Hi guys I just started collecting pokemon after years collecting and playing magic the gathering. I bought all the original pokemon theme decks when I was a kid and still have them (zap, brushfire etc) but didn’t progress much further than that because I had nobody to play with. I kept playing the video games and never bought any more cards.
Fast forward 15(?) years and I had gotten into watching pokemon videos through Derium’s Pokemon on Youtube (they were originally a magic channel for years that I watched and when they stopped that and started doing pokemon I thought I’d give it a go). I stumbled across Scott’s channel when I saw Leonheart mention his illustrator sale in one of his videos. Scott’s kind of videos really appeal to me as I’m very much into buying, selling and collecting graded and vintage cards in the magic world.
Anyway after all this pokemon TCG content exposure and playing the TCG on my iPad I just wanted to start collecting them, so here’s the beginning of my collection. I bought these last week and they’re the first cards I’ve owned since those theme decks back in the day so I’m just excited to share with someone
1st Edition Base Holos
PSA 9 1st Edition Base Charizard & PSA 10 Gold Star Pikachu
The ungraded first edition base holos are part of a complete first edition set that I bought, I plan on sending the full set in to be graded at some point. I was super impressed by the card conditions, a few of the holos are pretty solid 9s, one or two are 10 potential but I feel like they’ll probably be 9s. The charizard is most likely going to come back an 8 which was a bummer and the Nidoking will probably be a 6-7 which was the worst condition of the lot (including the non holos).
That said all the non holo cards are in absolutely amazing condition, I’m confident 85%+ will grade PSA 9 and I’m really confident a lot of those will be 10s, the only flaw on a lot of them is centering. It was really exciting to find such a truly mint ungraded set, when I inspected it I knew I was going to buy it almost straight away.
Anyway I find it’s always best to set goals when collecting so my goal is a full PSA 9 minimum 1st edition base set (which is why I bought the charizard - the same person I bought the set off already had it for sale as well and I knew the ungraded one wouldn’t come back a 9). I might also try for a PSA 10 gold star set but I’m not as keen on that as completing the base set. One thing I thought was strange and made me post about it here last week was the PSA 9 charizard is in a sleeve, in all my time dealing with graded magic cards I’ve never seen PSA sleeve a card in the case so I thought that was kind of strange, learn something new everyday I guess!
Sorry for the novel and thanks for reading and having a look
Dang, that’s an old graded Charizard. I’d bet I could trace that number back to one of my oldest submissions since very few were graded back then by anybody else;) You mind telling me who had them?
Grade all the holos but be careful with all the rest.
Sure My magic collection is pretty large, I’ve got full playsets of dual lands, complete sets of almost everything from Revised to current along with partial arabian nights, legends and antiquities and thousands of other cards, it would take a long time to go through everything. These are some of the more interesting cards I’ve got though, if you’re familiar with magic you’ll probably recognise most of them.
The Mox Ruby and Emerald there should complete the 9.5 unlimited power set when I send them in, and the ungraded time walk will probably be another 9.5. The ungraded lotus is beta and it’s off center and pretty beat up so I won’t grade it as I wouldn’t be happy with the grade. If it’s hard to make out the subgrades in the picture, the time walk and recall are quad+ (recall is 3rd highest BGS graded unlimited copy in the world) and the jet and pearl are quads.
I know PSA is the company of choice for grading pokemon cards but for those that didn’t know it’s the opposite for magic, you rarely see PSA graded cards it’s almost always BGS. I know a few collectors that prefer PSA 10s but it’s not common to want PSA graded magic cards.
Hope this was interesting to any magic fans out there
Got a couple of things in the mail today! A complete NM/M 1st edition gym challenge set and a PSA 10 1st edition jungle electrode holo from the PWCC auctions (sadly the only card that didn’t go over my max bid). The gym challenge set is fantastic, all the holos should come back at least 9s with hopefully a few at 10, I’m really happy with the look of them. The rest of the set is in the same sort of condition which is great!
Just a little update, I’ve been buying 1st edition WoTC boxes for the past month or so … this is what I’ve picked up so far, got another neo destiny and fossil box on the way. It’s a slow process, there’s not a lot out there.
Haha no I don’t think I’ll ever own one at current prices, if they were still $10k sure.
I’m a programmer and run my own consulting company, I work remotely from home which is nice cause I get to spend more time with my 4 month old
I’ve got the opportunity to pick up a base set 2 box but I’ll probably pass on that as I’m only really after 1st edition boxes, I like the limited printing and I think they’ve got great potential long term. Legendary collection is already expensive so probably not, while it will probably still see increases in price I think it’s more likely that jungle, fossil, rocket 1st edition boxes see more growth over the same period of time as I think they’re severely underpriced at the moment … though price correction seems to have already started, over the past month I was able to find boxes at 1300 now they’re consistently 1700. I think these will keep creeping up over the next few years, I don’t really expect sudden spikes just consistent growth.
Not really a collection addition but I’m moving house at the moment and found these in storage, they’re all opened and beat to hell but they were the first pokemon cards I ever owned. I got them when I was 14 … which was 18 years ago! It was just kinda cool stumbling across them along with my 93/94 upper deck basketball cards and thought I’d share
Good lord dude, your collection in both pokemon & MTG is nothing short of beautiful…
I hope to one day join you in sharing some of these beauties… but for now, it’s smaller purchases until I can afford them
I just started collecting pokemon after years collecting and playing magic the gathering. I bought all the original pokemon theme decks when I was a kid and still have them (zap, brushfire etc) but didn’t progress much further than that because I had nobody to play with. I kept playing the video games and never bought any more cards.
What did you mean by be careful with the rest, wouldn’t you get them graded?
… But most importantly, CONGRATS ON THE NEW ADDITION TO YOUR FAMILY!! 