What’s the best buy you’ve ever made? Was it sealed product? Was it a specific card? Something that completed a set?
For me, I just bought a 35 card lot a couple days ago for my gym challenge collection. All first edition, all psa 10 and I’m super pumped about it! Some of these cards are only sold every couple of months so I got super lucky to be able to buy them all at once. Incredibly happy about it! 
I have a tie between two:
I purchased a complete 1st Edition Team Rocket set for $85 in 2014. The guy selling it was getting rid of his childhood collection and offered me a great deal if I promised to value the cards. Still have them today.
Grabbed an unlimited Shining Steelix from Neo Destiny off Ebay for $15.
Woah. That’s bad ass! Both steals!
I understand wanting to only give cards away to people who would take care of them. When I complete it, I’m probably never gonna sell my gym challenge set. Unless someone offers a ridiculous price. But even then, I’d want to sell it at a fair price to someone who would truly take care of them
Are you going for a 1st Edition Set?
1st edition psa 10. I don’t think anyones ever sold that particular set before. Again I’m not buying to sell, I’m buying because I thoroughly enjoy the cards in that set.
Damn, good luck with that. Gym Challenge is one of the WOTC sets that I think is very underappreciated.
Yeah I heckin love it! Might do gym heroes after, might not. Might take a break because it’s expensive haha
My best purchase was a Gaia Volcano booster box. It was the start of my journey with Japanese cards and where I am today. One small purchase has now defined the direction of my collection and I’m much happier now because of it =)
That’s a cool origin story!
It’s also quite an interesting story.
The only reason I bought the box was because I was playing the games pretty heavily at the time. I used to collect event Pokémon and they have quite a serious collector base as well.
One of the events that ran had a promotion with the Japanese TCG, it gave a code card per pack that awarded points towards event Pokémon. Because they only way to achieve certain Pokémon were with quite a few codes, the codes were selling for as high as $4.50US per code. That made the box worth $90USD in codes but I could buy boxes for $45USD shipped.
My first box I opened a FA Primal Groupon EX, worth around $35USD at the time. It was glorious and coupled with the fact I had now been paid to open the box, it just made so much sense to keep exploring Japanese cards.
Two weeks later I had sold nearly 75% of my English collection and was buying more Japanese boxes.
Damn that is a crazy story. It sounds like it worked out for the best though. You seem to really enjoy it. Keep it up!
A bulk binder collection for £250 ($322 USD), listing was up for a few minutes when I found it, only had 3 images listed, first few pages were all 3rd gen Ex cards and the description stated the entire binder was full so I took a gamble and boy did it pay off, binder had a bunch of Gold Stars, twice as many Ex cards, various holos including some older WOTC era cards, misc promos, the works!
Ended up selling it on piece of piece to buy older cards I was more interested in keeping permanently, basically completed my 1st Ed Rocket Holo PSA collection as well because of the profit, all in all a really good purchase!
Omg that’s one hell of a score!!
Buying an ex Emerald booster pack and pulling a Raichu ex which was the first ever ex-pull for me I’ve loved those ex-cards since then. Too bad I traded the Raichu away years ago. I think I should pick up one just for the memories alone. Tyranitar ex from Unseen Forces was another one that I remember well because I pulled it from a very weird looking Unseen Forces blister which was probably third party made.
I wish today’s pulls left me excited like that. But you also have to remember that I couldn’t buy many packs back then as I was 13 and very rarely had any money to use so times were different.
Purchased a gold star Mew off eBay for 1$
It was in this gross/sad looking lot of cards and I was the only bidder.
Ended up selling it for 100$ a week after I received it!
$777 (well $688 TECHNICALLY because of bonus ebay bucks & Cash back) 1st edition complete base set (some shadowless holos - Charizard, Blastoise, Alakazam, Gyarados, Raichu) as well as 1st edition almost complete rocket, 1st fossil, 1st jungle and some promos. All graded 9-10 (some bigger PSA10 hits I can think off of the top of my head including Venusaur, lass, dragonite, Alakazam, dark charizard to name a few). I could not believe the condition of these cards, and the lot based on the description and images was insane. Had 2 images, one of all 6 small separate binders open to their front pages and the description was something about nm/mint colletion. Saw the shadowless charizard, blastoise, alakazam and 1st edition Chansey and slammed the BIN button. All in WOTC binders with no rings, all in pack fresh conditions, when it arrived I was in shock going through all the cards. Oh…this was at the of March of THIS YEAR! Won’t ever get that lucky again.
What.the.FAK?!?! THAT’S INSANE!! Omg that’s beautiful!
Best purchase in terms of value was I spent $700 on a lot that ended up having $3-4K in value after grading.
That’s esssentially where I got the money to complete my Jungle and Fossil sets 
That’s a wonderful purchase!
Thanks!!
It consisted of 1st edition base cards and the reason it sold for so low is the pictures were minimal with no back pics. It was a risk, but turned out to have a PSA 10 1st base electrode, chameleon, kadabra, growlithe, and probably about 15 more PSA 10 commons and uncommons and some 1st Base PSA 7-8 holos
It was one of those purchases I’d be too cautious to go in on now, but back then it was the perfect opportunity in my naivety. It was definitely one of the biggest catalysts for getting me into collecting as up to that point last summer, I mostly had only graded my childhood binders and made a few terrible lot purchases that almost turned me away from the hobby entirely.
That one good purchase gave me the confidence and capital to continue and I’m so glad I did because collecting Pokémon cards is a blast and I love this hobby and community and I’m glad to be a part of it 