Some rather unappreciated pokemon species collectors are here, and very dedicated. I need lore! Also to what extent do you collect? Is it everything ever released in every language, with all “cameo” appearances? Or do you keep it simple and collect in just english for the named cards? Anything in between, perhaps beyond? The idea of collecting heavily into one pokemon specifically is interesting. Do you have any interesting fun facts to share about your pokemon of choice?
My “origin story” for Togepi as my favourite Pokemon is very random.
I loved the anime as a kid, and loved Misty’s Togepi, so because of that I somehow got my hands on a random little Togepi key chain. (Not quite sure where it came from to be honest) so I would bring that with me everywhere, despite not having any keys…and that’s pretty much it, it just became my favourite from then and never changed
As for Jirachi, mythicals have always been some of my favourite Pokemon (and still are) and I just loved the Jirachi movie as a kid and always thought it was so cool how rare it was. I am a gen 3 kid so Mew or Celebi very likely would have been my other favourite had I been a few years older (They still are some of my favourites though).
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I always enjoyed Houndoom, and had fond memories of the WOTC era cards being some of my favourite as a kid.
One fateful day in 2020 I stumbled across a Dark Houndoom holo from Team Rocket Returns in a random pokemon tin (in spanish for some reason) that was in my bedside table. I think maybe it was a fake I picked up on holiday or something…
That card launched me down the rabbit hole and back into the hobby, but I had already been playing PoGo quite consistently. In that game, my area just never had houndour or houndooms, so seeing one was special. Until I went from the UK to visit my (at the time) girlfriend in New York. On a very cute moonlit walk around her neighbourhood we ran into my first ever Houndour, and it was shiny 
5 minutes later I proposed and we got engaged.
So you could say that getting a shiny of a pokemon you really like right before you get engaged really cements the whole ‘favourite’ thing
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I collect Eeveelutions. It all started out back in 2015 while getting back into Pokémon officially, sorting all my bulk/old collection. I was putting together what I had (base set-neos) in set order, in binders. Left spaces for cards I didn’t have. Sold most of my bulk doubles, that funded me purchasing more bulk to fill slots on the binders. At some point I was like “oh these are pretty… where do I put them?”, so I started buying 2, one for master sets and one for side collection. Then eventually stopped my base-neo collection and only collected eeveelutions. I collect English and Japanese copies of every eeveelution, plus any language card that is an exclusive variant (ex: eevee print comes in cosmos holo English, Japanese gym stamp, plus a Korean mirror holo, so I’ll collect that korean variant too). It’s an exhausting but fun journey. When theres lulls with new product or new stuff gets too expensive, I find older stuff to buy.
Edit, I do collect cameos and have been before many people thought to or wanted to. Back in the day there wasn’t a premium for them lol
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That’s really beautiful and perfect.
And I’m glad to hear how that whole outcome went. Wishing your happiness together to last a life time!
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I was already trying to do an Eeveeution collection when I decided I wanted to collect my next favorite pokemon, which just so happened to be a budget collection so I could get cards without blowing through money. So I decided to go collect Skarmory cards. That steel bird ended up on my team for so many of my Hoenn play through when I was a kid, so I decided that I do it justice.
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As a kid, I would watch the anime here and there, mostly reruns and VHS tapes of Indigo League through mid-Hoenn, which was when I started being able to catch the new weekly episodes as they were airing. Gen 4 was the first generation that I watched the pilot for live, and I fell in love with Dawn and her Piplup instantly. Gen 4 remains the only Pokemon season I’ve watched start to finish week by week on release.
Later on, I bought myself a DS exclusively for Platinum, where I picked Piplup as my starter. I couldn’t figure out how to save the game, so I went through the first hour or two of the game six or seven times until I eventually found the save button (whoops). I’ve clocked about 800 hours on that save. Platinum was the first game that was actually mine and not rented from Family Video or borrowed from a friend for the weekend, and BUBBLES the now-Empoleon became very special to me (named so because I didn’t know how to make lowercase letters).
Throughout Gen 4, I collected Piplup line cards very casually, as most everything I had came from packs I’d open myself, trades, or yard sale finds. Some of my first Pokemon packs were from the Empoleon LV.X promo tin, and while I’d had Pokemon cards before that, they were always traded for or found on the ground- these were brand new, and that was exciting.
Fast forward several years, and I had been in and out of collecting cards, but always picked up each new gen game (aside from XY, as I didn’t get a 3DS until SM-era). When Cosmic Eclispe came out, I saw the Piplup CHR with Dawn, and fell in love with my favorite little blue penguin all over again with a renewed vigor for catching them all in the TCG. I started out making a spreadsheet for English, then Japanese. Later on, I saw other species collectors here going for all languages, and decided sure, wynaut?
I’m currently collecting every Piplup, Prinplup, and Empoleon card in the TCG, cameos included, in every language and every variant. Because of the Dawn and Piplup CHR, I also include every card featuring Dawn (or Hikari in Japanese and Akari in Legends Arceus) in my collection scope as well. I aim to have the most comprehensive Piplup TCG collection in existence, and I’ve spent a lot of time cataloging releases and such.
I love sleeves, Tosho cards, train cards, and other flats, but I don’t typically go hunting them down, and they’re not included in my spreadsheet- I see them as a little bonus. I also have a collection of merch, plush, and household Piplup-themed goods. My life is Piplup, at this point, haha.
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Eevee has always been my favorite Pokémon since red and blue. I am a sucker for modularity and I was really impressed with the fact that it was the only mon that could evolve into three different things (incidentally, Veemon is my favorite digimon and the core Gundam is my favorite gundam for the same reason). When I was playing in original TCG leagues I got the black star Eevee promo (my graded copy is mine from back then, not purchased later).
I played the TCG through the end of BW, but my big era was DP-HGSS which had a ton of Eevee content over those years. After exiting the TCG I continued to collect cards (not just eevees but primarily).
Fast forward to a couple of years ago, I realized that I could actually (with help, later) materialize a complete collection of Eevee cards. A real dream come true. Initially I thought English only was the only obtainable option, but with diligently collecting, looking for deals, saving, and my spouse’s support for the whole endeavor, I realized a full art collection was possible. I joined E4 shortly after starting dedicated work on my art collection (I was mostly done with English beforehand).
Anyway, here we are. I’m currently collecting every Eevee art and unique holo pattern. I’m waiting on one card in the mail but otherwise in 2024 I completed my collection pre-prismatic.
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The origin story regarding why Staraptor is my favorite non Legendary Pokémon would be that I grew up with Gen 4 and really like the design of Staraptor, Ashs Staraptor in the anime may have also played a role. The species collection story begins in early 2023. In the years prior (starting in 2020) I became increasingly interested in the international releases of the Pokémon TCG, learning about the interesting history in some regions from multiple sources. During that time I also stumbled upon quuadors collection thread that he linked on Reddit and was really impressed with his collection, all of the knowledge about the releases and how well documented everything was in that collection post. That inspired me to start my own species collection and I of course wanted to go for one of my two favorite Pokémon, so either Staraptor or Rayquaza. Since Rayquaza has many very expensive and rare cards, I figured that wouldn’t be feasible and settled on Staraptor. And while it may seem easy at first glance, with only eleven different cards of which only one has a rarity above a regular holo, going for all TCG cards including Staraptor (so also counting cameos of which there is only one so far) in all versions across all languages has provided it’s own set of challenges. So overall I’m very content with my collection, being one of my two favorite Pokémon, being somewhat affordable, but also having it’s challenges so that it’ll really feel like an accomplishment when I finally complete that collection by finding The Japanese XY8 unlimited copy eventually.
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I started because of a meme. Now I’ve become the meme.
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Back when i played red when i was a kid, my mates and i used to play by rules of tagging out Pokemon for exclusive use.
I discovered kabutops and have had a strong draw to it since then.
Ive also always loved eeveelutions so have built upon that 
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Back when I was still collecting and playing Yu-Gi-Oh and bought loads of cards from GameTimeCC and TrollAndToad, I noticed TnT also had Pokémon cards. At first, I only bought the cheapest Venusaur, Nidoking, and Hitmonlee they had (the only three gen 1 Pokémon I was missing in my childhood’s collection, to complete the first 151).
About a year later, I placed all Pikachu they had in stock below 100 USD in my cart and decided to start collecting all Pikachu TCG cards. Collecting has always been my passion (I’ve collected dozens of different things in my life, starting with pretty pebbles and post stamps as a 5 y.o.). The reason why I decided to collect Pikachu (even though Pikachu isn’t even in my top-25 favorite Pokémon)? Simple: there were a lot and it would keep me busy for a while. 
Well, that certainly was an understatement.
Within a few months I decided to collect all languages, and came across Justinator’s collection here on the forum, whom at the time had ~550 out of ~650 existing Pikachu TCG cards. His collection contained Pikachu cards I had never even seen before, and it was a real inspiration. This was all in 2015/2016. As a short summary: in 2018 I surpassed him and had the largest Pikachu collection in the world (a.f.a.i.k.). Early 2019 I was surpassed myself by a collector from Belgium (Tom). In 2020 I was struggling to keep up with all the Pikachu releases, and also increasing prices due to the pandemic. In 2019, a total of 233 Pikachu TCG cards were released across the 11 active languages… And near the end of 2020, even simple English McDonald’s promos went for ~50 USD instead of the 5-10 USD they were in previous years. At that point I decided to stop collecting all languages from February 27th, 2021 (25th Pokémon Day) onward, and only focus on English and one of each non-English exclusive artwork. (And of course still the missing cards from before that date in all languages.)
Mid-2024 I was able to complete the English portion of my Pikachu TCG collection. And right now I’m only missing nine more Pikachu cards (from the total 1433) before that date: two German; two Spanish; and five Japanese.
Most of my Pikachu TCG collection can be found in the links at the bottom of the first post in my collection thread.
As for Seviper: it’s my favorite Pokémon. I’ve always been fascinated by snakes 
as a kid, and although some of the other snake Pokémon are cool as well, like Ekans, Arbok, Onix, Steelix, Serperior, etc. Seviper’s design is on another level, so the moment it was released it was my favorite Pokémon.
I started that TCG collection in all languages including cameos (unlike Pikachu) back in 2017 or 2018 or so, and completed it in 2022 iirc after finding the Japanese unlimited edition WCP Seviper and Battle Frontier cards. After that it was uncomplete again for about a year, but I recently completed it again after finding all missing Asian (Korean, T.Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, S.Chinese) Seviper cards.
Nowadays I primarily focus on non-TCG Seviper stuff. Basically everything that features a Seviper (unless it features the entire gen 3). Pushies; figures; stickers; non-TCG cards; posters; DVD covers; manga; pogs; tags; magnets; etc. etc. I even have a cushion and matching bedsheets.
Most of my non-TCG Seviper collection can be found in this post of my collection thread.
Greetz,
Quuador
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My affection for Starmie comes from the games.
I have always taken an interest in competitive Pokémon but I have never battled competitively. For me it’s more a spectator sport. I approach Pokémon sort of like players and enjoy reading about what they can do, what they’re best at, and how their abilities have changed.
Starmie is a Gen 1 Pokémon who has remained remarkably consistent. Its stats can still cut it, it is still good at the things it’s been good at for most of its life, and it has remained a usable and effective Pokémon despite 30 years and 1,000 creatures worth of competition. Very few Gen 1 Pokémon can make this claim, so it’s cool that Starmie can.
Furthermore, Starmie does not really look like an animal. It is more living geometry. Pokémon almost always have a face, even Pokémon based on inanimate objects, so a Pokémon without one is really rare. I don’t think this automatically makes it a good Pokémon, but I do think it’s unique this way.
In the TCG, I think it’s a challenge to find novel and interesting ways to portray a faceless star shape. It just is what it is. It doesn’t have a lot of capacity to emote and has very limited locomotion. So I look forward to seeing what new Starmie cards look like and how they try to give them some personality.
Starmie is not my favorite Pokémon. It’s one of them, but I did not set out to be a Starmie collector. Every time I try to start another species collection, I am really underwhelmed by their selection of cards. Rotom, for example, is another one of my favorite Pokémon and a lot of its cards don’t do anything for me. I can’t bring myself to start a Rotom collection, even though I’ve thought about it a hundred times, because I just feel nothing when I look at the cards. Same with Meowth, a Pokémon I like whose cards don’t make me feel anything.
But with Starmie, it’s kind of like a character study instead. Even if I don’t like a specific card, it is still interesting to see what they did to try to make this faceless, static creature look different compared to its other depictions. I get something out of Starmie cards that’s a little hard to explain. This is the first time I’ve really tried.
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Ive always been myself, and peer pressure never really worked with me. At times Id think it shouldnt exist. When I saw the battling eevee brothers episode, and realized that Mikey didnt want to let eevee evolve, and said that he’ll let eevee decide it made me realize as a kid that you can decide on how and when youll change as a pokemon, or as a person. That really resonated with me, and there hasnt been another pokemon that made me feel that way. I think thats when I also started loving every pokemon from kabuto to electrike all the way to xurkitree and beyond.
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Hey there. I like Ghosts, and I like to ramble. Sorry in advance!
Backstory
As a child, I was not a fan of Lavender Town. Hated being there, hated hearing it, hated the Pokemon Tower too. This has the unfortunate consequence of keeping me from appreciating some Pretty Cool Stuff in my RBY playthroughs. (Small tangent: my favorite Pokemon as a kid was actually Omastar! I loved reviving mine in Yellow and was devastated when my copy was stolen by my cousin. Don’t let people borrow your games.)
I grew, and in my teens I became a fan of horror movies and other like media due to pretty consistent exposure to them in my family. This likely resulted in me playing SoulSilver one day, seeing a Haunter, and realizing The Truth: that Ghosts are my favorite and Haunter was the best among them. Gengar, the big brother that gets all the attention, is still very good, but I think some sauce was lost in evolution.
(Side story: By the time I was 15-ish, I encountered an ARG that would become a bit of a hyperfixation up to present day. Much of its story used a haunted video game as a focal point, and that resulted in some pretty creepy music that I’d actually grown attached to. I believe this helped me grow a newfound appreciation for Lavender Town and its dirge-like feel and dissonant tones. It still chills me a bit, but now in a way it’s like visiting home after being away.)
Collecting
I didn’t start collecting until I was 21. I was never truly invested in the TCG, but I’d always loved the games. One day, I opened a box and found a bunch of cards I’d gotten from a cousin years ago, where I noticed a few Base Set Haunters. I wondered how many of them existed in the TCG, so I compiled a list using Bulbapedia as a source and started ordering. Afterward, I realized there were variants that I’d needed to keep track of. The list evolved into a spreadsheet, which was formatted TERRIBLY until like three months ago.
My goal became to collect every Haunter in English and Japanese, and every card it appeared in. I eventually settled on separating a list of cards I don’t expect to ever own into their own list. Later, with Quuador’s help, I added a list of cards in all languages, just in case.
The next few years saw me obtaining about 98% of my main English/Japanese collection. Afterward, I dropped collecting Haunter to focus on other collections, which would last way longer than I anticipated. I dropped off in 2019 and didn’t return until about three months ago. In that time, I have caught up to present day and completed that main collection. Maybe All Languages is next, I haven’t decided.
Alternative explanation: Haunter is purple, the best color.
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I’ve been wanting to collect Koffings, Weezings, and Galarian Weezings (KWGW) for a while, but never really got started until this year. I have always liked poison types (poison and steel are my favorite) and have some nostalgia for KWGW. Shiny Koffing has been my pfp for my entire time on efour as well. I think a major motivator for continuing to collect KWGW is that most of the cards are pretty cheap and easy to find (at least for English which is my primary goal). My goals have changed some since starting. For instance, I am collecting all the base set Koffings. I may branch out more into errors and nontraditional cards, of which Koffing and Weezing both have a few. I have some other species collections that are slowly growing as well, but nothing to the level of KWGW.
Having a place like efour or the species collecting discord are also motivators. I made my first species post recently and was happy to see positive responses and lots of interest.
Before one gets started, I would research your favorite pokemon on pkmncards and bulbapedia to get an idea for whats out there. I’d also heavily recommend doing daily ebay searches for your favorite pokemon. I have found great deals and lots of new and cool cards that way. Also, dont let someone else dictate how to collect. Thats just good advice in general really
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I wish I had some cool childhood story involving Mudkip, but to be honest, as a kid, I found Torchic much cooler.
When I resumed collecting in 2020/2021, I was determined to acquire a Gold Star card. However, Torchic was far too expensive. By chance, I stumbled upon a Japanese Mudkip Gold Star in unlimited edition during a Probstein auction. After obtaining the card and conducting my first PSA cert check, I was astonished to discover that only 15 copies existed. I then thought, how cool would it be to own 10% of the population of a card in my collection? This motivated me to acquire a second one.
Spending day in and day out searching for Mudkips naturally led me to appreciate the little guy and discover other cool artworks and finally it became my favorite Pokémon.
Now, regarding the species collection:
Initially, I considered starting a Magikarp species collection. However, after brief research, I realized it would be far too expensive (500 pts, snap, university, shining…). After some thought, I settled on Mudkip because I was already familiar with some artworks from my Gold Star searches. Additionally, in my naivety, I thought the goal was within reach since I already possessed what I considered the rarest Mudkip card — a significant misconception.
Regarding languages, I initially intended to focus solely on Japanese. One of the main reasons I drifted away from focusing solely on Japanese cards is the Art Academy Mudkip. Maybe one day the artist will release all hundred copies onto the market to buy himself a new kitchen, but as long as only a few are in the hand of collectors and the prices remain in the mid five-figure range, I won’t be able to afford one anytime soon.
Currently, I have a few cards in each language, and my first goal is to collect all artworks (besides AA). After that, I plan to complete the English and German set. At the same time, I’m always on the lookout for extremely rare prints, such as Russian Reverse or the Korean Starter Deck versions.
What I love most about collecting a species is the variety of different areas I get to explore in order to find all the cards.
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Oooooh! Great topic. But what is YOUR origin story, @SolemnStar ?
For me, it started as a fascination with the look of the OG CG gastly. I had a shadowless version and the CG “fog” around him is particularly strong in that version, as if he’s not a ball at all, just fog. Illustrators had some really cool conceptions of gastly over the years and I decided to collect each one. Not each printing, just each individual art.
I also started doing the same for Porygon since it is the original prize pokemon, one of my first cards ever - JP rocket porygon - and just kinda cool with its geometric design. Opposite of gastly, porygon really can’t change in how artists conceive of it, YET there are several odd porygon cards that make it look unique, like the action porygon from Unseen Forces.
Even though Steelix is my favorite mon, the cleverness and uniqueness of these mon in the simpler era really made them stand out to me. for me to want to collect each art. (I’m not as fanatic a species collector as some, and I do admire those huge collections too many to name. I also wanted to keep it cheap, and these mon are generally cheap… tho, Player’s Club Porygon is a goal for me.)
Edit
Favorite card of each, tho my favorite porygon is not a card.
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Copied from my collection thread:
When I playing the original games, Metapod was always that Pokemon nobody liked. It was helpful for leveling up early on because it was a stage 1 that couldn’t even attack you, but nobody really liked it. As a 6 year old who wasn’t exactly the coolest kid, I felt bad for Metapod. I identified with it. Why is it always overlooked? Surely it could do great things. So I leveled up one of those things to level 99 and used it to fight through the Elite 4. Sure it really only knew tackle, and wasn’t at all helpful against Agatha, but damnit that little cocoon made it into the Hall of Fame. And I’ve liked Metapod ever since.
I’m working on a Metapod TCG collection in all languages. I’ve completed Thai, Russian, Portuguese (once a package arrives), and I think simplified Chinese? One away from Indonesian. Plan to get started on English, Japanese, and maybe some Euro languages this year!
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