So, I’m 36 years young and have recently fell back in love with the hobby.
I played the OG Red & Blue on Gameboy and gave it up as I got older. A year ago I started collecting Baseball cards and my kids got into Pokemon. I took it as bonding opportunity and introduced them to this wonderful hobby. My question is, is there a site that breaks down each sets Pokemon card variants?
For example, I would love to PC Snorlax and water pokemon but don’t really know how many different variations there are for each set. In sports cards, this is referred to as completing a “rainbow”.
Any help would be appreciated and apologize for spelling - multitasking this and getting the kiddos to bed.
Bulbapedia is a great place to start. They have lists of each individual set, and also have pages for each Pokemon that lists out each of their cards.
Easiest way is to just search “name of pokemon TCG” on Bulbapedia, and you’ll get a page with each of that Pokemon’s cards, and where they come from. Here’s Snorlax’s page for example: bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Snorlax_(TCG)
Bulbapedia is a great place to start. Here is the list of all TCG sets from the very beginning through 2021. The link to each set contains a setlist of all cards including type and rarity. So you can focus on specific sets, years, etc. and easily find all water Pokemon.
So, after doing some digging and talking it over with the kiddos.
We will likely be making an effort to assemble the Jungle 1st edition Holo set first.
How hard are these to grade? Or, do you folks recommend that we stick to eBay graded comps only? Me personally would like to have these graded / sealed to protect them, as I’ve never been too keen to binders.
Jungle holos are notoriously hard to grade in 10. So if you’re trying to build a 10 set, then Jungle is going to be significantly more difficult than Fossil or Base Unlimited. But if you’re just trying to find 7/8 quality, raw 1st Ed. Jungle holos, then you won’t have any trouble doing that.
If you’re not as concerned with getting a graded 9/10, then there’s not a ton of reason to grade. Just put each card in a new penny sleeve + top loader and they’ll be pretty well-protected.
Yah, I’ve been figuring that these wouldn’t be too easy to grade if purchased raw. 7/8’s are what I’m aiming at and I’ve always been a “graded” over “TL” type of guy. Just because it will always be considered that condition level in terms of value.
One of my goals with this is teaching our kids the value of taking care / protecting our “Toys/Investments.” So I’m really looking forward to this, as I hope this will help the kids gain interest in personal finance. Also, I cannot wait to start getting some Snorlax’s in, I’ve been dying to start filling my case with him.
PokeBeach and PokeGuardian are your best bets for news, they’re usually pretty quick to post about upcoming cards or products. People tend to make threads here on E4 for major releases like that as well.