Basically, how many cards/boxes/jumbos/other cards do you have in your collection that you don’t consider a core part of your collection? I’m curious because I’m considering consolidating my collection and having less excess cards generally speaking.
For example, I have a core collection of Dragonites which is only like 50ish cards. But I have wayy more than 50 cards in my entire collection. So I could part with like 90% of my cards and still be happy with my collection.
How about you?
It’s probably something like 99% bulk, but I think about that 1% more than any of it. I have a decent amount of bulk, but nowhere near enough to make it worth selling.
I’m down to my core. It was painful at times but I look through what I have left now all the time and never have an urge to sell, whatsoever. There are things I still want to add, but I have nothing else left that I want to sell. Happy with it 
I would consider my Piplups as a main part of the core of my collection (obviously), but another very large part is actually EX and DPPt era bulk.
I had base, jungle, fossil, gym heroes, etc when I was a kid, but they were mainly cards I got from friends or parents selling their kids’ collections at yard sales. EX-era forward, I was actually allowed to start buying my own packs here and there, and a large part of my childhood collection is DPPt because that’s when my available spending money increased as a kid. For this reason (and sentimentality), I consider my childhood bulk to also be a very important part of my core collection. Most cards aren’t particularly valuable, but I’m sentimental at heart, so I wouldn’t be able to part with them.
I have quite a bit of modern bulk, but staying true to child-me, I like to keep one of every card. Paring down my collection (which I’ve been trying to do recently anyway) mainly just involves getting rid of bulk doubles that aren’t particularly good for the TCG, since I also play.
In that same vein, I don’t like buying singles unless I’m 100% positive I’m going to keep them forever (or at least the foreseeable future), so I feel like anything I purchase individually (as opposed to packs to rip) are automatically put in the “core part of my collection” category.
This is a really interesting question!
Over time, my definition of “core” has changed with my collecting goals. Nowadays, I don’t stray too far from my core interests.
This is what kids are for. I just give them my bulk when i want to consolidate.
I think I am still in the majority, at least value wise. I wear multiple hats these days, collector & business, but I am so bad at being a seller that I find reasons to not sell inventory. I have 10 copies of certain cards and will find a reason for why I shouldn’t sell one of them.
Worst case scenario, I could part with everything but my binders. Which would still leave a solid core. My rule has been once its in a binder, its done.
This is a wonderful position to be in! I hope to get there one day. Selling can be tough haha.
Ooof this is too relatable. 
I noticed you used O ring binders for your first collection or something, you know those O rings can damage you precious cards?! I was thinking of modifying my old original pokemon binder to a D ring instead of a O ring binder and find better dragon shield pages to replace the old ugly easily tearable ultra pro ones.
I currently own 13,254 unique Pokémon TCG cards; and an additional 10k+ duplicates.
I have quite a few main collections: Pikachu (1,804) + Seviper (191) + FA Supporters & Character Rares (240) + Moltres WotC #21 promo variations (33) + Ancient Mew PSA-10 (6) + Swablu BREAKthrough variations (15) + First card release of each language (14).
I have a few more TCG Pokémon collections, like; a National Index collection including all forms and shiny Pokémon up to gen 7; a forgotten Mimikyu collection; etc. But I don’t consider them a main collection anymore, and might sell parts of it eventually perhaps. I also have a non-TCG Seviper collection, but let’s ignore that for now.
Ignoring the unknown amount of ~10k duplicated cards and only looking at the unique non-duplicated TCG cards (also ignoring 100+ incoming cards), roughly 2,303 out of 13,254 (~17.4%) is part of the ‘core’. Having said that, there are still a bunch of cards from the remaining non-core part I would never sell, especially certain cards from my youth or gifts.
Greetz,
Quuador
I try to stay focused. Getting focused was an initiative I took years ago and it’s been good for me and my collection. At the time, these were the rules I set for myself:
These rules were useful in helping me downsize my collection at the time and also establish lanes for me to move forward. There were still unique paths for me to take within these parameters — flip coins, League materials, in-store advertising, etc.
And as a result of these rules, I really did not stray beyond a “core” collection. Everything I have is important to me and I don’t have anything that doesn’t fit squarely with the rest of my stuff. If I do have a moment of weakness and pick something up that doesn’t meet my requirements, I will often sell it as soon as possible.
The only changes I have made to my rules above is that I collect Japanese cards now, but these are subject to their own rules. I only collect Japanese set cards that were not released in English as supplements to my English sets. These include cards that were dropped from sets or had their art changed during localization. This also allows sets like the Vs Series which were not localized. Otherwise, I only collect Japanese promos.
If pressed to downsize again, I don’t know if there’s anything in my trunk that stands out as non-essential. I’ve been really good at following my rules. Everything I own contributes to the whole. I would sooner downgrade than downsize.
Edit: Some storage porn for folks like me.
My Pokemon collection is way more optimized than my Magic one. Due to my more limited capital collecting both products, I tend to be much more picky with my Pokemon cards. It’s either a PSA 10 or a low grade to be cracked out for a binder and I really try and get the best possible deals along the way. I really like truly NM raw cards, but they are often harder to find so I have to resort to PSA 6-8 mostly. There are several sets and cards I wish I could just go ahead and buy in bulk, but I’m always looking for so many other singles to complete my sets and collecting goals at any given time that I often skip a lot of stuff that I see.
I would say the vast majority if not all of my Pokemon collection are cards that I would likely never part with or sell. Honestly, I have maybe half a dozen right now that I’d be willing to part with and that is it. Most of them were small purchases that are hardly worth re-selling for such a small profit.
I’m highly concentrated in Gen 1 + 2 and about 99% WOTC. For non-WOTC, I’ve purchased about half a dozen graded Japanese slabs, and they are Gen 1 centric as well despite being modern released cards. I want to eventually explore more modern offerings, but until I’m done with my vintage stuff I won’t be putting much capital into these sets. Could be years away.
Everything I have is part of my core collection. The only things I would part with if necessary is my 1st edition Dark Charizard, Fossil Zapdos or Dragonite. Which is because I haven’t completed those sets or the cards that go with them and they are easily replaceable. Now my Neo thru Skyridge cards I’d never part with because they are worth far more to me then what the market values them. We better be talking $1000 PSA 9 Ledians and 5-6k Umbreons for example which is obviously far from current values
I’d say about 85% - 90% is part of my core collection. And the other 10% - 15% is there to fund my core collection goals.
Once I realized I wouldn’t be able to realistically collect everything it made it easier to part with cards that didn’t necessarily fit into my overall goals.
My collection is a seemingly very random grouping of all kinds of eras and sets and rarely do I have a complete set of anything. Part of me doesn’t consider all the one offs part of my core collection but also I don’t have an urge to sell them either. I imagine this is what the dragon sitting on the pile of gold feels like. (Except my pile is a much smaller gold pile) Someday if I wanted to trim down I’d probably be okay letting a lot of it go, but I also don’t foresee that being anytime soon.
There is indeed something special about keeping cards in a binder. I think at the end of the day my binders contain most of the important memories of my time in the hobby and they would be what stays if I go through a massive purge phase.
What I have been successful is trimming down on is bulk and empty boxes/tins. I used to have space to keep everything but now I prioritize my space for trying to stack more of what I care about. I’d rather have a sealed box over a small stack of empty boxes or a card storage box full of promo cards than bulk cards.
99% of my cards are “core” cards. I have a handful of non-TCG cards that I grab when I see them pop up for cheap. I don’t have them in my master spreadsheet of cards to complete, and I wouldn’t part with them since they are cheap enough and don’t take up much space.
Closest I get to a “core” is around 50 cards in singular/very-difficult-to-replace condition, though I’m not sure I’d call them a “core” because they are just as likely to go as the remaining 8-9.000 something cards because of their value. But if we factor out the money, they would be the last ones to go.
Luckily, all my bulk is vintage. A necessary evil of collecting through boosters.
I think there are two levels of “core” for me:
Outer-core: items that I’d have no interest in selling/trading unless they were part of a trade for a BGS/CGC/PSA >9 Alpha Lotus. Examples of items in this category would be my EX boxes.
Inner-core: items that I’d have no interest in selling/trading regardless of if a mint Alpha Lotus is involved. Examples of items in this category would be highly sentimental items (i.e., personal favorite cards I personally pulled like my PSA 10 Swampert ex or my CGC 9.5 Latios ex, or cards that are otherwise meaningful to me like my Unlimited Timetwister, which was my first “big” MTG purchase).
For most of the rest of my collection, there’s nothing extremely “core.” Like I’m converting my PSA 10 EX sets over to CGC, and getting rid of the PSA 10s (even ones that I love) doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all (though part of that is because I’m swiftly acquiring new copies of those cards lol). Once those sets are in their final form, they’ll fall into the “outer-core” category. I’m also building PSA/CGC 9+ e-Series and 1st Ed WotC holo sets, and while I do genuinely enjoy those cards, I wouldn’t hesitate to sell them if they doubled in value overnight (again).
Personally, I am really not sure but I need to do an audit to decide on this - so good question!
I need to go through my graded cards, almost all of which I acquired because I liked them but I think it’s time I be a bit more intentional. Been flirting with collecting early EX holo sets, but lately, I’ve been more interested in just cherry-picking. Need to pull out the shoe boxes and ask some hard questions. I’ll probably list some cards for sale later in the year for the first time but maybe just as mid-high BIN listings.
As for my raw card collection - I mentally consider them sunk/worthless (from a financial point of view) so I don’t think I’d ever bother selling. If a raw card cant be graded or isn’t needed for a binder set it just goes into one of these and I never see it again LOL
So I guess I’d consider all my raw stuff “core”, especially my MTG cards which are all game pieces or live in binders.
As for bulk, I don’t hold it for long. If its actual pack chaff from drafting etc its given away pretty fast.
