While I’ve been collecting Pokemon merchandise for years, I only got back into the TCG specifically a little over 2 years ago. I started out very slow, but when 2025 rolled around and everything started blowing up I turned expanding my collection on to what felt to me “maximum overdrive.” There were cards that even before the boom were on upward trajectory, and I was like well, do I buy them now or just watch them keep going up? And luckily I’m at a point in my life where I can afford spend a bit of money. And another sad thing at this point is, yeah, basically all those cards have continued to just go up since then.
I love my collection, but there’s parts of it I almost feel bad about sharing just in case it makes someone feel bad about their situation. I want to share my collection but I don’t want it to be all about “how much did it cost you” even though money is inherently a key part of this hobby and of course who doesn’t love a good deal if it hits you in the face. I honestly accumulated a lot of the more expensive parts of my TCG collection in a short period of time relatively due to everything going on the past year and part of me feels bad that I may have cheapened the experience a little? If that makes sense.
All this to say, my favorite collections are almost always the one’s that have been built with time. But also this current climate makes long term goals harder to maintain, cause in a moments notice something changes and your goal is no longer achievable in the way you had planned.