So as 2017 comes to a wind up, I guess its time for a little reflection… and I was thinking:
“How did I get into Pokemon and collecting cards?”
Answer: I was introduced by it from my friends during elementary school (gen 1; fossil set I believe) and I got hooked onto it. i remember the artwork being somewhat hypnotic almost sucking you in… Fully got into Pokemon from Gen 3. Good times… good times…
So what got you into collecting Pokemon?
Initially a business deal then later sharing in my kids interest. Later, it got personal:)
I strangely enough got into Pokemon right at the tail end of the Gen 1 hype. When Gold and Silver released my mom had surprised me with my first GameBoy and a copy of Gold, the rest is history. Despite not always being 100% involved in every aspect of the hobby like I am as of late, I have always played the games on release day, no matter what. Despite really not liking Gen 7 at all I’ve kept the tradition going.
I’m at a halt when it comes to the TCG right now. I was hardcore into buying anything and everything at Target and Walmart in early 2016 before Pokemon Go released and then I stopped around Burning Shadows, haven’t touched it since with the exception of Shining Legends very briefly. I’d sit on eBay all day long and buy whatever good deal I could find until I got completely burnt out, bulk prices died and overall new sets and product took a downward spiral.
Used to collect as a kid (base-neo), no idea where the cards currently are 
need to fully clean out the basement storage room
Got back into pokemon last year when I saw a jungle blister for sale on letgo. I then ran into some fortune off facebook, got a first ed fossil and first ed rocket booster box for $375 total last January. Sold fossil for $1150 over the summer, kept rocket. Helped me realize that I can collect pokemon as a fun/nostalgic hobby but my money can also be invested instead of disappear. I’v done a good amount of research on WOTC and picked my spots well and if I needed to sell my collection, I can thank pokemon for helping me financially a little bit.
What keeps me in the TCG is knowing that there are most definitely good investments that have yet to take place. But E4 is the #1 reason, I check it constantly and knowing that there’s a community of very knowledgeable collectors/professionals is awesome
Got into the cards, games, and anime as a kid. Dropped everything but the games around the time Neo came out. Got really into the games during college, but lost interest after trying the Sun and Moon demo. Still caught Pokemon fever and needed and outlet. Started watching YouTube vids of booster box openings this fall and now I’m here amongst you fine folk. Really glad I found this place. I’ll never be a big time collector, but I like being at the source of the passion for the hobby.
Collected 1999-2000 when I was 11 years old.
Haven’t collected since then, until this year when I found my binder in the closet and was catapulted back into the hobby.
I probably would have never stopped, but at a certain point all my friends stopped liking Pokémon and thought collecting cards was a waste of money (I’m assuming that came from a talk from their parents)
Being pre-social media, since my friends stopped liking Pokémon, then I didn’t really have anyone to share it with so i stopped.
I enjoy pokemon now more than ever and probably would have never stopped if I had a beautiful community like this one to enjoy it with 
Times I got back into Pokemon
1st (2008-10)(DP-early BW era)-Got given a shoebox of WOTC cards from one of my dads friend, whose son didn’t want it anymore, was able to nearly complete a majority of the early wotc sets up to rocket with them.Plus there was a 50% sale on Pokemon TCG items in Toys R Us during the time (extremely rare anywhere in Aus), so was able to collect the new and old at the time. During this time, I also saved and worked hard to collect the sometimes costly (at the time) sealed product that I had the sole intention of opening during a mass gathering then opening, stuff like a few wotc boxes and late DP-early BW blister packs. Never got around to it as I had loss interest in the hobby during the early BW era (surprisingly Emerging Powers was the last set before I quit for a while). Just ended up storing them in a cupboard
2nd (early 2016-Generations). YouTube opening vids of the new 20th anniversary set popped up in my feed, was expecting it to be reprints of the base set, as that was the rumour but it wasn’t, so I had no interest. I do notice my unopened wotc product has like quadrupled in price to my surprise, however I go back and leave the hobby for a while.
3rd (late 2016- Evolutions). Once again saw YouTube opening vids of the new ‘base set reprint’ evolutions in my recommended and I had to go out and open packs for that sweet nostalgia, ultimately this was immediately the thing that brought me back to the hobby once more
I like the shiny pictures
When I was 7 years old I was watching TV with my little brother and zapping a bit, when I came across a boy throwing a red-white ball at a caterpillar (end of episode 2). It looked interesting, so we kept watching the next episode.
The next week our parents bought us our first Pokémon booster pack (English Base Set unlimited edition). I had a holo Chansey in my first pack (and my little brother Alakazam if I recall correctly). As a kid I didn’t care about holos however, I just wanted more cards. So when one of the older kids at school offered me a Vulpix, Pidgey AND Pidgeotto for my Chansey I accepted it without much hesitation. Friday that same week at the 8 o’clock news they talked about the Pokémon craze, and how some collectors would pay up to 100 Gulden (old Dutch currently) for some cards, and they showed Charizard and… you guess it, Chansey. Thinking back they probably meant Shadowless 1st edition, but I didn’t even knew these differences existed as a kid, and I doubt the news reporter did either.
Been collecting on and off till about the age of 14 or 15 I think. Then I collected no TCG for a few years, then came back to Yu-Gi-Oh and played it for a few years as well. Then in October or November 2015 when I made yet another Yu-Gi-Oh order on TrollAndToad.com, I somehow decided to put in every affordable Pikachu. I already had around 15 Pikachus, Magnemite and Voltorb variations, and knew Pikachu had more than 100 variations, so I bought as much as I could in that TrollAndToad order (which were about 40 or 50 or so). This was only cards less than 15 USD each. And that’s kinda how it started. I then looked at which Pikachu variations existed on Bulbapedia, which were a lot more than I thought. I also started buying foreign cards from their respective eBays. When I had around 250 unique Pikachu cards I came across Justin’s website where he had mentioned little over 650 unique Pikachu variations, of which he had around 550. So many more than I thought there were, including many I had never even heard about before.
That’s when I joined this forum (February 2016), and I’ve been collecting Pikachus ever since. I now have little over 900 unique Pikachu cards, with still about 75 left to find. I also collect Sevipers and Mimikyus (my favorite two Pokémon), and variations of the Moltres #21 WotC Promo artwork (my favorite artwork of all Pokémon cards).
Greetz,
Quuador
Started collecting when i was 8 when base set was released, still remember the rare from my first pack was a Dugtrio was hooked on it for a few years and stopped after neo destiny mainly because friends stopped and didn’t have people to share in the enjoyment of it, got back in to it a couple of years ago when i found a few old cards i had and decided to buy a BREAKthrough booster and packed a Mega Mewtwo (who is one of my favourites since childhood) and was love in with artwork and been hooked again ever since.