THE STORY & COLLECTION OF THE.POKEMONSTER
So I’m pretty new to the forum, and thought its time I should say hi to everyone and start up a collection thread, always nice to have a thread of your time in the hobby and to be able to look back and see where it all began. so grab a coffee or snack and lets begin 
For Me it all started back in primary school I would watch cheese TV every morning just for Pokemon and a bit of dragon ball z. I would record every episode on VHS trying to cut the ads out…(nothing worse than realizing you forgot to hit record again after an ad break haha). After I would pause the recordings and draw the Pokemon, this all started me collecting anything Pokemon, from toys, cards, games etc.
In 1999 when I saw a friend playing Pokemon red on his Gameboy for the first time, I instantly fell in love and had to get one, it was cool in primary school but once I moved to high school it wasn’t so cool anymore needless to say I still loved it and continued to collect cards, I would be that kid playing in the library at lunch with a couple friends, also playing the games all the time even in class when we were meant to be studying. I went to the 1999 Pokemon tour event in Sydney as a kid and got my free mew download and free cards, I traded with other kids trying to collect the complete base set. I wish Australia had 1st edition cards because I would have got some! But they were never released here so all I collected was the unlimited cards. I was really sick in 2000 and this slowed my Pokémon fun, I was in hospital for a year! After I got better I had grown up a bit and it had become less cool, my friends and family said it was a fad and waste of money which I had always said it wasn’t , but I had just got my license and my interests turned to cars another passion of mine. Pokémon got packed away and put into storage under the house.
Fast forward about 17 years (2017) and I’m in my parents garage helping clean stuff up, I go under the house to put some stuff away and come across some old toy boxes of mine, one of them had my old binders! I was so excited to find them, It was like Christmas time it bought back so many joyful childhood memories. I re=sleeved all the cards and bought a new binder for them, they were in pretty good condition considering the way I had stored them, except for a few I had damaged as a kid but I wouldn’t change them the memories of each card mean so much to me.
So its mid 2017 and I have seen youtube videos and news articles talking about how much Pokemon cards are worth now etc!!! I read and watched a few and of cos I don’t own any 1st edition cards… except for machamp if that counts lol. I was blown away at how far the hobby had grown and the prices of some cards now! I had missed the boat completely compared to people like Gary & Scott etc…. But I started looking into where the hobby was at, at first I went and bought a couple booster boxes of the newest series at the time, Pokémon sun and moon burning shadow also grabbed some XY evolutions which I loved as it had all the reprints of the original cards I collected as a kid plus more! I started getting binders and collecting the new Sun & Moon series. At this time I got into Instagram and found a whole buzzing TCG Pokémon community, I became very active and I created a separate account the.pokemonster to start sharing my experiences and cards with the world. I also found it a great place to connect with others, buying and trading.
I have made many friends in the past year on Instagram and it has helped me get to where I am today. I met a good mate Steve (a fellow local aussie) who was collecting shadowless cards at the time (i didnt even know what they were at the time) I bought a shadowless chansey for $50 to trade him for some other cards and this began a great friendship while talking to him he said I should check out this youtube channel Smpratte as it was really informative lol. So I checked it out and he was right I was hooked at the overload of information about the hobby, where had I been all these years! So many cards!!! So much info, I quickly learnt and could see that collecting new cards was a waste of money, don’t get me wrong if you love the new cards and you’re doing it for the fun of opening packs etc then go for it I still like opening some packs of the newer cards, but I could see a lot more value in the WOTC cards and other older cards, I also grew up with the original Pokemon and all these new Pokemon that have been created now i have no connection with. So I started buying a few older cards eg e series etc. Charizard is my favorite Pokémon and sadly I learnt quickly not a cheap card to collect at this stage even thinking about spending more than $30-$50 on a single card was crazy to me, but then I started getting hooked.
I started researching the history of each card, and falling in love with each artwork, a few e-series holos turned into deciding to collect all the Charizard cards in English no easy task I learnt, I wanted a binder with everyone from base set 1st ed to the current release (I’m happy to say I completed this goal). After that I bought my first PSA card, which turned into buying a few more, then a complete 1st edition team rocket set. Then I decided to see if I could buy every WOTC set from the beginning working my way forward as I wanted to make up for lost time. So I want back to base set at this time I could see how 1st edition was underrated if that’s even possible and started collecting PSA 1st edition base set cards, nothing crazy just psa 7 or better for the holos and 9s for the non holos. At the same time i started trying to collect a raw set no easy task and I’m currently about 80% of the way there. That turned into collecting sealed booster packs. Then I went to japan for a holiday and feel in love with the country and where it all began and started collecting old Japanese vintage cards and memorabilia, which brings us to now where I have started to realize you will never own all the cards so what do I do! Condense and buy a few trophy cards! Which I have done recently on a couple cards. All of this hasn’t been cheap at a time where prices have peaked, but I’ve loved the journey and have always done it for the love of the hobby, I rarely ever sell my cards and I will continue to collect.
I do need to set myself more sensible goals and maybe a few less goals to concentrate on at once. I’ve worked really hard to get my collection to where it’s at and I’m really proud of it. I find the longer I’m in the hobby the more I learn which makes me consistently move my collecting goals. I don’t know if I have an ultimate goal and I think some things aren’t realistic these days with such high prices. But I’m hoping to set 5 goals at the start of each year ranging in difficulty and see how I go.
e.g. This year’s goals are to:
- Complete my PSA 1st edition base set
- Complete any pokemon set in all PSA 10 COMPLETED3. Obtain a Trophy card COMPLETED4. Collect one boost pack artwork from every TCG series from the beginning. COMPLETED
- Collect one of each pre release card since the beginning
This brings me to my where I am today, I’ll keep updating this thread as I get more cards and items. Feel free to follow me on Instagram as I try to update that daily.
****THE.POKEmonster Collection:
This is my new workstation,I managed to turn my small desk in the study into a little Pokemon escape, where i can look at cards, Do pack openings, take photos etc… its not completely finished but its close.
I thought I would start with some of my favorite current cards.
The 2005 Champions League trophy card. apparently 1of 24 copies ever printed.
The 2017 Pikachu 3rd Place Trophy card.
Natta Wake Pikachu and Manga
Nissui Collection. i still need 11 cards to finish series 1 if anyone has any of these card please DM me. I love the pop art style of them, I re made the binder pages as the old ones were really worn.
1st Edition base set Charizard. Needs no introduction really, one of my favourite cards, wish it was a higher grade but still very happy to own 2 of these bad boys
The Daisuki Club Master’s Scroll. This was one of the first high end cards i bought. Love the holo pattern in this card.
The 1999 Grand Party Campaign card. Love the artwork and story behind this card so much. doesn’t get much better than having 3 legendary birds on one card. This is the only BGS graded card I own and also is a POP 1 card!
Signed Mitsuhiro Arita Charizard card
Pocket Monster Carddass special list cards. these two are in my top 5 all time favorite artworks, and also do by my favorite artist Ken Sugimori, cant beat the original starters.
2002 McDonalds Promo cards. I would almost say these are my two favorite artworks of Charmander and Squirtle. This Charmander was the first card I ever bought off you @smpratte
2016 20th anniversary Festa promo card. Love the starters full art of this card. Got this off Andrew from japan international trade while on holidays in Japan will always be a great memento of my travels and pokemon hunting while there.
Complete WOTC booster pack artwork set. Took me almost a whole year to put this together. But I got there in the end and I’m so happy and stoked I did, has been one of my favorite accomplishments. Seeing each artwork from the beginning spread out like this is so epic. Now the questions is do i go back and buy all the unlimited packs too…?
Complete EX Series booster artwork set. After finishing the WOTC series off i decided to keep going and collected one of each of the EX series, the prices have really gone up on these packs in the last year! once again so good to see them all together in one shot! The plan is to keep going and try catch up to the current sets. next stop Diamond and Pearl.
1st edition base holo PSA set: I completed the holo part of the set last year, i hop to replace a few of the 6s to 7s so i have a complete holo set in PSA 7 and a non holo PSA9 set of 1st edition base set. Was so happy to have these cards in my collection nothing beats the original set a lot of us all collected as kids and the original Pokemon
Thanks for checking the thread out. I will upload more of my collection soon
And as a reference: I’m using the tapatalk app, and all of the photos starting with the last picture of the desk setup are visible (but none before).