The Pinnacle of Pokemon Collecting: The Species Collector
We are what normal collectors fear, foaming at the mouth at the sight of a new Common or Uncommon after having waited 7 years since the last artwork was released of our favorite Pokemon. We do not waver when we see 114 copies of that undesired card listed on Troll and Toad: we buy them all.
Species Collecting is not something to be laughed at, for we know the pain of saving 87 unique search terms on ebay, and have mild cardiac episodes at 3am when we are awoken from our slumber by a seller in Poland listing that indescribable and utterly worthless HP copy of the card we have hunted for 16 months. Our Pokemon is our identity, and we wear it proudly on our sleeve.
We have each other’s backs, and are scanning foreign marketplace listings at all hours of the day and night. This hobby doesn’t understand our passion, although we keep it alive by paying £8 shipping for that $0.30 card.
We possess knowledge of only the most niche and nuanced meaningless information on release dates, distribution parameters and scarcity of availability that can only and will only matter to us. We are not a dying breed, and one day hope for a world full of true dedication to the craft.
They are the finest among us. We salute you. Well said Tapp! Species collecting has been so much fun. Digging deep to find new variants and languages our favorite species was released in is such a great way to dig deep in the hobby and engage with it in a granular way. I enjoy the hunt/chase for cards with a laser focus. I believe we do hold the hobby up in a way, to what degree I’m not sure, but we are an unshakable pillar of it.
It’s crazy how much scavenging I’ve done on the internet to find some Snorunt cards. I made a Reddit account to get error cards - drove a few hours to pick up said card, filter Google to see if there were cards listed on smaller websites, only check websites like PWCC for a single Pokémon, checking eBay several times a day, and buying bulk and singles of a common card in the hope to get a card that’s potentially gradable that 99/100 the NM card has deep scratches on the back.
I think Species Collectors are some of the most admirable in the community and it’s really charming tbh. I like seeing art of a Pokémon I know somebody likes and sending it to them
The nice thing is that species collectors really help each other.
I noticed a few weeks ago that there are now mudkips in Simplified Chinese (Late to the party as usual). When I had the chance I directly got some for another mudkip collector, who in turn helped me out with the classic Chinese.
And together we are desperately looking for the Russian variant.
This cannot be understated - I would not have 50% of my foreign language cards if it weren’t for my friends looking out for me as well. It’s quite amazing
You got me a bit curious and I actually found a listing with that Mudkip on a Russian online marketplace. But that probably won’t help you much as you’d still need to either convince the seller to ship internationally (good luck) or know someone in Russia who could help out as a middleman.
It’s honestly something unique to Pokémon! Maybe collecting an athlete in sports is similar, but the pure dedication to a species is unmatched. And I swear every Pokémon has at least one collector, well maybe except for elektross and patrat.
