Collection thread

It’s been so long since I posted here that I’ve forgotten how to format this. I’ll just dive in.

The first is a sticker sheet with the box art of Wind From the Sea; @johtogiraffe was kind enough to get it signed for me by Midori Harada at the start of the year. Of course I’m biased but I truly think it’s one of the best sketches she did, and the fact a friend got it signed for me just makes it even more special.


Harada actually did the box illustrations for all e-series sets after Expedition; this is the art from Split Earth, the fourth set, seen here on the cover of the Summer 2002 Trainers Magazine. I might delve deeper into this later.
This is a sealed IC card that I assume was released at the Nagoya Pokemon Center. I really only wanted it for the Himeno art, but having spent two weeks in Tokyo around Worlds I felt strangely drawn to the IC card itself.
I started scanning some of my postcards, sealed or not, and will slowly add them to this thread. I'll admit it looks messy when all the images are different sizes. The first six all have facsimile autos (I only learned that was what they're called recently, from I think the comment section of an smpratte consignment video). The last is a sealed set of 3 by Himeno.

Can you figure out all the signatures? :goldstar:








I have a lot more postcards that I plan to add, but scanning them is tedious so let me cook simmer slowly
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Always love your updates amigo, glad to see this one. Sick collections of artwork and postcards!

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Postcard (and sticker) binder

I’ve been buying cards much less frequently of late. For a long time these were all just sort of in a pile, but after a failed experiment with a frame I decided to order some binder pages for them. Unfortunately all the ring binders I had were slightly too small for the sheets. I didn’t want to get just a generic Pokemon binder—I wanted it to feel special.

I found a leather binder company online and, though it’s flimsier than I’d have hoped for, I’m extremely happy with how it turned out overall. Without some kind of organisation it’s easy to lose track of progress; seeing them together is a nice reminder that I haven’t just been throwing my money into a void.

Some of these are very difficult to find. I have some others too but these are most of my favourites. I also didn’t want to put the landscape ones with the portrait ones. I thought the first page being the maps of the first four regions would make it feel like you’re about to enter the Postcard World :pikalaugh:
















Quite frankly, I’ve been questioning my place in The Habby lot lately. I won’t go into detail but to cut a long story short, one of my favourite items, something very unique, got damaged. Ironically this happened because I stored it away with the intention of keeping it safe, but I didn’t keep an eye on it. When I discovered the damage I felt awful; like I shouldn’t be trusted to own anything special if I can’t look after it. I probably went through the 5 stages of grief over the next week, but with the extra layer of guilt for feeling bad about something material while the world is currently the way it is.

This was towards the end of last year; I thought I’d feel better over time and, while I’ve accepted the situation, I still feel a big pang of regret whenever I see it. Maybe the lesson is not to stress about protecting material goods so much that you can’t enjoy them. Collecting postcards has been extremely refreshing in this regard: very low stakes but fantastic art and still very challenging.

Video Games

I had been buying a lot of Japanese video games. Recently I got a VGA submission back; a couple of GBA games were rejected for not being unopened (Japanese GBA/N64/SFC games didn’t come sealed), which was obviously disappointing. Here is one that was rejected, and one that wasn’t. It’s a shame because the Emerald is mint af and I really didn’t think the hinges showed much whitening at all. Most of the other games are in my Flipper Inventory so I won’t share them here :picassquirtle:


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Absolutely disgusting update man. Oh shit you’re still editing it. Ok I’ll read it all. But while I’ve always known you to be a man of culture, topping it off with the proper console version of twilight princess makes me a happy man to bear witness. Friggin’ immaculate.

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Lol! Thank you for the kind words :heart: Full disclosure: I’ve never played Twilight Princess, but I loved the box art. I’ve come to realise that art is probably the biggest reason why I like what I like. As a general rule I think Japanese box art is much nicer.

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I can’t help but ask. What happened? Is it something you’d be willing to share?

I have also had something like this happen to me. I used to collect movie posters and other cinema advertising paraphernalia. Movie posters are obviously very big. They are difficult to display, difficult to store, and I explored different ways of keeping them secure with limited space. Using my background in trading cards, I constructed a massive plywood binder on gate hinges that stood up on its covers like legs l when it was opened all the way backwards. The posters were contained in custom polymer sleeves I had produced especially for this purpose. They were mounted on the inner spine using heavy duty binder rings I removed and mounted myself. It was extremely heavy, very inelegant, but I felt like a genius for constructing it and I took a lot of pleasure in folding over the posters like an easel to show people.

But because the “binder” was so heavy, I eventually stopped taking it out and mostly kept it tucked behind a dresser. My bedroom at the time was basement level and only had a painted concrete floor. The humidity and moisture of the room crept into the opening of all the poster sleeves, populated them with mold spores, and I did not notice for months. But the time I took the posters out to look at them again, they were all ruined from my negligence.

I felt how you felt. I felt like if I couldn’t take care of that stuff I didn’t deserve it. It took me a long time to get over that, but I also use that experience as a lesson and I’m glad I learned. Proper storage and regular maintenance is really important to me now.

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I don’t really want to go into it; while it’s similar to the situation you describe, it was more because I kept it in the packaging it came in. I know how you feel, though maybe it’s good that we’re once bitten, twice shy.

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Whoa Whoa GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY

Stop everything you’re doing. Go get the damn gamecube if you don’t already have one, and get twilight princess used right now, and play the game. Or I’m gonna be upset and hold it against you for a considerable but not unfair degree of time.

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Your postcard collection is incredible! I should really get some binders like that for mine instead of how I store them now, yours look fantastic!

Really sorry to hear about your damaged item though, thats a big bummer. I hope you don’t let it deter you from continuing to enjoy this glorious habby :pikawink:

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Such beautiful postcards :heart: and I don’t know much about Twilight Princess, but love the box art too.

And so sorry to hear about the damaged item. Guilt is a difficult emotion to reconcile. I think about it often when I’m sitting around scrolling through eBay, thinking if I spent as much time volunteering as I did thinking about shiny cardboard, I could have a more positive impact.

In the end, we try to process it all and find what balance works for us. The pendulum may swing too far one direction or another, and that’s ok. It’ll find it’s way over time.

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@SeasidePokemon @Will thank you both. Im pretty much over it but it has informed what I buy today.

@SeasidePokemon yes definitely but before that, I would like to see them :eyes:

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Sorry to hear about the incident but nevertheless the update is gorgeous with all the unique art in it. I didn’t even realise they made so many post cards with similar art! I naturally love the Komiya ones, and i especially love the one where wobbuffet is molesting ponyta

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Incredible update! Postcards (although not Pokémon-related) are my second hobby, so it hits very close to see updates like these.

I must ask, have any of them been sent through the mail or hold an actual message? I have yet to see a “used” Pokémon postcard, so I would be super curious if you have actually encountered any on your collecting journey.

Having one with a vintage Shogakukan stamp would be a chef’s kiss! :blush:

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None of these have been through the mail, and now that I think about it I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that has :rofl: I suppose it would be weird to sell something with your personal information/message on, but I agree it would be very cool to see.

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Wow such an amazing update. I collected a fair bit of Pokemon related postcards but never went into the deep end of it. The way you have displayed them in the binder, they just look absolutely stunning. I really enjoy the more minimalist postcards which have a lot more white space in them. They look very elegant.

Thanks for sharing this update and your thoughts overall. Glad to know you are over those emotions and learnt for the better.

Cheers!

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I’ve been after this card (admittedly not super aggressively) for more than 4 years now. Ideally it would be a nicer copy, but the price—with buyee coupon :goat:—was so much less that I was willing to gamble with how I’d feel about the condition later. As well, the pictures made it look like the classic ‘clean-ish front, washing machine back’ that I tend not to mind.

Initially I did find the damage kind of annoying, but I’ve realised over time that I just look at the art and details of the card so much more than the scratches that I basically don’t even notice them anymore.

History: Some years ago I had agreed a deal for a PSA 8 only to get ghosted by the ‘seller’. To make matters worse, I think the person who ended up with that copy had sold me a Neo box they didn’t actually have several years prior :npc1: There were some other near misses too; I mention this because I had wondered if I’d still enjoy the card after multiple disappointments, or if I’d latch onto the negative associations. Fortunately the opposite happened and having it now feels even sweeter.

I’m really happy with this purchase. For the first time in a long time I find myself randomly wanting to just go and look at it.

It’s good to be back.

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Congrats on the awesome card with a good story leading up to it.

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This past weekend, Arita was signing at a convention in London, where I was able to get these postcards signed with sketches. I also got an L3 poster and 2008 US Nationals Dragonite signed in English. I wasn’t sure about sharing but I think I would have appreciated seeing them.

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Wow, those postcards are phenomenal. I know you shared them in the thread before but the white space is so ideal for signatures. The signs and sketch are clean and well done. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!

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Were Not Worthy GIFs | Tenor

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