Korean Cards (and my return to the hobby!)

General
1

Hey everyone,

I’m new to the forum and so I just wanted to say hello! I’d also love to get your thoughts on Korean cards in general.

I used to love Pokémon as a child (bet you’ve read that before, haha!) and have just started collecting again after moving to South Korea for my other half’s job back in October. I had to do the mandatory 14-days quarantine in a hotel and had a ridiculous amount of free time. This was around the time of Logan Paul’s opening and if you couple that with the fact that Korean cards are SUPER cheap and I have more disposable income as a 26yr old it’s a match made in heaven. I’m fairly new to the hobby, and still learning and discovering as I go along, so please feel free to correct me if what I’m saying below is utter rubbish!

Most of you probably already know this, but the Pokémon tcg has an interesting history in Korea! Afaik the sets have been quite different here when compared with Japan/USA. The first Korean set ever was Base set in 1999 and that was only printed as a 1st Edition set with the normal English card backs. Gen 2 was entirely skipped and the tcg didn’t return until 2004 with Ruby-Sapphire (also known as the ADV packs, which seem to be very unique in that again, afaik, they are the only Korean cards to have the Japanese card back). After that it seems that there was another 6 year lull until 10 expansions based around Diamond and Pearl came out in 2010 (click here to see the box arts). Card quality has come a long way since then, and despite the occasional print line, Shiny Star V is a joy to open and collect. The ADV cards, on the other hand, feel like a sturdy napkin, haha!

The market here is really interesting too, and most sales tend to happen on local social media sites (like Naver) as opposed to eBay and Facebook. I haven’t been here long enough to know what sets/products people tend to favour, although Shining Legends seems to be a contender since the booster boxes have been going up in price consistently (I bought one for 15,000krw/15USD two months ago and they’re now selling for 130,000krw/130USD. If you look hard enough you can find phenomenal deals too (like a NM Shining Legends Mew, Rayquaza, Celebi and Jirachi for $10!)

ANYWAY, MY QUESTION!

How do collectors generally feel about Korean cards? Do you think the fact that PSA only grades base set Korean cards keeps people from collecting this language? I know base set will always be popular no matter what, but is there value to be found in sealed, vintage Korean booster packs like ADV? Personally I believe Korean cards are beautiful (partly because of the language characters being so clean) and a nice way to get into collecting for a lot less money than English or Japanese. But I’d love to hear your thoughts! I love Pokémon and the cards themselves, but do you consider investing in Korean cards and grading them with BGS a waste of time?

I haven’t been here that long, but if you have any questions about Korean cards I’d be more than happy to help (with my limited knowledge!)

Bonus picture of a 1st Edition ADV pack (they only printed 1st edition of this here) I picked up for $10 the other day.

Thanks everyone, and I look forward to browsing this forum! :slight_smile:

16 Likes
2

Hi! Welcome here - I am really new here too so it is nice to know I am not on my own, ha!

Lovely read - I do think there’s value in collecting Korean (like you do).

Also, PSA only grades Base set of any Pokemon card other than English and Japanese, just FYI - just so you know that their (in my opinion silly) rule isn’t specific to Korean language cards.

Not sure if you’re an Instagram user but there’s a massive community for the hobby on there too (if you’re not) - one account in particular you may want to interact with is here, as he shares a love for Korean Pokemon cards as well.
Cheers
Steven

3 Likes
3

Hey Steven! Thanks so much for chiming in. I didn’t know that about PSA, but it makes me feel a bit better. I’ll give that account a follow. Thanks again! :slight_smile:

1 Like
4

Welcome to the forum! Personally I love Korean cards. I love Korean as a language aesthetically, and printed on pokemon cards it’s a match made in heaven. I think that they’re super super underrated and underappreciated in the community as a whole, but that just means that people like you and me can take advantage of the incredibly cheap prices. As far as grading goes, while PSA doesn’t grade outside of base, CGC and BGS both do so don’t be discouraged!

5 Likes
5

That’s great to hear! I agree on the language front - it looks so much cleaner than Chinese and Japanese imo. I might have to send some cards off to CGC! Thanks again for the info!

2 Likes
6

Great read - and good luck with getting into the hobby again :blush:

I like the Korean cards - at least from “Bandit Ring”, “Darkness that Consumes Light”, “Expansion Pack 20th Anniversary” and of course Base Set. (Because these sets contain Porygon :wink: )

A side note - Base Set in Korean was actually also printed in unlimited, and not just as 1st edition. :blush:

1 Like
7

Welcome!
Personally i’d love to get my hands on some vintage sealed Korean, Modern packs are fun to crack due to them being super cheap & the cards are beautiful :heart_eyes:

Spoiler - Especially the mirror foils

Login • Instagram

I have noticed Korean is getting more popular over the last couple of years, more and more people importing the product & box openings on YouTube etc. Ultimately Collect what you love and you will be fine :blush:

1 Like
8

No way, I had no idea! I’ve been looking far and wide for base set booster packs in Korean but haven’t found any at all unfortunately. The 20th Anniversary was a great set too, and I’m curious to see what they come out with this year for the 25th!

9

Same here! It’s a shame Gen 2 never came out in Korean! What do you consider vintage then? Base set and the ADV packs from 2004? Just gave you a follow!

10

Oh, I didn’t knew those Korean cards had Japanese backs as well. TIL, thanks. :blush: I know the 1/P (EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua artwork) Pikachu promo has a Japanese back and always thought that was the only Korean card like that. I guess all Korean cards released during the ex era had a Japanese backs, although I’m not sure if any others besides the ADV pack and 1/P Pikachu promo are released in Korean tbh.

I’ve also only recently discovered the Korean ADV packs were 1st edition, which is pretty interesting. It was also never released in unlimited edition afaik.
Oh, and I’m definitely jealous about that price. :wink: I recently bid in an auction on eBay for these, which ended up at 90+ USD, haha. Although they’re not really in my collection goals tbh, so I wasn’t trying too hard to win it anyway.

I personally collect Pokémon cards in all 14 languages, and Pikachu and Seviper especially. I definitely appreciate the Korean set cards for being so cheap. Usually a booster box of 150 cards is 18-22 USD, which some individual cards are already worth in other languages. Korean promos on the other hands are a lot harder to track down. I still need two more Korean Pikachu cards for my collection, and I’ve only very recently been able to find the yellow background (046/SM-P) Ash’s Pikachu promo:

600×800 94.9 KB

I did have the other six Korean Ash’s Pikachu, but they were just like the Korean Boss’s Pikachu promos pretty hard to track down. In Korea there are a lot of promotions where the cards come with sausages (kinda like Cereal or McDonald’s promos in English I guess), which in my experience are usually pretty hard to find.

Budget-wise focusing on Korean cards sounds like a very smart choice, and Korean releases also get artworks from Japanese promos, which are usually not released in English. I also love that there are a few Korean exclusive artworks that are neither released in English nor Japanese, like this Pikachu promo (this artwork is also released in Thai and Indonesian, though):

554×800 947 KB

And I think there is also a Korean exclusive Zeraora artwork.

Anyway, welcome to the forum, and enjoy your stay! Good luck with your collection goals.

Greetz,
Quuador

5 Likes
11

I think korean cards are great! Super fun to open sealed product as a cheaper alternative.
@quuador, The only picture of the korean 001/SM-P I have seen is your copy haha, great card.

4 Likes
12

I collect mostly Chinese but here’s my two cents on Korean!

How do collectors generally feel about Korean cards? I enjoy them but I think access is hard outside of eBay.

Do you think the fact that PSA only grades base set Korean cards keeps people from collecting this language? Yes, I think cgc entering the market and grading modern Korean will help a lot though!

I know base set will always be popular no matter what, but is there value to be found in sealed, vintage Korean booster packs like ADV? I think there is but most people see Korean as a cheaper alternative to English. From a price perspective Korean is by far the cheapest when comparing English Japanese and Chinese.

I love Pokémon and the cards themselves, but do you consider investing in Korean cards and grading them with BGS a waste of time? I think it’s better to collect what you like in Korean instead of investing. The singles market is very similar to Chinese where outside of the respective countries that can speak/read the language there are very collectors. Most people collecting Korean do so for a specific Pokémon. From an investing standpoint I think sealed is good but that boat may have also sailed looking at the shiny v Korean box prices on release. The main issue is accessibility and most people won’t go through the effort to find singles of a set in a language other than English and Japanese. The other issue I see with investing is it’s hard to grow the demand for Korean since Korea itself is a rather small country and no other countries speak/read the same language. They also have limited storage space which makes it difficult to do any large scale collecting. It’s similar to japan in the sense that we rarely see massive collections like the USA where there are tons of boxes or bulk in storage units. Collections tend to focus on higher end trophies or singles and less on master sets/sealed.

3 Likes
13

If you can get your hands on more ADV cards, particularly the common and uncommons, I would love to know if the serial codes on them differ among duplicate copies.

2 Likes
14

Hey Quaador! Wow, that SM-P promo is gorgeous. Thanks for chiming in and sharing your perspective, I really appreciate it! I didn’t know about the Korean promos being in sausage packs - that’s quite funny! I got really lucky with the price. Let me know if there’s any other Korean Pikachus you’re currently hunting! :slight_smile:

1 Like
15

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it!

16

Hey! So it’s not much, but here are the only three non holos I own outside of my sealed packs. There’s also an unboxing video of an entire Korean ADV booster box on Youtube. I don’t think it’s high resolution enough to see the serials, but it might help!

2 Likes
17

Hey @swissorican !

I’m a Psyduck collector and it has been a difficult task finding Korean “Goreopaducks”…

So far I’ve found these online TCG shops that sell singles:
www.mtgkindleshop.com/
tcgbox.co.kr/
smartstore.naver.com/singlecard
smartstore.naver.com/marvelboardgame
smartstore.naver.com/tcgshop

Besides these I found these big shopping websites but they mostly sell merch, boosterboxes and GX’s:
www.coupang.com/
global.gmarket.co.kr/

I also managed to find a list of physical TCG shops on the Korean Wiki that includes their website/social media and adress:
namu.wiki/w/%ED%8F%AC%EC%BC%93%EB%AA%AC%20%EC%B9%B4%EB%93%9C%20%EA%B2%8C%EC%9E%84?from=%ED%8F%AC%EC%BC%93%EB%AA%AC%EC%8A%A4%ED%84%B0%20TCG#s-6.1

The problem is that most of the stores above only sell singles from Sun & Moon onward but no DP, ADV-P or Base.

If you know about more TCG Naver websites i’d love to check them out. Also I’m wondering how you can contact the shop owners on Naver websites? Because some TCG stores have a Naver page without card listings, so I’d like to contact those so that they can check if they have the Psyduck I need, but contacting them seems impossible.

Edit: If there is a way to search Naver for tcg-related blogs/stores that would be very helpful too.

Currently I have collected 22/23 korean Psyducks. The last one is a real hassle because I think it came from one of those silver XY promotional packs which were given as a bonus when purchasing an X amount on Pokemon products at a store.

It’s the 163/XY-P promo, pic here: prnt.sc/1absn9u

If you got this or know where I can get it please let me know!

Cheerios,
Stef

5 Likes
18

Hey! Spot on - that’s a lot of great stores/websites as far as Korean resources go. I don’t know how to message sellers on Naver, but I would check with Google Translate if there’s a way of asking a question on a listing. It’s likely you’ll have to make a Naver account if you don’t have one already. Unfortunately, I don’t have that XY-P promo, and agree in that it probably is quite rare and will be hard to find. Your best bet is to search Naver with the Pokemon’s Korean name as that will show you Shopping results as well. Good luck, and sorry I can’t be of more help.

1 Like
19

Hey @swissorican, new member to the forum here. I saw this old thread while looking for Korean cards and was just wondering if you know of any places in Korea that sell new/old Pokemon cards. Sorry, I’m not too sure if you are still in Korea or not, let alone still collecting. I personally went to college in Seoul and left in 2012, but during my time in Korea I rarely ever came across any places that sold cards.

1 Like
20

I personally have 2 PSA 1st edition korean holos and that’s it. I think it was only a few hundred for a PSA 9 Raichu and a PSA 8 Gary, but I like foreign cards and it’s quite affordable

2 Likes