems you’ve got a really nice group here.
Your right. I should have told everybody about my username change to professional_sports_authenticators. Actually, the old timers remember before Zelda I was ebaaysbest lol. eBay yanked that one after I used it for years cause they didn’t want their name in usernames cause they thought it looked like an endorsement. Makes sense:)
Please stay in touch, Gary.
Excellent points dogma. The reason I sell (relative to my collection) so little is because I love my collection so much and at some point my sons will benefit from it. I do try to stay active though.
I always have tried to advance interest in the collectible side if Pokemon. I was collecting, and had over 100 sets of shadowless cards before I was able to convince PSA to designate them on their labels as “Shadowless”. The problem was I was the only one who paid attention to the unlimited variant and so they felt there was no interest outside of mine. Well, the community proved them wrong;) That took two years of fighting with them to accomplish.
You see, back in the English beginning (1999) I was involved in a large sell off of Japanese promos on QVC/home shopping network. I can’t say why but the grader wasn’t happy so getting back in good graces took time.
All this though, even things that went poorly like the hsn tv shopping and pack grading debacles, I did to advance the hobby. Yes, I’ve made other mistakes but they usually only cost ME money.
What I’m working on now is thick/thin 1st ed base variants. From the beginning I always separated the two in my collections and sold off only mixed sets. I never announced it though so nobody noticed or paid attention to the difference. Then a couple years ago I listed a couple on ebay and spoke of the thick/thin difference. Well that sent collectors scrambling to their sets to see what they had. Then they contacted me to rework their sets and business was very good lol. But, I still haven’t been able to get PSA to designate the difference and probably never will cause so many have already been graded:(
Ill close now and sorry for being so long winded. I love talking about the history of this amazing hobby:)
Have you been involved in getting most of the error cards ratified by PSA? ie. D butterfree, no HP persian, non-holo Dragonite etc.
I would one day love it if PSA could designate the Ninetales no damage, Blastoise no stage, Wartortle evo box, Ghost Pikachu. It just seems like it would be so challenging.
Some good to hear that you were the one to convince PSA about the shadowless versions of the cards.even back in the days as a kid the shadowless cards were so interesting to find and get always loved the hunt and the exposure to them.did you also talk with PSA about the japanese cards as well or just shadowless in general?
Hi sdlugia. I love the shadowless too…they’re my favorite English Set. Back in 1999 if a base holo card was damaged in any way from the pack you just had to send it back to Wizards and they’d replace it. Well I found out early on they replaced them with shadowless versions LOL. Well after I realized that I was sending handfuls of off centered and pack scratched shadowed cards and they were replaced by shadowless. Eventually they ran out of shadowless replacements. I wonder why;)
Years ago we got a lot of Jpn cards approved for authentication and grading. All the coros I did. I even tried to get them to develop a case for the coro jumbos but never could. They said the casing with set up was just too high.
We’ll talk some more…
Hi Jason. Great question. Yes I could get PSA to designate all of those except for maybe the Ghost Pikachu. You’re right though its not an easy process. It takes work and is time consuming.
I kinda pick my battles cause of time constraints. Right now I’m working on all the Natta wake comics promos, the thick/thins and the bandai/carddass series 5s. Maybe when I finish these off then ill work on all the rarest errors. I did start the Pokemon “Authentic” designation which I used for a couple ghost pikachus. At least they accepted those based on my word that they weren’t a feeble attempt to stamp a shadowless version.
Thanks buddy…
Hey Gary, I have good news, I finally got PSA to flawlessly (and uniformly) label the first 5 Natta Wake promos. They all have the correct year, Mankey has the glossy designation, and they’re labelled Natta Wake Vol. 1, Natta Wake Vol. 2 etc. Once I get the pikachu I’ll have them (hopefully) label it the same to round out the set. Its long deserving of a proper label.
Yes cbd I too was working on that and sometimes when two push for it it’ll expedite the approval. Good job. I just got the series 5 bandai carddass charizard approved too so we’re moving alon;)
Thanks for your help Gary! Now if we can get the Pikachu that would be awesome. Next I’m getting the Asobikata diglett/dugtrio, play mat slowpoke, and card file electabuzz done. They should be a breeze.
. I don’t have the time to re-type it as it took me ages but to be short it was something along the likes of: Holy crap Garyis2000 is Who’sZeldaGilroy, I would have never known! An introduction would fare you well when you change a username 
. Thank you for pioneering so many things young collectors like myself take for granted (I was 6 or 7 when Pokemon came to North America). And that I would love for you to continue posting wherever you feel fit as I’m sure you have lots of intruiging information to share.
