This is the second of three updates to be added from before. Same things can be said as before–thank you to my friends and their charming, kind, thoughtful words! After this, one more old update to go, then all is uncharted territory.
September 4th, 2022
It all began one day, long long ago, when I… no, I had no plans any time soon to find this iconic monolith. This infamous, alluring, shiny behemoth of a collectible. This poster child of Pokemon. This just all around glamorous and glittery card. I wasn’t to even think about it. Yes. I would seal away that desire for a long time. No Grand Party for me. Yes, sir.
But then…
And there it was again. This time from a good friend. Damnit, I thought, damnit, why immerse me as you do in this dark hole, sucking me in, jerking me in so many directions, when I want to maintain one fairly diagonal but ideally straight line of a goal! Ah! Why must the temptation always be returned to me! And so what was my reaction, looking at this card, once again, in this thread?
But even yet I still resolved to put it on the back burner. But you know what happens sometimes in the world of Pokemon? An insane deal comes and slaps you in the face. So absurd, so unbelievable, you have to throw a bid in just because you can’t see it go so low that you would kick yourself. And you take it right off the back burner and straight into your belly. Well… I won that super low bid. I finally got my own Grand Party!
It was with PWCC, which I look into pretty consistently, but almost never wind up being pleased with prices, so I rarely ever pursue. Well, I looked this card up and down, and saw that it seemed perfect. I figured it must be a slight dent that isn’t visible without holding it in person. And I am very, very pleased that this copy is absolutely near perfect, and, indeed, having only one flaw. A very fine, easy to miss indent on the back, about a finger nail in length. One third, maybe even one fourth the market price. I was in shock. Especially after finding out that my suspicion was confirmed as to its condition.
But that isn’t the only thing to share regarding this.
Isn’t it funny how things change? I eat my own words dear muk. it does look might fine in the binder =)
I guess now the old back binder is TRULY finished now, eh?! I figure this is just fine a page for it to lay. Normally it would go with trainers but this deserves to go near some illustrators!
Lastly, I will leave it off with a few old collection pieces just to jazz this update up a little. Nothing new here, with the latest addition being the Magikarp from earlier in this collection thread, with the rest being from years ago. But I realized I never shared them 'til now and they are nice pages worthy of showing, including some beautiful destiny. I don’t have my usual photography equipment handy today, so the pictures are low quality, but the contents of these pages makes up for that I believe!
The first, is one of my favorite pages in my whole collection. Rainbows, anyone?
Then of course some classy Neo “alternatives”, which are cards that don’t fall directly into the gen 2 Sugimori binder, that is organized by pokedex order to this day. This section of the binder actually starts with miscellaneous holos, then goes into artist order. Normally it’s either pokedex or artist order only, but sometimes you really do just gotta put some holos all together to make a page shiny and magical.
And some light and darkness! They are all quite spectacular, have always loved all of these. Who doesn’t like destiny? I have to say, among these, the Dark Scizor steals my heart away.
And then, more destiny, but beginning the artist section, with the most fitting intro page. Naturally the Ghastly Line is cosmic and the best. Need we wonder why? We needn’t. Why did they have Baba do Cyndaquil and then Arita the other two? Arghh. Makes no sense. But the odd one out is Baba after all, so I can’t complain too extensively. Bless her beautiful Cyndaquil.
And finally some Komiya flair. Why not? Again, one of my favorite pages ever. The rest of the section is long, all of neo era organized by artist. It is great, but that might be a bit overkill at the current time. (Man, the glare is killing me. Better photos next time.)
When I shipped my PWCC lot back to me, I hauled in everything I’ve bought for the last many months since they got kicked off ebay. Among them are a few pieces of other longtime collection goals, so there’s still more for the future! It was nice timing, as buying has been slow and difficult, with prices of these damn cards being a bit prohibitive. Cheers!