Hey guys, so I know that this is a question that completely depends on personal taste and is honestly a stupid question lol.
I’m making a national dex, which was how this whole hobby started, and the dex will basically be made up of the first appearance that a Pokemon made in print (except promos). So that means that the cards should come from the first 3 sets of each gen (in most cases). The Dex will be displayed in a few binders (this, if you’re curious). This will also mean that I may as well just complete those first 3 sets of each gen, with excess cards being stored away (still looking for a way to divide them that isn’t electric bands).
This leaves me with a little OCD dilemma about what to do with Alolans and Unowns. If you were making a national dex, would you add Alolans immediately after their original Pokemon?
This means that the gen 1 original 151 are going to be kinda ‘ruined’ with new Alolan cards. Talk about 1st world unnecessary problems.
The Unown cards also means that there will be like 26 cards in a row of just Unowns (though I’m less worried about that). This also presents a problem for the future, because new generations bring new forms. Let’s say I had already built a complete Pokedex, then right now I’d be having to reorganize the whole collection to add the new Ponyta/Farfetch’d.
Cool idea. I would probably just pick my favorite unown for the main binder (pick fav letter) and only use the original form for each pokemon. I would then probably make a small binder (like one of the 4 card per page) for all of the different Alola and Galar forms (in dex order). Could probably throw in the whole Unown alphabet in there too. Would be a cool subset binder with all the various forms and then the main binder set with the original well known forms and “rookie” cards.
I actually like @firebirder31, 's Idea here with the separate binder for all the additional forms/cards which might see a future release down the road. Its always unpredictable what pokemon might do next, so starting off with the original sets and then doing off shoot binders for additional things would be great to have nice organization without having to constantly rearrange it all (I hate reorganizing binders with a passion, so with anything I have in a binder I try to make it as easy as possible). You could even include shiny variants within the subset binder as well, or whatever else you might plan on adding down the road!
Hi there. I actually have a completed National Index collection including all forms and Shiny Pokémon, which I posted about here. Unlike you, I didn’t just want the first time the card was presented on a card, but instead went total random. I primarily selected the artworks I liked most from the cards I had or bought, or were most affordable (for the Shiny Pokémon mainly). I also collect all 14 languages, which can be seen in my National Index collection.
As for your actual question, I personally ordered each gen separated like this (which you can also see in my article):
All regular formats of the Pokémon come first (i.e. here the page including a general Unown artwork):
After all the regular Pokémon, I had all forms in this order:
Gender differences
Mega Pokémon forms
Alolan Pokémon forms
(not added yet) Gigantamax forms
(not yet added) Galarian forms
Shiny Pokémon
Combination of Shiny & other (i.e. Shiny Mega, Shiny Alolan, etc.)
Official Pokémon forms and variations (this category would include the Unown forms, Deerling seasons, Deoxys forms, Primal Kyogre/Groudon, etc.)
Unofficial Pokémon forms and artwork errors (i.e. Blaine’s Charmander with his back-horn, Fossil Magneton with the bottom Magnemite upside down, Jynx when she still had a black face instead of purple, etc.)
(not added yet) Cosplay Pokémon (the cosplay Pikachu & Eevee basically)
I’m glad you brought this up as I just finished a 251 binder and thought to myself “why stop there”? Binder collectors like us have it pretty hard tbh, organizing cards is always a losing battle
I would go with the first card released for each pokemon, and with alolan versions I would put them in the gen 7 at the end of the binder. To respect the pokedex order but also respect the period of time those alternative versions were released. If not you are endorsing the bulls**t of “I’m a scientist who spent his entire life investigating pokemons, there are only 150 pokemons in the world, o wait we discover a new region that have 150 new species that we knew it existed before somehow but we never even shared a whatsapp pic of a new species because of plot”, repeat that 8 times and you get my point.
Thanks everybody for your replies. I’ll probably go with the suggestion by @firebirder31, but also think the idea from @papafrankgod, is great too.
Also, @quuador, I am the guy who DMed you on reddit about Korean Pikachu cards. I’ve been slacking on chasing up cards but if anything changes I’ll let you know!
