Earlier this year I moved house and as such I still have piles upon piles of bulk cards scattered around what has come to be known as “the Pokémon room”:
Today I’ve began the process of storing these cards away properly, but I’ve noticed something interesting (or worrying, perhaps): all of the Detective Pikachu set cards I had stored in this way have warped.
The two piles in front are perfectly flat, yet the Detective Pikachu pile can be seen with noticeable warping behind them in the middle:
Here are the two cards from the very top of the pile:
And here is a side view of the entire pile:
Every single card in this pile has warped.
The room they’re in has blackout curtains which are always closed and is kept at a relatively steady but low temperature. There are piles on the floor, in drawers and, like this Detective Pikachu pile, on top of a desk. The radiator in this room is disabled (not that I’ve had the heating on yet, mind you), and the cards have remained relatively untouched for the last 4 or 5 months. Only the Detective Pikachu pile has suffered from this.
I do have a couple of complete sets stored in a binder which are all completely flat still. I’m getting some Charizard cards from the set back from PSA soon and I’m a bit worried they’re going to fall victim to the same fate.
Has anyone else noticed this with their Detective Pikachu cards?
This picture is probably completely meaningless, but I’ve also kept a sealed Detective Pikachu movie booster pack in a completely different location to these cards (in a closed cardboard box on the floor, specifically), and I can feel that the cards inside are no longer flat, they bend in the middle:
Old School Ex Series (mostly from 2005 to 2007) reverse holo cards suffered this issue. You can flatten them by putting them into Toploaders / Card Savers, or inside binders.
Are the other two stacks non holo cards? Every card in the detective pikachu set is a holo card and holos are significantly more prone to warping. Of all the cards I have owned, I have only ever seen warping on holo cards that are not stored in a binder or insdide top loaders.
I have ultra pro binders and I put the cards into deck sleeves before putting them into the binder, I personally have seen zero warping in those cards.
They’re all a mix of non-holo, holo, GX and reverse. I do store my own collection cards in binders, but these are all duplicates. Only the Detective Pikachu cards have this warping. I also have a small stack of EX-era cards (including a holo and reverse holo) which have not warped.
The cards definitely aren’t damaged, so a heavy book will fix the issue, I’m more worried about a handful of Detective Pikachu cards I have coming back from PSA soon - especially after seeing the recent thread about a PSA Magmar warping after being stored in a safe.
But I believe that was a PSA Magmar stored in a safe without airing that safe for weeks (months?) on end. Something you definitely should do with safes. So that’s an amplified example compared to storing it in a room, at (an albeit low) room temperature.
Every, single, Detective Pikachu card I have has a slight bend due to warping. I think it’s all depending on the print run. The bend makes them easy to spot in the bulk box
