So, as I’m sitting here in one of my extremely boring night classes that lasts three hours, I decide to go on a website that I have heard people reference a number of times. Pokegym. I navigate my way through to the forums. To my surprise, the last posts were in 2017! what’s even more shocking is that there are 227 prior pages of threads! I was able to go to the very last one, in which the posts dates were from as early as 2005! It’s insane going through these extremely old posts. Reading these conversations from back in those days is absolutely fascinating. The prices of cards back then? perplexing!
Anyway, thought I would post this for people who have never canvassed that website. It’s a super interesting blast to the past. My hat is off to people who were apart of the collecting community back in those years.
As the title says, if you’re bored, it’s totally worth checking out.
**Edit** - The threads I am talking about are under “Collecting and Card Price Discussion”
I was a frequent member on there! I started with deck discussion in 2006 and it got me from someone who knew nothing about deck building to picking up enough to win some tournaments. Pokémon scholarships from back then have helped a lot haha.
I started collecting seriously in 2011 with gold stars, shinings and crystal cards and got most of them from PokeGym trades. I even got a few 1st Edition shinings from Craig Turvey, the guy who drew the Snorlax wotc promo.
I still reference the site for old deck discussion or Worlds artist attendance! Or look at my old PM’s to find trades to see things like a mint 1st Edition Shining Charizard valued at $90. Good times.
Many of us were active on Pokegym. Dig deep enough and you’ll see Smpratte and I arguing over everything lol.
BTW…The site started to suck when Pokepop got too big for his soiled britches lol.
Here’s a Pokegym thread in which I ask if people think it would be worth it to purchase a PSA 10 1st edition Charizard for $700. @smpratte referenced this thread in an article that was published in a PSA magazine.
The original Pokégym people were brutal. Not saying I or E4 are perfect by any stretch, but the pokegym people were some truly unhappy people. Pokepop was alright compared to the others. But part of why pokegym fell were the unhappy people running it. They used to punish you for posting in the wrong section. Like 24 hour ban for the most benign things you could imagine.
I can attest to this. They had a system called “Infraction Points” which were awarded to members when they broke the rules, and they’d arbitrarily hand out suspensions or bans based on those points. But they accumulated and you could see them on your profile.
One member made it a game where he called Infraction Points “Cool Points” and put his total in his signature, and made it a competition to where at the end of the year, the member with the most Cool Points got a prize. It was a Cool Porygon card lol
The first forum I saw take off in response to PokeGym moderation was called HeyTrainer, which was geared towards players and then later blended with Lafonte, which was a small group of players including Jason K. to create HeyFonte, which then later became Virbank City to get rid of the HeyTrainer and Lafonte stigmas.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t PokeGym go through some kind of change after Wizards lost the rights? I was registered there sometime between 1999 and 2002. In 2009 I had a short lived interest in modern and found my old account was gone; had to register again.
Sometimes I go through my old Pokegym posts (also under Qwachansey) just to see the CRAZY prices that were thrown around 2010 era for “chase” cards now like Base 1st Ed./Shinings/Crystals/Gold Stars. Mint PSA 9 worthy crystals were like $15-25. Most mint gold stars under $40, even Charizard was like $50.
Also LOL @ Evil Psyduck, what a throwback… I remember being like 15 genuinely upset because my “infraction points” over the most RIDICULOUS things (accidentally posting a thread in the wrong forum, for example) stopped me from trading.
Also you couldn’t leave negative feedback if your cards arrived in absolute crap condition as long as you got them. Oy vey. But I do have overall fond memories. Especially the “create a card” forum, that was fun.
@qwachansey, Wow EvilPsyduck brings back memories! I remember he hit me with a 24 hour for posting in the wrong section. And I agree, I have fond memories of that time. Much smaller, simpler, and slower compared to today.
I think it was Evil Psyduck and SD Pokemom who were most strict and hard to deal with on there. They had a real bad time when people realized they could post blocked words by changing the color of one letter lol
Yeah Pokegym was much different than our beloved UPCCC or e4.
If I’m not mistaken UPCCC required an invite at the time. I remember getting a message from @churlocker to join and I never looked back. Frankly, Pokegym just didn’t have its members interests at heart.
2010 was a much different landscape for this hobby.
@raichuforyou, Correct! Initially it was so small so we did invites for the people we knew. But realized more people wanted to talk about collecting, so it became public. Its crazy how no outlets existed to talk about collecting. Dan posted earlier in the year the 10th anniversary of the “where are the collectors at” thread. That was it for collecting 10 years ago, just that thread! It feels good how far we’ve come.
