This collection goal is technically still in progress, but given a sudden startling development, I feel compelled to share it sooner rather than later.
Earlier this week, two exciting events occured: I received my Kagmaru Himeno Poker set in the mail. And I did some spring cleaning and organized my desk drawers. The latter counts as exciting these days, and will shortly prove relevant.
The set in question was part of a special cardstock insert included in the January 1997 issue of CoroCoro comic, published December 1996 to celebrate the New Year. Each card is illustrated by Himeno, and most importantly, the set includes a unique Chansey art, first brought to my attention by @weekendwolf _.
Unique Chansey art, featuring Chansey escaping a PokeBall (bet your favorite Pokemon canât do that):
After seeing the art, I had to get a set for myself. Finding the poker cards was tricky. There were no exact specific search terms, and my best shots at old CoroCoro items were listings unhelpfully titled âCorocoro oldâ or âPokemon comicâ. Iâve never sifted through so many Coro promos in my life. Some bulk lots from the 90s would have miscellaneous Coro stickers, pens, Topsun and Carddass, dice, square cards, other cut-outs, but never the poker set.
I resigned to finding the set the original way â by cutting it out from the comic myself. The source I relied on for info was a tumblr post by hirespokemonart which mentioned the January 1997 date. To cover my bases, I sourced and ordered multiple January 1997 editions, along with February⊠And March⊠all the way through June, just in case the date had been off.
Itâs always fun to look through old CoroCoros and get a better insight into the the biggest craze of Japan in the late 1990s. Iâm of course speaking of Mini 4WD, which seem to be customized toy cars built by a plastic or cardstock kit. Details about these 4WDs, sticker inserts, customization ideas, and anything you could think of take up more pages than Pokemon in most 1997 issues.
***I miss when I could still get my Mini 4WDs for cheap 
***Alas, none of my Coros included the poker set. The closest I could find was a partial use of the Chansey art in a February issue. It was clear by the pages removed and sad gap in my January editions that someone long ago had cut out the poker set themselves, either on release nearly 25 years ago, or perhaps rediscovering in a dusty box a decade later and finding the art worth preserving if not the comic.
Fortunately and thanks to my new abundance of old Coros, I was able to arrange a trade with @cbd1235 , whose January edition still contained the original set.
I wanted to display the set in a binder, not as sheets. There were two obstacles here: the perforation marks in the cardstock are not actually perforations. Theyâre just guidelines for cutting, so I was paranoid about card damage. And I needed to find an adequate size binder for such small cards.
I finally landed on a binder that could store pages made for stamps and coins, buying various size sheets to see which would fit best. I expected these supplies to arrive today, but the tracking was off.
In anticipation of the binder arriving, this morning I began the process of cutting and sleeving the cards. Yes, sleeving. My goal is to create a mini-size binder that presents the cards the same way TCG cards are shown off. The cards are about 1.5x2 inches, so even the smallest stamp sleeves were too big. I improvised by using two sizes of coin sleeves to double sleeve each card. I hand-trimmed every plastic sleeve individually, which needed a hobby knife every time and had to be done multiple tries for non-jagged plastic lines. About a third of the way through, I realized I had spent an hour cutting baby sleeves to fit inside slightly-larger-still-mini sleeves, and questioned whether this was really necessary. But, I wanted to stay true. If I double sleeve my normal binder sets, I would do the same here.
I eventually finished, and since my binder hadnât yet arrived, I put the cards in my newly designed drawer space.
This was a slide-out drawer under my desk I had cleaned this week to fit shipping supplies, and was quite pleased with how efficient and tidy it looked.
Another view of the drawers:
If youâre smarter than me, you might be thinking âIs it really a good idea to store paper supplies and cards right underneath an aquarium, with a precariously placed water glass as well?â And youâd be right!
Disaster struck this evening, as in the midst of changing the water for my aquarium (which always gets water on the desk), I knocked over the above glass, full of water at the time (the photo I used was taken after the scene of the crime). The drawers were NOT water tight. I opened them in horror to see water piling up on my precious and beloved poker set.
I immediately went into rescue mode, drying the cards with a cloth and on my over-heated laptop surface. Double-sleeving proved vital. Some outer sleeves were dangerously damp and needed replacing, but the inner sleeves on all were secure.
***Stressful!
Ready to have their outer sleeve trimmed once the binder arrives:***
I view it as a sign that my insane decision to double-sleeve these cards actually proved vital! Who wouldâve thought. A good reason to double sleeve EVERYTHING.
As I wait for my binder to arrive to provide an update, my Poker set is now stored in an air-tight box with silica.
