Chi's Piplup Collection!

[Chi02]

Hi friends and fellow collectors!

I was encouraged by @citriina to start my own collection thread on Piplup and to document my journey in acquiring Piplup cards for my collection

I’m aiming to collect all English variants of Piplup, JPN exclusive Piplup cards, Piplup cameo cards (English only), and the Character Rare Piplup in 11 languages which are: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.

My focus is on raw TCG cards. So no slabs, Tosho cards, train/transport cards in this particular collection.

Some background on why I love Piplup and why I decided to start this collection

Like most folks who got into collecting Pokemon cards, I grew up loving Pokemon. My exposure to Pokemon was during Gen 4 with DPPt. I played Diamond on the DS, and Piplup was my starter. I remember drawing Pokemon pictures in school with friends and trading cards together during that time. As a kid though, my favorite Pokemon actually was Milotic (more on this later lol). I had a collection as a kid, but gave away all my cards to my cousin when I entered high school.

Fast forward to 2021 where McDonald’s had collaborated with Pokemon for their Happy Meals - I remember opening the free packs that came with the meals and got a non-holo Piplup to my surprise! By this time, I have a love for penguins in general. Penguins are my favorite animal and I have a whole stuffed animal collection featuring penguins. Going back to the Happy Meals in 2021, I did not have any luck pulling the holo Piplup but was able to pull 2 holo Pikachus which seemed to be the “chase” card for that set. After the collaboration ended, I settled on ordering the holo Piplup via eBay. I also decided to pick up the Milotic card from Supreme Victors that one of my childhood best friends gave me, but I unfortunately gave away to my cousin.

Sometime this year (2024), I came across the full art/character rare featuring Dawn and Piplup from Cosmic Eclipse and knew I had to get it. This was truly the starting point of my collection which led me to research other Piplup cards and language variants on Reddit. I eventually found other Piplup collectors with their collections on Reddit and @citriina 's here on e4.

I do have a Google spreadsheet to keep track of this collection as well as other cards I decided to pick up (e.g. Eeveelutions, other grass/water type Pokemon, and certain trainer cards). It’s not as polished so I won’t be sharing it live for now, but will take screenshots as I come across Piplup cards and update it here!

Current Binder Collection (4x4) by VaultX

As mentioned above, I acquired a couple of cards before I really started diving into finding cards to order from and starting my collection. At the front and first page of my 4x4 binder, I decided to display Milotic RH from Supreme Victors (even though not a Piplup card, but a special card dear to my heart and what kickstarted my OG collection back when I was a kid), Character Rare Piplup from Cosmic Eclipse English variant, Holo Piplup from McDonald’s Collection 2021, and JPN Palkia Half Deck Piplup.

Other cards I already had before this post are: the BK Platinum stamp promo, JPN Holo 1st edition Shiny Collection, and the non-holo version of Piplup from McDonald’s Collection 2021.

That’s all I have for now! I have a couple of orders I’m waiting to receive, but will update y’all when those cards arrive!

Thank you for reading if you made it this far
~Chi

[orannge]

This was a fantastic read, thank you for sharing your story. It’s always amazing to learn about the memories people connect with their collections. This connection makes it unique, regardless of how many cards one owns.

The cards you showed are beautiful, and I especially love the Character Rare — so cute and beautifully drawn. I’m excited to follow your progress and wish you the best of luck in finding both your dream and chase cards - and much fun doing so.

It’s great that you’ve started your own collection thread.

Best,
orannge

[citriina]

What a wonderful start to your collection, and a lovely read as well. Thank you for sharing your collection!

I agree with @orannge in that seeing everyone’s personal memories and connections to Pokemon and specific cards is great to see shining through different collections.

Best of luck on your hunt for your little penguins! My DMs are always open if you need a hand- species collecting can be difficult but so rewarding in the end. Can’t wait to see how your collection and this thread develop as you go along!

[D3F14NC3]

What a beautiful collection. I’m really looking forward to watching your collection journey and seeing your collection grow.

[bbobrob]

It’s great to hear your story and see the progress you’ve made in the collection so far! Piplup is so cute and a great pokemon to collect. Look forward seeing more!

[joponnes]

As i’m very fond of all species collections i’m looking forward to seeing your collection to shape up, also would love to see the penguin plush collection at some point!

[Chi02]

@orannge

This was a fantastic read, thank you for sharing your story. It’s always amazing to learn about the memories people connect with their collections. This connection makes it unique, regardless of how many cards one owns.

Hi! Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post. I agree with you and @citriina that the fond memories and connections are what makes these Pokemon collections so unique!

@citriina

Best of luck on your hunt for your little penguins! My DMs are always open if you need a hand- species collecting can be difficult but so rewarding in the end. Can’t wait to see how your collection and this thread develop as you go along!

Thank you for encouraging me to start my own collection thread and for commenting here I appreciate your offer to help me out and will take you up on it in the future for ones I’m having a hard time finding!

@D3F14NC3

What a beautiful collection. I’m really looking forward to watching your collection journey and seeing your collection grow.

Thank you so much for being excited with me with my collection journey!

@bbobrob

It’s great to hear your story and see the progress you’ve made in the collection so far! Piplup is so cute and a great pokemon to collect. Look forward seeing more!

Thank you for stopping by and for reading my story! Piplup is undeniably cute to me so I’m glad you also agree haha!

@joponnes

As i’m very fond of all species collections i’m looking forward to seeing your collection to shape up, also would love to see the penguin plush collection at some point!

Hi! I see you’re also a fellow species collector! I’m excited to read through your own collection thread about your lovely slime army I may post the penguin plush collection at some point in the future! Need to figure out how to get them all in one photo haha I didn’t realize how big the plush collection got since penguin plushies aren’t too popular. I have a personal rule where all penguin plushies acquired are either found in person by me or given as a gift. No online ordering for them or it would definitely get out of hand for sure LOL.

[Chi02]

Hello friends!

I have an update to the collection! Woo!

One of the beauties of being a species collector is coming across other collectors who also collect the same species as you, IMO

Bulk Piplup Cards

With that said, I came across a kind and lovely Redditor (whom I will keep anonymous for their safety) that also was collecting Piplup cards but specifically the Piplup evolution line similar to @citriina’s! However, I believe they were only collecting English cards - raw, slabs, and any type of card that included the Piplup evolution line.

Funny story, I was actually just wanting to trade with them for the Lady Outing trainer card but found out they were a fellow Piplup fan through their profile picture. They were kind enough to ask me what Piplup cards I needed and sent me these!

Here is a list of what was acquired (courtesy to that lovely Reddior who also included conditions of the card):

I want to point out the Super Scoop Up card from the World Championship Decks (2007) that I wasn’t expecting to get in such a good condition (NM)! In total, I acquired 10 cards with 2 of them being cameos!

Update on the CHR Piplup Collection:

I was able to acquire the Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese variants this past week! 3/11 completed

Small Binder Update (10/20/24):

What my binder now looks like with the bulk cards added in

Got some more cards on the way, but am happy to have acquired some more Piplup cards!

[citriina]

Congratulations on the new pickups!

It always warms my heart a bit when you find another collector that hunts the same species. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, one of my favorite parts of the hobby is how so many people will come together to help others with their collections.

A lovely update to read through, for sure.

[Chi02]

Update: the one that kind of crept up on me!

I’ve been waiting for a few cards to arrive, some from outside the US (Germany, Netherlands, Indonesia, and Canada)! For this update, I have 9 cards total to share:

(from left to right):

• 1st row - CHR in Thai and in Japanese! (Yay!! 5/11 completed), Indonesian Empolean Gramedia Stamp Promo, and Super Scoop Up from DP set.
• 2nd row, lots of JPN exclusive: 11th Movie Promo, Movie Commemoration Promo, DP-P McDonald’s Promo 2007, Piplup Half Deck, and Michina Temple.
  *side note: the JPN cards took about a month to arrive from the Netherlands where I thought the cards were lost since they were sent with untracked shipping, hence how this update crept up on me lol

Hmmmm…

Q: Soooo why is there an Empoleon you might be asking, since I said I would only be collecting Piplup?

A: I wanted to collect CHR Piplup in all available and official languages that has been released but that couldn’t be possible due to some languages not having ever released DPPt and beyond. With that said, I made a compromise to collect Empoleon cards in Indonesian, Polish, and in Russian. I chose Empoleon because he was part of my main team in Diamond that beat The Elite Four. I mean, I saw my own Piplup grow into this strong Empoleon that I was and still is super proud of For Dutch, I just opted to go for Rapidash to include in the binder to be complete (one of my top OG 6 favorite Pokemon that I used in Diamond on the DS)

*Side side note: I love that this seller included a hard plastic case for the JPN CHR Piplup, it looks gorgeous! Here it is up close:

That concludes this update! More lil’ happy feet in my binder

[Chi02]

Big mail day update!

CHR Piplup Collection (11/11)!

I’m proud to say I was able to find all 11 languages in which this card has been officially released! I bought all of the cards off of CardMarket with the help of a middleman from the UK. The Portuguese card wasn’t listed anywhere, but the seller who sold me the Korean CHR Piplup also had the Portuguese version! I definitely lucked out since I thought it would take me a year or two to wait for the card to pop up someday.

This seller was super kind and amazing to communicate with. Along with the 2 CHRs (Korean and Portuguese), he gave me 2 additional Portuguese cards (Piplup and Empoleon) as well as this amazing beaded artwork to my surprise! He is a fellow Wooper collector, so it was super cool to meet another species collector who was beyond helpful and generous.

1st and Final Russian Card!

One night, an eBay listing notified me about the Empoleon card from BREAKthrough expansion set in Russian. I couldn’t believe my luck and snagged it right away. The card is also the holo version too!

Rapidash?

As mentioned in the previous update post, I wanted to collect the CHR Piplup in all available and official languages that have been released but that couldn’t be possible due to some languages not having ever released DPPt and beyond. For Dutch, I found the 1st edition Rapidash from the Jungle set to meet the requirement.

With that said, I only have to find a Polish Empoleon card to complete and have all available and official languages released!
*Note: Indonesian and Russian Empoleons completed

(I also might start a side collection of Ponyta and Rapidash since the fire horse is one of my top three favorite Pokemon… will be decided in the future and may make a side collection thread if needed )

Additional Rapidash pickups because I love the artwork on these cards:

• Holo Rapidash from Triumphant set
• Dark Rapidash from Team Rocket set

Bulk Piplup Cards Update

A few common Piplup cards from Ultra Prism, Cosmic Eclipse, and Brillant Stars that I picked up from eBay due to a spectacular deal I had with a seller there buying 50+ other non-Piplup bulk cards for my other other collection lol (not a species collection but more themed)

Whew! If you made it this far reading, thank you for taking the time to do so! It took me a bit updating my Google spreadsheet and re-arranging my binder for this update, but I’m not complaining! I love that I was able to complete my big goal of having the 11 different languages for the CHR Piplup, especially before the year ends. It’s my favorite Piplup card and I’m over the moon for it!

I will get around to updating y’all on how the binder looks soon!

Cheers,
Chi

[ern]

Super happy that I could finish your amazing collection with the korean and portuguese piplup! I gotta post my Wooper Collection here soon.

[Ratequaza]

Hi and welcome to the forum! (Schön dich auch hier zu sehen ^^) Looking forward to seeing your whole Wooper collection!

[Chi02]

Hi! Welcome to the forum! I’m glad my post inspired you to make an account on here. Thank you again for helping me with my own Piplup collection can’t wait to see your Wooper collection posted here!

[Sleepingfatboi]

This has been a great read my I ask what country didn’t do the art rare? As a species collector myself there normally 12 languages once the simplified Chinese is released

@Chi02

The Portuguese card wasn’t listed anywhere, but the seller who sold me the Korean CHR Piplup also had the Portuguese version!

May I ask who this seller is as they may have Portuguese I need or Korean

[bbobrob]

Zoomed right to the finish with the Character Rares! Congrats on completing that part of the collection—I’m sure that binder page will look great. The bead Piplup was very thoughtful And that art on that Triumphant Rapidash is also really nice looking!

[Chi02]

Hi! Thanks for taking the time to read about my collection I believe it’s Indonesia that didn’t release the CHR for Piplup.

As for the seller, it’s actually @ern! I kept him anonymous since he didn’t have an E4 account yet.

[Chi02]

Thank you so much for reading my thread! I was super excited to complete the CHRs so it really motivated me to complete that part of my collection before the year ended The beaded artwork is amazing to look at, and I think that may be my favorite Rapdiash card until further notice haha

[ern]

Yes that’s correct I got all the Indonesian CHR from Dream League when they released and there’s no piplup.

[Sleepingfatboi]

By chance did you have any Portuguese or Korean snorlax ?