arca9's Collection - Growlithe + WotC sets

I am acra9 and I have been collecting Growlithe cards for a few years now. My initial goal was to get one of every English card and one of every unique artwork, which includes Japanese cards like the Vending Machine series and the McDonalds promo. This initially seemed like a very distant goal but after stalking eBay and making purchases from some Instagram sellers I managed to collect a good 95% of the set very quickly, the only cards I was having trouble with where the Chikorita Deck card which I had only managed to find once in 2 years of searching and the Venusaur Deck card which I had never actually seen other than a single low quality google images picture, other than that it was simply a matter of buying them for as low a price as I could manage.

I’ve always admired single Pokemon collections and @quuador 's Pikachu collection has always been an inspiration for me. Very recently I got in contact with him with a few questions about how he gathered information for his extensive checklists and rather than being pointed in the right direction as I expected in a few hours he had compiled a complete list of Growlithe cards in all languages himself! I can’t thank him enough for that and because of his help I am now able to begin the long journey of expanding my collection into all corners of the globe!

Other than Growlithe I am starting a collection of Psyduck cards too, I only have a few of those so far so I won’t post any pictures of those until I have some more. In terms of more “standard” collections I am going for a full Wizards of the Coast collection though I am taking that VERY slowly as most holo cards are much more expensive than I would like, though I have completed Team Rocket at this point in time even though a lot of the holo cards are in pretty bad shape.

For now that is pretty much all I have to say. I have cards coming in the post very soon (some thanks to @quuador ) so I will be sure to keep this thread up-to-date with my collection as it grows. I also have quite a few non TCG things in my Pokemon collection like toys and plushes so I will be sure to show those off as time goes by. For now I’ll leave you with my current English/Japanese Growlithe binder and show you how it looks now before it gets moved into a much larger 9x9 binder in the near future.

My Growlithe and Psyduck spreadsheets (constantly updated)
My WotC speadsheets, as well as other side collections (rarely updated, needs a lot of formatting too)
P.S. I also post on Instagram if anybody is interested, I do openings as well as collection updates on there.









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Thanks! I’ve added it to the spreadsheet.

Ah, completely forgot about the Chinese Plusle/Minun decks when making the list. Will add it to my Google doc text list as well.

And welcome to the forum @arca9! Glad I could help you, and you decided to join here. :grin:

Greetz,
Quuador

The post came! I have a massive update for you all today, starting with a full set of Trainer cards from the XY Evolutions set.

xy evolutions trainer cards
I already had a couple of these but I got the lot for convenience sake.

Now on to the important stuff. After @quuador helped me expand my horizons be creating a list of all Growlithe and Psyduck in every single language he also offered to sell me his spares, and my god did he have a lot of them.

Firstly we have 8 Psyduck cards from Japanese and Korean sets.

psyduck cards

As if that wasn’t enough we have a whopping 24 Growlithe cards from Japanese, Korean and even Chinese sets.

growlithe cards

This addition has really padded out my collection. In terms of Psyduck it’s over doubled my collection (from 6 cards to 14) and with Growlithe it’s taken me from 64 cards to 88! I’ve already told him a million times but I really can’t thank him enough for this help, I am sure without him I would have really struggled to get a lot of these cards, especially for a reasonable price.

He also packed them in a wide variety of sleeves, which is always a nice touch.

sleeves

P.S. For those wondering why there appears to be a lot of duplicates here, especially with the EX Legend Maker/Mirage Forest cards, they are all actual very slight variations as they have different codes in the bottom left of the card as you can see below.

codes

Oh, and does anyone know how to put some of these images behind spoiler buttons or something? I’m sure I’ve seen someone do it here before but I can’t remember where. They are a bit big to display all at once imo.

3 Likes

I love this collection. Growlithe is such an underappreciated Pokemon. As a fellow single-Pokemon collector myself, I really appreciate how well you pay attention to detail and your organization. @quuador has done a great service to the community with his extensive lists (my hope is one day we can get a picture list to go with it all but that seems like such a giant task!).

What made you want to collect Growlithe?

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Glad everything arrived without a problem. :blush: And lol at those sleeves. I just took some random ones from my box, didn’t even knew which ones I’ve send, haha. :laughing: I personally only use transparent sleeves for my own collections, so all other random sleeves I get from buying cards end up in that box to be re-used when I sell cards.

For spoilers there are two options:
[spoiler]Secret here[/spoiler][details=“SPOILER: Click to show”]
Secret here
[/details]

Click to show spoiler

Secret here

I personally prefer to use the first option of typing it manually, since it’s clearer the spoiler is a link to click on.

PS: You could also just change your images into links, and add s or m before the .jpg to make them smaller, a nice little feature from imgur.com. For example:

Takes a bit more fiddling around in the BBCode however, to make the links of the images. I would personally just keep your posts as is. I’ve seen collection threads with a lot more images. :wink: But feel free to change it to whatever you prefer, it’s your thread.

Greetz,
Quuador

Growlithe has always been my favourite Pokemon for as long as I can remember. I’m not exactly sure why but I think it’s largely due to the fact that I’ve always wanted a dog and of all the Pokemon to be a pet Growlithe has to be number 1.
I’m glad you are enjoying my collection :blush:

Yeah I have an old Pokemon tin filled with random sleeves I have had from purchases/trades, it’s always nice to add to it. I’ll have to grab a picture of all I have so far, I’ll update with that soon.

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I may be able to help you with some odds and ends. When I get home I’ll check out which Growlithe cards I have.

Soon is now.

sleeves

I have less variety than I thought tbh, I have a lot of copies of that central Rayquaza one though. Plus a peak at the variety of plain coloured sleeves I have on the right, the strangest definitely being the very rough sparkly pink one.

Thank you very much! Any help is much appreciated. Other than a grey stamp 1st edition base set Growlithe and some code variants I already have all the English cards, it’s the other languages I am very much lacking in. Oh and Unbroken Bonds, though I expect I’ll open packs of that here and there so I’m not really looking out for it yet.

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Just the one card in the post today.

vivillon japanese

I’ve always loved the concept of Vivillon and remember collecting all the variants in the games back when they where first released. I imagine getting all 7 patterns in TCG form will be a bit harder, but it’s a nice tiny little side project to go for,certainly unique as I don’t know of any other cards with regional art variants.

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I have never really had any storage for my bulk. Currently they are just scattered about between different Pokemon tins and shoe boxes. Now that I’ve ran out of binder pages too it’s finally time to justify spending money on what is literally plain cardboard.

storage boxes and binder pages

I was hoping I could find some kind of print out for these storage boxes so that I can just make them myself out of old cardboard, but I guess these ones where only 99p each so I can’t complain, though I’d have never bought them if I didn’t need the binder pages because the postage would be unbearable. I think I may have overestimated how much bulk I have though, I’ll be lucky to fill one of these boxes nevermind 2 or 3.
I’ve never had these silver pages before, only platinum ones. I was going to go for the more premium platinum again but they only had 3 ring cut outs everywhere I looked so I’ve had to go for the slightly cheaper silver pages this time. I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about them online but at a glance they don’t look or feel too different to platinums, maybe they will wear faster but I am careful with my things so hopefully it won’t effect me for a long time. I’ll probably upgrade them in the future but they will more than do for now.
As for the storage boxes I haven’t even figured out how to open them yet so no opinion on those for now. I feel like an idiot but I don’t want to put any force on them because it is just cardboard after all.

Anyway along with that boring stuff I needed to get some single cards to pad out the order past ÂŁ20 so that I could get free postage. The alternative was spend like ÂŁ1 less and get nothing extra, so pad out I did.

evolutions rares

These are the last few non-holos I needed for Evolutions, minus Arcanine which I didn’t realise I still needed until after I made the order.

shibuzoh common cards

These are additions to yet another teeny tiny side collection I have on the run. I am collecting all of the cards drawn by Shibuzoh of which there are currently only 27. The majority are commons with a couple uncommons thrown in there so it is a very cheap set that I can just pad out when I need some extra cards in an order. I absolutely love their artwork, probably my favourite Pokemon artist actually with Kanako Eo not far behind. I adore cute cards if that wasn’t obvious.

psyduck

I also took this opportunity to grab a few cheap English Psyduck cards. The above are from the Breakpoint and Boundaries Crossed sets.

build a bear psyduck

Now on to my favourite Psyduck cards. The cards on the right and left are the regular and reverse holo forms of the Sun & Moon set. The art is by Shibuzoh and is my absolute favourite art in the TCG at the minute. I love absolutely everything about it and I am so glad that it is the Psyduck art that is getting the most reprints.

The middle card is from Build-A-Bear, still sealed. From what I understand you bought the Psyduck Build-A-Bear and got this card free with it. They are still selling this Psyduck as well as other Pokemon such as Pikachu, Eevee and I believe an Alolan Vulpix, but they are a bit too expensive for me since all I am really interested in is the card, as nice as that Psyduck looks I don’t currently have anywhere to display plushies properly so I am trying not to buy too many (I can’t turn down a “vintage” one in the wild though, especially if they are dirt cheap).
There is also a McDonalds Promo of this art which has the beautiful McDonalds holo foil pattern and was released in a ton of different languages. I have the Growlithe from McDonalds but not the Psyduck yet, though I’m sure I will get around to it sooner rather than later.

Well that is all for now. With these new binder pages and storage boxes though I better get to sorting my collection out.
Happy collecting everyone!

2 Likes

Psyduck is one of my favorite Pokémon, and I’m happy to see someone collecting his cards! I agree that the Shibuzoh Psyduck is particularly great.

Hey, awesome stuff! I like seeing collections focused on specific Pokemon as well!

I wanted to share something with you that you might like, which is actually the one and only Pokemon card my mother owns.

When I grew up loving Pokemon like many of us, my mom was super supportive and also really liked being busy with Pokemon and being a part of it. As someone who suffers severe migraines from time to time, Psyduck became her favorite Pokemon as they shared the headache theme together.

Fast forward to late last year, as I had fully discovered Pokemon again as a hobby and finally took the decision to get some of my childhood cards graded, I wanted to get her a graded card too. Right around that time, the McDonalds promotion was happening and she really liked the artwork of that particular card. So, making our way through countless happy meals, different McDonalds restaurants and some very friendly McDonalds staff looking through all their stock, the impossible seemed to have happened: I was holding what appeared to be an absolutely mint Psyduck. (Because oh boy, this was not an easy task! The majority of those cards suffered serious damage from how poorly they packaged them with the toys, handled them, etc.)

But it all paid off, as she now owns this Pop 1 beauty:

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Thank you so much for sharing. Your mother has great taste in Pokemon cards!
I am really impressed with the PSA grade too, getting one that doesn’t have dents in it is virtually impossible, nevermind one that is deemed to be in absolutely perfect condition.

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My order from Spain has arrived!

spanish growlithes

Firstly we have 9 new Spanish Growlithe cards which puts me at 10 Spanish Growlithe in total out of 20 currently available. The seller on cardmarket listed all of these cards as “Near Mint” condition but there are a few that I would say calling them “Excellent” even is a stretch. I really don’t mind though, as long as they aren’t in bad condition I am happy.

spanish Psyduck

Next we have 7 new Spanish Psyduck cards, which puts me at 7 out of 17. I’m really enjoying this rapid progress for very low prices (my whole order cost me 4.10 euros, and 2 of that was shipping). Now on to the slightly more interesting items…

australian psyduck

Well I say more interesting, the Rocket Psyduck is just a regular unlimited English release, I got it in the same bundle just to pad out the envelope and not waste the shipping fee.

The interesting card here is the one on the left. It is an “Australian print” Fossil Psyduck, otherwise known as “3rd print” or “1999-2000 print”. I’m not entirely sure on the rarity of this card but looking on eBay I was able to find only one of them and it was listed at a silly price, I think it was £15+ postage. I certainly didn’t pay for that, instead I simply searched “psyduck” and looked through every eBay listing for the Psyduck fossil cards trying to determine if there was a “1999-2000” date in there. I honestly expected to find a few but I could only find the one which was listed as 99p bidding. Of course I jumped on that and hoped that nobody else would notice it. Minutes before the end of the listing someone else did bid on the card and so I had to come back with a maximum bid myself. I set the max bid at £5 iirc, which may be more than it is worth? I’m really not sure. Thankfully the other person never bid again and I won it for £2.20, which I am more than happy with.

For now that is all I have got. I’m still waiting on a couple German Growlithe coming in the post, so that will likely be my next update. Actually I just won a tin full of cards on eBay for cheap so it might be that instead.
Happy collecting!

P.S. I almost forgot. Some of these cards have “PS” and some have “PV” where the English cards say “HP”. I assume these are still Spanish cards and they just changed the translation in later sets, right?

2 Likes

Congratulations for the new cards! And good eye you have. I imagine that PS stands for “Puntos de Salud”, whereas PV for “Puntos de Vida”. And there is no difference in the meaning. As you mentioned they might have changed it in later sets.

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I think the cards with PV for HP are possibly Italian.

They’re all Spanish as far as I can see, and @sinos is correct. The HP translations changed a few times for Italian and Spanish sets through the years. To give some examples:

  • Base Set: Italian/French = PV, Spanish = PI; Portuguese = PS
  • HeartGold & SoulSilver: French/Italian/Spanish = PV; Portuguese = PS
  • XY: French = PV; Italian/Spanish/Portuguese = PS
  • etc.

French remained PV, and Portuguese remained PS across all sets however. And all other languages (English, Japanese, Korean, German, Dutch, Chinese, Polish, Russian, Thai, Malay) remained unchanged as well.

Nice update though @arca9 ! I especially like the ©1999-2000 Psyduck. 2 GBP is actually a great price imo. Just be glad Psyduck isn’t a Rare, ©1999-2000 non-Holo Rares are usually 75-100 USD. :wink: Red Logo Fossil booster packs are probably the only packs were people prefer lighter packs over heavier when weighting, since there aren’t any Holofoil Fossil ©1999-2000 cards (except for Zapdos from the Thunderstorm Theme Deck). :blush:

Greetz,
Quuador

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Looks like the Germans got here first!

german growlithe

In a strange choice of packaging they came inside this German MTG booster pack. It’s surely worthless but since I will undoubtedly never see one again I feel like I can’t throw it away. I guess I’ll just stick it with my Pokemon boosters for now.

All that I have left in the post is a “mystery” tin of cards now. I expect I will get them early next week but other than that I think my purchases are going to be a bit slower, if only for lack of funds.

Oh and slightly off topic but who else absolutely adores Wooloo? I really hope it gets a brilliant first card, and an adorable evolution too while we are at it.

3 Likes

The tin is here! (this is going to be a very big and image heavy post, apologies)

pokemon tin

Lets start with the boring stuff. A ton of common/uncommon bulk from a variety of sets.

bulk

I’ve not actually gotten around to properly sorting these into my bulk yet but I know they are mainly from DP era with I think one stack from HGSS. It’s nothing useful for my current collection but eventually I’d like to get around to collecting DP era cards so they will be of use then. For now they will just get stuffed in a storage box like the rest of my non WotC cards. There was four rare cards too. As well as some more commons/uncommons from other sets that didn’t fit in with the above picture.

This listing was done very poorly and was simply called “pokemon cards” with a very low quality picture so while I got it very cheap (£1.20 plus postage) I had no idea what was coming. I expected a bunch of DP era bulk, but surprisingly I got some nice unique stuff like these Topps cards:

topps

topps movies

I especially like the TV series cards. Never had them when I was little but have a few now, it would be a lovely set to display though when people list them knowing what they are they tend to over price them sadly. I’m sure I’ll get them all eventually, but I have enough collections to focus on atm.

I also got these Pokemon Advanced cards.

pokemon advanced

Never seen them before, they are the kind that have multiple pictures depending on where you look from and they go through full evolution lines on one card. Very interesting.

Getting back to normal cards I got a surprising amount of base set:

base set

I knew the Machamp was there from the eBay picture, I didn’t know it would be in such good condition! Much better than my current copy. I also needed the Pokemon Center for my collection, the rest I already have though.

wotc cards

There where some more odd WotC cards in here too. I always wonder how these odd commons appear in lots like this, the bulk makes sense from packs at the time the tin was released but a random Fossil common is a little harder to comprehend. That said I did need the Fossil Psyduck for my collection, I have one in my Fossil binder but not my Psyduck binder. On the topic of Psyduck…

Psyduck plus ecards

Another one for my collection! Pretty sure I don’t have it in English yet, but not certain. As well as that we have 2 e reader cards which again gets me wondering how they got here.

more wotc

That is the last of the WotC cards here and I needed all 3 of these for my sets so I am very glad to find these surprises in here.

That almost covers everything. I did get a lot of energy bulk too of course which is always to be expected in these lots. Interestingly I did get some energies that will actually be useful for my binders rather than just stuffing them into a tin with the rest. I’m going to post them as links since I imagine 99% of people here couldn’t care less about unique energy cards but I’ll list them here anyway just to complete my post.

Regular Base Set
Base Set 2
Gym, Neo and 4th print Base Set
DP plus an ecard set, I think Ruby Sapphire? Not sure and don’t care enough to look it up

Well there you have it, that is all the joy that tin was filled with. In total it cost me £6.20 iirc with £5 of that being postage which I am more than happy paying for all the fun I have in sorting through random lots like this. This will almost certainly be my last big post for a while. I have a couple single Growlithe/Psyduck cards on the way that I couldn’t resist but other than that I am trying to save my money now. That said I will be getting the Cafe Detective Pikachu box whenever that releases here in the UK.

Anyway I am just rambling now. Hope you enjoyed looking through this post. Happy collecting!

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