Let me preface this with sorry if I sound ignorant in any way - I’m just learning about this wonderful new realm that I’m surprised I didn’t get into sooner.
I’ve been digging around here and there and saw some old mixed reviews about the quality/pull of Korean cards. I saw some posts mentioning the print quality is not as good here, hence the lower price for boxes.
I also am an English teacher and a ton of my students know I love Pokemon, so I’ve been gifted some questionably nice looking cards (what’s up with these V-max and EX cards?! designs are so cool…).
Just getting my feet in the water.
Anybody have some recent information/knowledge on this?
I read the rules thread, please lmk if I need to remove this or not.
Wow love it! I’m honestly surprised because I found it difficult to find Korean cards on some of the card websites.
However, I thought maybe with the spark of interest in Korean culture people would start to enjoy the cards (personally I love Hangeul - the alphabet - just looks so tidy and pretty).
Thank you so much for your input
Sorry if I’m not allowed to double post!
In my experience the korean cards do feel off compared to their Japanese and English versions but they are pretty cool and actually quite cheap (modern that is)
In the past some Korean sets were indeed somewhat lower quality. But right now, English (and European languages) are of way lower quality than Korean imho. I don’t collect Korean cards in particular, but I do collect all 14 languages, and I like that Korean is one of them. Coincidentally, I received a Korean Team Aqua’s Secret Base from the Double Crisis set to complete that full Korean set (the others I pulled myself from a Korean Double Crisis booster pack a couple years ago).
There’s a “Gotta Misprint 'Em All” Facebook group that’s going nuts over modern sets – these people are willing to pay insane amounts of money for shitty modern OC and MC cards. SMH
Why rain on their parade? It’s just another dimension of rarity. It’s equally absurd that people pay extra for what is sometimes a fractional difference of grades, but this is totally normalized in this hobby. At least with error cards you’re paying extra for what is fundamentally a unique and objective trait.
Also consider Chinese. Chinese is also a cheap alternative, similar quality to Japanese (supposedly printed in Japan), and likely has better future value than Korean in my opinion.
You’re totally right – I think my comment came across as a little harsh and dismissive. My point was that misprints and error prints used to be exceedingly rare, but have become commonplace (at least minor error/miscut prints). There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the unique/scarce nature of those kinds of cards *before* (say a decade ago), and *now* (modern sets being pumped out at breakneck pace with little regard for QA)
If I want to open packs I usually buy Korean boxes. Ever since the start of Sword and Shield the pull rates are alot higher. In the Sun & Moon Korean boxes you’d get maybe 2-3 pulls mostly of regular GX’s. In the Sword & Shield sets its about 6+ hits plus holo’s and usually 1 is either a secret rare or full art and 2 Vmax’s.
Hey! Welcome to Korea! I’m another foreigner living in Seoul, and I love Korean cards. They’re definitely collectible!
Korean sets follow the Japanese set list, but are much, much cheaper. You can buy a booster box of a normal Korean release (i.e. Eevee Heroes) for around 30,000 Korean Won MSRP, which comes to about $27. Didn’t pull the card you wanted - well, you’re only down $27 vs $120ish for the same box in Japanese.
The quality used to be questionable, but ever since the Sword and Shield sets it has improved by like 50x. I’m actually confident enough to say that the quality of modern Korean sets is better than that of modern English sets. I opened a box of English Vivid Voltage this summer back in the UK and the cards felt very bristly and weak. Korean singles are never going to fetch as much as Japanese/English ones, but there’s still a healthy local market/community of people trading and collecting.
So yeah, collect away! Best place to buy a booster box is on Naver shopping. Good luck and enjoy the hobby!
Cool to see other people here living in Korea! I’m not far from you, I’m in Chungnam Seoul isn’t my style to live in, just visit. Haha.
아이고 망했다 … ㅠㅠ , I just purchased quite a few booster boxes on Coupang. I can already see on Naver it’s soooo much better, I wish I knew this tip earlier! There are so many more reviews and wow… I’m so excited now! Thank you! Any recommendations on some decent sleeves or how to hold onto my cards?
I purchased two card cases (is that the word?) off Coupang, but I’m wondering if I should stick to simply Naver/Interpark from now on. why the heck is it so expensive on Coupang?!
I think I would be into them more if I could read Korean, but it probably wouldn’t be too hard to learn enough to at least learn the names. And it would be extremely cool if they got some Korean artists to do some exclusive cards.
No worries at all! I just buy sleeves at my closest card shop, but if you find the Korean word for it you should be able to buy a binder or some sleeves on Naver. There’s also www.tcgbox.co.kr which a lot of people here use bc I think they ship internationally. Of course, they also ship locally and they sell card supplies. Coupang is great too, you just need to know where to look. 30,000krw is usually the retail price for a booster box!
