I once sent a card that I sold to someone here with so much tape around it, that I still have flashbacks to it and I vividly remember what the packaging looked like and how bad it was. I can’t remember who it was here but it was a Japanese FA Teammates card. My reasoning for this was that I had a card I sent a couple of weeks prior that had been destroyed in transit because the card slipped out of the 2 cardboard squares I had placed it between and had to refund it.
I felt terrible as soon as I left the post office sending this atrocity of a packaging job, because I knew it’d be like breaking into the fort knox of tape. Since then I have been a firm believer in the ‘take doesn’t belong anywhere inside a package’ camp. I still feel pangs of guilt over it.
When I was 14 my friend who wasn’t seriously into Pokemon pulled a Registeel Gold Star from a Legend Maker pack. I tried to make her trade it to me. For long time she didn’t want to trade it but one day she was like okay then. I gave her something she wanted and I went forward with the trade knowing that I was the clear winner there. I soon went and “flipped” the card on Finnish Pokemon forum by trading it to a Fire Red Leaf Green Charizard ex because at the time I didn’t have money to buy it and it was a card that I really wanted.
I feel bad about it now 14 years later thinking back because I was very selfish. I should have let her keep her amazing pull. Her pack buying phase was very short but I shouldn’t have been that way even if she wasn’t as serious with collecting as I was. Scumbag moment for me.
I actually have a good one.
My mom used to babysit other kids while I was in elementary school. One of the kids she babysat was (and still is) about 6 years younger than me. At he was in Grade 1 and I was in Grade 7 (or something close to that). Keep in mind that age difference makes you feel really powerful as a kid. He brought his cards to school one day and had his GOLDSTAR LATIOS stolen by some punk-ass kid his age. He tells me and he’s really upset. I’m pissed. As mentioned my age basically makes me king of the playground so it go up to this kid. He’s denying his theft, in retrospect it was very brave. So I break out some of my cards. I convince him that this nonholo Dark Dragonite and some other slave card I’m walking around with is worth the trade. He was probably feeling pressured so he agreed to the trade the Latios back.
At this point I’m basically the nicest and coolest guy…
But then I look at the card. I mean I see why he stole it in the first place. I had a couple goldstars myself so they would really look good together…
I did trade *my* cards to get this so technically this Latios is mine now. I mean, it would be a total waste to just give it back to this kid who only appreciates it like a fraction as much as I do.
So I tell the kid my mom babysits I got it back for him. I say I’ll give it to him eventually. I don’t. Fast-forward to like 2017. Looking though my old cards. Feels bad. But I have an extra goldstar so lol I guess I’m ok. I grade it, and it gets a PSA 4.
The kid my mom babysat ends up getting this neurological disease that affects his ability to read and do many simple normal things. He was in highschool and he had a hard time completing courses. It breaks my heart really. It really was debilitating after he was diagnosed, but I heard he’s doing better now and was able to go back to school (not sure if he ended up finishing highschool). It was around 2018-2019 my family decided to visit his family. I wasn’t sure how bad his disease was like if destroyed his speech or made his thoughts incoherent or something but I was happy to see that you couldn’t even tell he had this issue from talking to him. I brought the Latios though. I told the story to everyone there. He said he remembered it happening. After years of keeping it safe for him I finally was able to return it. He said he’d treasure it. It was very touching.
If you see a PSA 4 Latias goldstar appear anywhere let me know so I can call him out if he ever decides to sell it hahah
In middle school, my friend had a lot of nice cards, but they were all thrown into a box and were taking damage pretty heavily. I felt bad for the cards so I “liberated” a solid handful of the nice cards… not my proudest moment.
MtG came out when I was a sophomore in high school. My friend who got me into it had quite a lot between him and his older brother. It was all beta. I bought some beta, maybe two decks and a few booster packs, but it sold out pretty quickly. We all played with those cards but had no idea the value of moxes, black lotuses etc.
A few months went by between beta and unlimited. My friend and his brother lost interest. I did not, and managed to pick up a few boxes of unlimited when it came out. At the game store, I was shocked to see black lotuses and moxes selling for like $50 and $100. After I cracked my unlimited boxes, I went to my friend’s house and got him and his brother to trade me all of their black border cards for my white border cards, and also to trade me all of their moxes, black lotuses, time walks etc.
I once switched a beat ass Base Set 2 Charizard for a much cleaner unlimited on out of my friends binder, lol. I still feel like a POS for it, because he never noticed somehow.
Back in 2015 one of my first PSA card purchases was from Pokemonsyndicate, its was listed as a regular PSA 9 unlimited Charizard, but the picture showed a 1999-2000 version. I asked him if the card pictured was the exact card I would receive and to disguise my question, told him I have had problems receiving wrong items recently (I hadn’t).
The card arrived and was the rarer 1999-2000 version, poor guy didn’t even realise.
A few years ago I traded some kid at my LGS a Pikachu EX and some trash full arts for a 1st Ed Neo Genesis Lugia (to be fair, that card was probably around 40 bucks back then). It graded an 8 and I hated the grade so much I got rid of it for like $80 in trade value. 10s, 9s, 7s, even 6s are fine with me. For some reason I hate PSA 8s. Looking at the prices of it now, I guess that’s my karma.