I’m curious if anyone has found anything crazy products at big retails stores in the last few years. I was thinking about it the other day how once in a while I would find crazy older product just sitting on the shelf (most times in 3rd party repacks) but sometimes just in the discount bins at Target and Walmart but haven’t found anything since probably like 2015. So I am just curious if anyone has found cool things in the last few years at stores you wouldn’t expect.
Some examples of what I found years ago:
30x Dragon Frontiers Packs in the loose $3 pack bin at Target (roughly around 2013)
An EX Deoxys pack in a third party repack blister that was visible as one of the packs you would get (around 2012)
Old Yugioh Tournament packs loose for sale on the Target shelf (around 2012)
1st Ed Pharaoh’s Servant pack in a third party repack blister that was visible as one of the packs you would get at Walmart (around 2015)
I found an xy base a couple weeks ago at target. Shining legends at target last year and my friend pulled a heavy stormfront from a Walmart mystery box last year.
Nothing crazy really. When I read 30x dragon frontiers before the date you found them I nearly shat bricks
The most “crazy” thing I found at retailers was theme decks reduced to 2€ from 13€, because the department store was (unfortunately) getting rid of its TCG section around 2012.
I found 2 Aquapolis blisters at Walgreens back in 2011. Also my Walmart & Target almost always had EX series boosters back in the early 2010s as well. Didnt get many unfortunately cause I was a kid.
Funny to think that a lot of these stores probably have huge hoards of unsold vintage product stashed somewhere. My town wasn’t big on pokemon and shelves were always filled with unsold product. They had to have gone somewhere.
I went to Walmart in November 2020 and found both Evolutions etbs and Hidden Fates tins. I ended up getting 1 of each Evolutions etb over the tins. Somewhat regret not buying allll the HF tins, but the evo etbs were a crazy find post Logan Paul opening Still have the etbs
I had also gone to a comic store in 2020 that had about 1000 of the bird trio wotc promos sealed. Bought 30 for super low and then never went back. I wonder if they are still there
Before I got back into Pokémon in late 2018 there was a period of time during uni 2011-12 when I bought a whole bunch of vintage products online to open and binder-up or resell online to earn a bit of extra cash. It was painfully cheap to do…. Anyway, during that time I’d regularly go around shops in town in my spare time that I used to buy cards in the UK as a kid (WHSmith, Toys R us etc) and ask if they had any old stock. Most of them didn’t, but there was 1 occasion I remember going to WHSmith and they had 12 Skyridge blister packs in their stock room that must have been living in there for 8-9 years. The chap on the till had no idea if he was allowed to sell them to me as the barcodes wouldn’t scan, but the shop manager just said they would charge me the same as the loose next destinies boosters they had for sale (£3.49). That said, even in 2012 it wasn’t that much of a win, I looked them up on eBay at the time and they weren’t selling for more than £12-15 a piece. Still a great nostalgia piece, really wish I hadn’t ripped them open
I think those are still crazy finds. They are memorable enough to be mentioned!
Oh i wish it was more recent. I flipped them all in a month on ebay for $10-15 a pack. Turns out one of the packs had a gold star pikachu in them also as someone left feedback that they pulled it. I wasn’t that into pokemon at the time, this was when i was really into Yugioh in terms of playing and collecting so I only saw this as a vehicle to fund more Yugioh purchases. Hindsight is 20-20 lol
The amount of clearance products from HGSS when those sets rotated out would make any collector these days blush so I fully believe that in smaller towns there was crazy hoards we just never knew about.
Crazy to think about! At least for me, the memories of seeing such crazy things in the wild is worth it enough to make up for not stashing this finds for years down the road.
Back in around 2011-2013, my local Wal-Mart had a box of discounted loose packs they kept on the top shelf in the trading card area. Sometimes there was nothing of note in there, just extra packs from the unpopular current sets. But other times you’d strike gold. I found EX Dragon Frontiers, EX Crystal Guardians, Stormfront, Supreme Victors, Rising Rivals, and plenty of Heartgold Soulsilver packs. The best thing I pulled from those packs was a Kyogre ex. Which is cool don’t get me wrong, but it does hurt when I look back at how much these packs are worth sealed now.
On the bright side I did save many of the packs I opened! I’m pretty sure it was the Delcatty that had the Kyogre ex. Core memory right there.
Still have the etbs 
