Sorry if this is the wrong section, long time lurker but i hopped on discord voice recently and chatted with some very nice guys. They suggested posting the photos I have of the event here.
Pokémon day and everything has had me pretty nostalgic so I have been digging through my old photos of playing cards as a kid. I love that everyone here is continuing the passion that we had back then. Here are some photos of one of the events I went to, and the first picture is of the prizes a few others and I won from the tournament.
album with more below, i kept alot out that show faces to protect peoples privacy. imgur.com/a/j2YBlvx
Amazing photos; thanks for sharing! Crazy that what was probably a few thousand dollars in sealed product at the time is now multiple millions. Still pretty mindblowing. Also interesting to see zero EX Ruby & Sapphire cards anywhere, though it was the most recent set released at that time (unless Google has GenCon 2003 dates wrong).
Wish I had a time machine to go back and collect all of these old vintage boxes. Don’t care about the $ just think they’re so cool. It’s mesmerizing really.
Not exactly sure what you mean by merchandise, so I’ll list what I remember(which may be foggy,)
By signing up, you got a kyogre ex promo card (I believe nintendo’s first black star). There was a handful of different tournaments that went on, I believe it would have been modern ( which was Neo and Up) and unlimited. And then divided per age group.
The events I won somehow I ended up with a some of those boxes above, a 6 player cloth playmat (in one of the pictures). The sheet of uncut cards and a jumbo best of game winner cards. I still have the playmat. It think this is the tournament I won the sealed packs of holo energy cards, sealed pack of Snorlax and Machamp black star promos (still have those too).
Mousepads, league shirts, etc is what I still have from this era. I can take pictures if anyone is interested.
I think timing wise your right. I remember Neo cards were still king at the time, and most decks I played against at the time we’re feraligatr. Though, maybe there was a more modern set of legal cards, and I didn’t have enough to make a deck. Honestly, somehow now I have a ton of cards. But when I was a kid we didn’t have much money, and it’s possible my mother shielded me from the newer ones since she knew we didn’t have the cards.
After Neo got phased out of rotation I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, and mostly played pre-releases because I couldn’t compete with the kids that could afford all the new cards.
