Duke's ULTIMATE 9.5 Shadowless Collection Mission Thread

Collecting
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Introduction - welcome to my collection thread

Hey everyone - I’m Freddie.

I am embarking upon a pretty difficult task and it’s going to be a long (and wallet-painful) road ahead - but I am determined!

And I hope you can join along.

Shadowless cards were my grail set growing up

My family didn’t have much cash lying around to spend on shiny cardboard, so when base set 1st edition was first released, we couldn’t afford to buy many packs.

But, by the time of the shadowless print happened (at the time we didn’t know that there would be another print/art after shadowless) I had come to an arrangement with my parents to do work in the house in exchange for packs.

Shadowless was the first set that I was really able to open and collect - and always will have a special place in my heart.

Getting back into collecting

Fast forward to 2020, I’m approaching 30, got a bit more time and money to spend on some memories…so, I started collecting again.

Thankfully, I got lucky and got in just before the massive hype and boom.

My goal was to own a complete shadowless set, but I knew that would be a tough entry point, and so decided to work my way up to it.

Well a year or so later, and I managed to make a couple grail purchases (for me).

I’ve had many cards since starting back collecting:

  • Neo destiny shining set
  • Complete Japanese PSA 9 Base Set
  • Complete Shadowless PSA 7 set

But I have since decided to focus my time and money on completing a pretty tough set:

A BGS 9.5 Shadowless Holo / complete set.

Why BGS 9.5?

A 10 set for me would be financially irresponsible to try to complete (mortgage/car/kids) :wink: so a 9.5 set is still a massive challenge but more doable, from a financial perspective (I would say getting 9.5s is as challenging as getting a PSA 10 set in terms of grading chances).

Personally I also love the BGS slabs. I know they are like marmite but for me the cards pop inside of them.

I also enjoy the huntPokemon is about the chase of the collection; opening packs for that one card you’ve been searching for.

But, good luck finding Shadowless base set packs (that are confirmed shadowless), and from a reputable seller, and unweighed, and also turn out to qualify for the 9.5 grade (so many shadowless cards have huge centering issues, or suffer from print lines).

Too much of a gamble.

So for me, buying strong PSA 9s and crossing them over seems less of a gamble, but still provides that ‘chase’ aspect to collecting.

So where are we at currently?

I got pretty lucky and manged to pick up a couple of the bigger cards for great prices (see below) but since so many of them are incredibly low pop, progress has slowed!

My plan is to keep buying the 9.5s as they come up, but in the meantime buy strong PSA 9s, crack the slabs, and submit to BGS to shoot for the 9.5s.

If you want to follow along, do so!

Any advice, or tips along the way, are always appreciated.

9.5s got so far (and pops) - will edit as I go:

  • Charizard - pop 38

  • Venusaur - pop 9

  • Magneton - pop 5

  • Charmander

  • Charmeleon



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Oops was trying to help with the pictures but looks like you got it.

Beautiful collection by the way! You’ve knocked out the most expensive one already, which is a great start

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@smokemon, yeah took me a moment to get it - had to copy the specific forum link from imigur.

Yeah big boy is out of the way!

Only problem is that buying 9.5s straight out is like finding needles in a haystack, people who have them dont want to sell them, and they rarely are on marketplaces like ebay.

So best bet is to cross from PSA.

I think it’s doable, just will take some time!

:sunglasses:

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Love the Shadowless set, what an awesome goal. I honestly don’t have a lot of experience grading with BGS yet… but you say getting a 9.5 set is as challenging as a PSA 10 set but also mention you are buying PSA 9s to try get BGS 9.5s doesn’t make much sense.

Not trying to rag on you really because a BGS 9.5 set is still amazing IMO and not easily done. I think it is obviously harder than getting a PSA 9 set I wouldn’t say it is as hard as a PSA 10 set though.

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@ccrntrade , thanks!

Well in terms of crossing, PSA 9 to BGS 9.5 is really all based around subjectivity of the grader at the time, and grading scales.

It’s really important to buy only strong 9s if trying to get the 9.5.

9.5s are tough to get in Shadowless specifically due to the factory issues with the cards.

After speaking with a few big shadowless collectors, the common consensus is that PSA 10s are rarely perfect cards, and that PSA are actually more lenient with certain factory imperfections with those older sets. PSA 10s are more of a sliding scale (gustofwindpokemon on Instagram did an interesting video on this recently) and are approached with more of a subjective view.

eg. Centering could be 60:40 on the front and still get a 10.

With BGS 9.5s I do think they are almost if not as tough to get as PSA 10s due to the fact that the grades are based on maths/averages (eg. 3 subrades of 9.5 and only one 9 can give a 9.5 grade) and less on subjectivity / general card appeal / age.

They are similar as BGS 9.5s also have room for imperfections, as does the low-mid strength PSA 10.

Comparatively, a BGS 10 Pristine is arguably a very strong PSA 10 (maybe the top 1% of PSA10s).

All in all there are some strong PSA 9s out there that will cross to BGS as PSA’s grading is more subjective - I have seen this happen many times (and also seen PSA 9s get BGS 9s and even get 8.5s lol).

At the end of the day it’s still a gamble, although a more calculated one (and fun!). :grin:

And due to the low pop of some of these 9.5s (eg Blastoise is pop 10), it’s really my only option.

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Good luck with Hitmonchan my friend.

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You see this a lot with Jungle (silvering on left/bottom, extreme “whitening” on the back left side from how they were cut). Fossil also gets away with some centering issues.

At any rate, amazing collection - good job!

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Oh man @jaredschallenge it’s that one and chancey that I think are gonna be the toughest

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Thanks! Sorry, still getting the hang of quoting on here. Yes you see a couple jungle 10s with silvering - big issue with that print run!

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Just added a couple strong PSA 9’s that I’ll be trying to cross!

  • Gyarados (5xxx cert as I think they are consistently strong)
  • Chansey (6xxxx)
  • Hitmonchan (6xxxx) the weakest of the lot but was a good deal!

Pics to follow.

What I think I might do is get all the cards together that im gonna sub and then make a video cracking them all!

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I wouldn’t buy based on cert alone if I were you, new certs are just as susceptible to misgrades. Nice pickups nonetheless, hope they cross to 9.5s

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Awesome thread and collection! I don’t have a lot of graded cards but I love BGS slabs and for my personal collection would grade with BGS over PSA. So you have excellent taste, ha. Best of luck completing your 9.5 set, that’s such a great goal. Can’t wait to see updates on your progress!

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Thanks mate. For sure, after this post I also picked up a very minty shadowless mewtwo with a 2xxx cert. I’m learning a lot along the way as I am still fairly new to the hobby (picked it back up just before the big c19 boom).

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Thanks Inchy! I actually started off with PSA but after getting my first BGS slab, it just hit different!

Appreciate it - more updates coming soon as I’ve made a few acquisitions, just waiting on them to arrive!

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Awesome goal and collection so far. Definitely update this thread as your journey progress.
I’d really love to see how you accomplish this goal and how the PSA>BGS crossover goes.

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Thanks! Will be updating soon once a few cards come. My only concern is BGS grading prices at 250$ including sub grades which is crazy. May wait until the new year and see if prices go down towards the $100 mark for express and submit all in one go!

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Sounds like a great goal! Good luck :blush: and welcome to the forum!

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Added this Chansey to my collection. Looking very minty. I’m 50/50 on if it could get the BGS 9,5 but it’s the strongest 9 I’ve seen for a while, so picked it up. Lovely card to own!

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Really excited about this one! One of the cleanest PSA 9 Mewtwo’s I’ve seen and the centering is so almost perfect (maybe 9.5, or maybe just shy of it). The back is really nice as well). Praying for no print lines (just bought it, havent seen in the flesh yet!).

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back pick

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