After spending more time around other people in the hobby I’ve realized that there are several main categories of collectors
Historians📜
Collectors who seek out cards that have historical value to them
Bargain Hunters 🔎
People who collect for the thrill of finding a good deal
Art Collectors 🎨
For those enjoy collecting cards for the aesthetic and love to display cards around their home.
Completionists 💎
Collectors who love to collect entire sets, in binders or graded
Grail Seekers 🍷
Grail seekers hunt down rare cards commonly known as grail cards. Grail cards are often tournament prizes or promotional cards with a small population. Notable examples includes Pikachu Illustrator, the snap cards, Art Academy cards, and other early illustration contest cards.
Species Collector 🦓
Species collectors typically identify as collecting all cards for one or several different lines of pokemon.
Competitors 🥊
Competitors are collectors who focus on building strong, meta decks for tournament play.
Casuals 🪁
Casuals are people who enjoy pokemon cards as a toy and collect casually.
Flippers 💰
Flippers are collectors whose main focus is to buy and sell cards for profit
A lot of these categories do have some overlap. Personally I’m enjoy the art and the history but my favorite part of the hobby is finding a wildly good deal to add to my collection. Which type of collector are you?
I guess I’d be a historian/bargain hunter hybrid. I don’t have the means to purchase cards with any real historical significance but I enjoy collecting vintage and luckily for me there are many cards that I feel are undervalued
Edit: Well now I see that Art collector has been added after my initial response so I have to clarify. The art is always my primary driver for purchasing a card. Now… if I like the art, it has historical value AND is a bargain that would be my dream but that really doesn’t happen often
I would probably be historian/bargain hunter. I like to collect vintage and every time I go to a garage sale or markets, there’s always that faint flicker of hope that I’ll stumble across a bargain. I never find anything but it’s exciting regardless.
Idk you could say historian i guess. Nostalgic significance with historical undertones? The art as well, and the information. Really like the species details. Or if it had some significance like the uri geller stuff and kadabra.
Historian! Competitor after that for sure. Though in my pokemon dreams, they all revolve around being a Bargain Hunter and finding incredibly good deals in random places.
EDIT: Completionist was added and that’s how I got into collecting
Definitely historian and also art. I do like art on a lot of cards on it’s own merit, but if I am buying a more expensive historical card, I also want to enjoy the art which limits my pool a little at times (if not already limited by cost )
)