Thank you all for the praises. I wasn’t expecting to get Elite Topic by spamming 50 photos (and sore thighs as I squatted for a few hours when lining up the slabs on the floor for taking them).
As others would target specific Pokémon or artist, my collection preference is promos as I value the stories behing each release event in addition to the cards, and also a little bit of compulsion to complete sets. I’m working for a company which allows me to transfer to its branch in Tokyo, and when the TCG enters SWSH I had life settled to a degree which I can source promos efficiently and make the rules feasible to achieve, so I decided to proceed.
Self-graded a whole 300+ card set seems crazy to graded card collectors, but for this one it’s pretty reasonable given the conditions:
- Modern Japanese cards are easier to get 10s from the start
- I’m able to visit local card shops and pick the cards myself
- The cards were just released or still printing, so there are plenty of stock in stores for hand-picking
- Nobody’s fighting you over the cards in shops - grading was less known in Japan when I started, so there were very few individuals/stores scooping up large quantities of chase cards and submit them, leaving only bad-conditioned cards in shops (this was how Irida got to PSA’s top 10 list last April)
- PSA had quality issues in 2020 when they’re rapidly expanding to deal with market needs, and I’d been getting cards with plastic shards inside frequently and even cards creased by slab edges. Self-submitting gets me the 5-day window of filing CRC claims to fix issues or get reimbursements.
- Some cards are just too niche that nobody else submit them anyway
- Plus you get to flex when you’re done
For me this rule generally applies to Japanese sets in SWSH or SV era which I decided to collect (i.e. S-P promos, SWSH Alt Arts, Asian FA promos, etc.). If I somehow started to collect TPCi or previous generations which I don’t get the chance to hand-pick, I’ll switch to buying graded instead.
Card indices were assigned when their release events were planned, so event delays and cancellations can result in some numbers given out later or even missing numbers. I know South Korea would reassign the indices if cancellations occur but haven’t seen Japan doing the same, and unfortunately Japan was also known to keep some of them missing forever as we’ve seen in BW-Ps. (Whether to get them if they’re leaked is a question I’d rather not keep in mind until we’re sure there are leaks.)
Yeah that was when Lucario was the last high-value promo left in the set. The actual last 2 cards I got to complete the set was 265/S-P Pikachu VMAX (looking back) which I have no idea why it took me 3 attempts and 327/S-P Archeops (from Lugia Get Challenge) which I sent back to PSA for having one plastic shard in the case and got back with 2 plastic shards in the case (and yes, I sent it back again).
Depends on the definition of “hard”.
Hardest to source was 014/S-P Basic Fighting Energy (Station), as I mentioned earlier about how the event ended abruptly and sent all collectors into frenzy looking for the card. Personally I feel lucky getting that 10 as the edge whitening is obvious, but I’d already spent 2 years just to look for one closest to mint so I decided to take it.
Cost wise it was 104/S-P Charizard VMAX (Rainbow) which I sold a portion of my battle-e packs to make money for. I got lucky on the Eeveelutions as I asked some friends who are not in the hobby to join the lottery, and one of them won the set for me. I paid a reward in return which was very cheap compared to market prices these days.
Promo series with most issues regarding card conditions are the 12 CoroCoro Ichiban inserts, as Shogakugan seems to have a whole bunch of different ways of packing the cards to ensure the cards are damaged. I ended up having almost half of them exchanged through Shogakugan’s customer service and can image how painful collecting these would be to foreigners.
And the card with most attempts was 265/S-P Pikachu VMAX (looking back) on my 3rd attempt as I mentioned above. I still have no idea how I ended up with two 9s as the 10 still have 3 print lines across Pikachu and a few small spots of missing textures.
So yes I’m doing SV-Ps, and in fact I already had all cards up to 070/SV-P at the Grading step and some of them back in 10s.
And no, I’m not considering retrofitting previous gens as they are already past gens and hard to source even if you’re close to the shops. To complete those I’ll have to follow the usual “get graded and fill in the rest with self-grades” strategy, which can easily go way over my hobby budgets as they’re mixed with high-value cards like 298/XY-P M Sachiko EX, high-value variants like 218/XY-P Ash-Greninja EX (XY&Z logo) and speculated cards like 397/SM-P Lillie (EBD).
