Hey all!
Some of you may have stopped by my Wants thread a time or two, and I have a couple people on the site to thank for the help I’ve received in getting some of the Pikachu cards I have been looking for.
You know who you are, and you’re all awesome.
This is an ongoing collection, and one that I’m quite happy with so far!
UPDATE: You can view the entire collection at www.pikachucards.com
This allows you to view all, my needs, view by set, view by language or use the search tab to find any Pikachu card details that exist. I’ve also included links to my Ditto Pikachu’s, Fake Pikachu’s, Custom Pikachu cards, and non-standard errors such as miscuts!
Back Story
Back Story
A while back I was with the Pokemon Club on campus at my University, and we had a “bring your collection” day of sorts. I brought my cards (a decent amount, but nothing like the collections I see on UPCCC (: ) and was looking through some others’ collections while I was there. Someone had a Pikachu I didn’t have (at the time I had something like 20 different Pikachu cards among my overall collection) so I asked them about trading, and ultimately it ended in someone making a comment about how I “had a lot of Pikachus!”. That was really the moment where I thought ‘you know, I think I’d like to actually make a hobby out of collecting rather than just hold on to cards I’ve had since I was young.’ And since then, I’ve added to my Pikachu card collection.
My Collection Guidelines
Collection Guidelines
As my collection has grown over the past year and some, I have chosen to do certain things with it and set some goals. The overall goal was simply put, but not simply achieved: collect one copy of every Pikachu card in existence, across all languages and editions. I also decided that I was not going to only collect PSA graded/GM/M/NM but would leave the quality of card out of my decision to add it to my collection, barring poor condition cards. This has proved to be a solid choice in terms of completion, as it has been a struggle to find good condition cards of certain variations in some languages. In the true long term, I may attempt to upgrade cards by condition as necessary or possible, but that will not be a priority for quite some time.
Some of my collection guidelines were far less influential and more-so aesthetic. Cards would be put into Ultra Pro Pikachu Sleeves and all cards that were not PSA graded would be kept inside Ultra Pro Pikachu Side-loading Binders.
The last decision I made regarding the collection, and probably the one that has made it quite the time-consuming journey, was to document the entire collection in the best detail I could. This meant several things: having a list of all available Pikachu cards, tracking which ones I owned/needed, and having image scans of each. It didn’t take very long to decide that the simplest and most effective solution was to contain it all in an Excel spreadsheet. Ultimately I decided to host it in Google Sheets so that it could be publicly shown when the time came (as it is now).
Other Notes
Other Notes
I would like to say a few things about the collection/spreadsheet before giving the link.
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I have put a TON of time and energy into this project and collection. If you would like the spreadsheet you are probably welcome to it, but I’d ask that you PM me for it - for this reason I have disabled copying/printing/duplicating the sheets.
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Even though I have put hours of time into this, there are still HOURS more to go - renaming set information into correct corresponding names in their respective languages, updating series information for foreign cards, fixing set release dates or filling in holes, etc. If you see something that isn’t correct you’re welcome to point it out - it’s possible I am aware of it and just haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet.
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Rather than only type in links for cards I actually have scans for, I’ve pre-designated links for all cards I would theoretically have in the long run. Any cards that are “On Order” or “Need” should have the link in white text, indicating that there is not a valid scan for that card currently. Similar situation goes for cards that I only have Sealed copies of, although these links will still show blue - there are not going to be valid scan links for those either until I get loose copies.
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All scans were resized to 500x694 pixels for ease of loading on internet connections. If you are interested in seeing a larger scan of a particular card/set of cards, feel free to ask as I have the original 1497x2079 scans of all of the cards on my HDD.
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The spreadsheet (in my opinion) is pretty intuitive in layout. First tab is the entire collection, where data is entered and used. Second sheet is the overall stats on the collection, broken down by language. Third page is a list of my "Need"s, and after that you can view cards by language (I’ll be editing how this is displayed in the near future - I would like all the card info to be present rather than just card names now, as my use of this has changed slightly).
Without further ado, here is the link to the spreadsheet.
As it stands currently, I am about 77% done with the collection.
Also, once the cards in the mail arrive, I will have all 33 variations of Base Set Pikachu!
Thanks all for reading, checking it out, and being an awesome community in general. Happy to be a part of this place.
If anyone has cards I need and you’d like to help out, feel free to PM me. I’m open to taking a look, though I can’t always guarantee my finances will be in a spot where I can purchase right then.
Cheers,
justin
