Do you have cards that you feel like you “should” have known about that you simply never thought about or perhaps never saw despite it being overwhelmingly likely for you to do so? Maybe you forgot they existed and then suddenly, there they are right in front of you without a shred of familiarity?
Mine is the Neo Genesis Clefairy. I don’t think I realized the existence of this card until something like 2010, despite being an avid Genesis fan since the set came out and despite opening many boosters and seeing other people’s collections:
For me it was the non-holo Legendary Collection Charizard. I didn’t know till I saw it in a facebook post last year and it blew my mind that a non-holo existed. Then I realized it was a theme deck exclusive.
I started discovering A LOT of Japanese cards that I didn’t know existed, more specifically competition cards of any kind. There are places where you can see each card ever made in sets, but can’t find a place where they show every single Japanese competition card ever produced, from art academy to TCG competitions, etc. As far as I know I’ve seen everything but once in a blue moon a card pops up that I’ve never heard about & I’m here wondering how is this possible. Lol.
I always forget the GB Mewtwo exists, while GB Lugia and GB Dragonite are two of my favorite cards. I really like the Mewtwo too but it always slips my mind.
Fossil Gastly. It wasn’t until 2018 when I got back into Pokemon that I saw it the first time. Despite being an avid fan of everything Base-Fossil as a kid, I just never came across this card. Pretty much blew my mind when I realized there’s more early Gastly cards than just the Base version.
Oh yes, that starmie looks so good, they’re all on the higher echelon. The Aero really should have been a holo in english, we could’ve used some more holos of him. And the Kingdra, I was shocked the first time I saw that, easily one of the best Kindras and that pokemon has had some bangers over the years.
The shiny pokemon in platinum sets. I *knew* they existed and were from platinum sets but I just… never seen them often or I constantly forgot they were from platinum sets lmao
For me, it was the first edition stamp in general. Growing up, I was exposed only to unlimited and did not know about any other print, let alone shadowless. Only after getting back to the hobby in 2019, I found out that there have been first edition cards all along.
Illusion’s Zorua & Zoroark Chosen Entry Print cards from the Pokemon Card Design Contest 2010.
I knew about these two cards when they were released although, they were almost myth. I had only seen one set on a Japanese collectors blog compared to seeing many sets sell of the 10 Winners cards. Happy to see more sets of them are appearing nowadays.
just recently learning about all the japanese promo cards I had no idea about.
Also shamefully just recently found out that japanese modern comes in both first and unlimited edition. I have a bunch of both and never once noticed the 1st edition stamp I was under the impression that first edition only really was around in the early era of cards.
