Found an insane number of vintage Japanese holos at my friend's house

[viridian]

While visiting my friend the other day, he casually mentioned to me that he thought he had a lot of Pokemon cards. We did a little scavenger hunt through his house and found these two binders!

While it looked unassuming, I quickly realized that most of the pockets were stuffed with duplicate cards:

I am still in the process of sleeving and cataloging everything, but there were just shy of 500 cards stuffed in these two little binders! The below picture is not even all the holo cards:

Some highlights are below:

This is pretty representative of the average condition of cards in the binder, they appear to have all been somewhat played and stuffed in here when he was a kid. There was a small sampling of English cards:

Yes including a no-damage Ninetales! I was shocked to find this.

A very impressive Gym collection!

Neo and Dark are here too!

A decent chunk of censored arts too!

Sadly these promos were in poor condition, but they were still cool to find!

I should pre-empt this by mentioning that I’m not selling anything for now, as we’re still discussing whats the best way to profit split between us, and we need to figure out which ones to send for grading etc. Initially he thought it was worth maybe $800! Lol it should be a bit more.

After researching the Japanese market, I understand graded cards aren’t really in the same insane hype bubble as mid-era English right now, so probably I’ll have to be picky and choosy about what to send. I would probably assume just the Charizards, Mewtwos and famous holos.

Also, if anyone knows any notable Japanese misprints or other rare variants to look for, I’d appreciate help there. I’m pretty sure non of them are the no-rarity variety, but I don’t know what else might be of note in Japanese varieties.

Also just wanted to note that even if he decides not to sell anything, I had a lot of pleasure just looking through such old cards, it was really a nice trip down nostalgia lane that brought back a little magic in the game to me!

[Dyl]

I always love to see large vintage collections like this.

Anything under PSA 8 condition is probably not worth grading at the moment given PSA’s prices; the money is in PSA 9 and 10 for vintage Japanese holos. Some exceptions exist, like Japanese Base Charizard, English No Attack Ninetales (grade in any condition), and the like.

If I were in your shoes, I’d buy the lot off of him, keep the best copy of every card, and begin binders for each set. Sell the duplicates to fund the ungraded cards you will need to finish those sets. That, in my opinion, is more exciting and fun than waiting six months to get PSA 6s and 7s and then making a few thousand dollars after everything is said and done.

Thanks for sharing! (And if you don’t want to buy the collection, others on here would!)

[xileets]

@Dyl

Thanks for sharing! (And if you don’t want to buy the collection, others on here would!)

I second both of these things. So cool to see.

[Parallax]

Hey, it’s me, your friend.

Forgot I left those there. Please can you mail them back post haste.

Amazing collection. GG.

[martin]

@viridian

Yes including a no-damage Ninetales!

That’s awesome! What a find

[churlocker]

This makes me nostalgic for buying collections 10 years ago. You’d see a lot like this. “My dad traveled to Japan for work in the late 90s/early 00s and brought these for me.” Especially the mini binders. Those and the off-white plastic cases. I had boxes in the corner filled with stuff like that that you weren’t quite willing to throw away, but you probably spent 50x what it was worth technically in storage over the years lol. You’d randomly see stuff in these collections sometimes, like Grand Parties or a fan club Porygon.

You found some nice cards, but you also realized it’s rare to get these days. Nearly an extinct species. The good vintage Japanese holo find is awesome.

[jabby]

A very nice treasure to stumble upon