Hey all, been waiting to make this post a long time and very happy to finally do so. I finally got to complete one of my grail dreams, the Hoenn starters “rookie” cards from Ruby & Sapphire in PSA 10. Although I started collecting as a kid in 1999 like everyone else, I came back to Pokemon (the gameboy games but sadly not the cards) in 2005/2006 and so I have as big of nostalgia for the hoenn era as I do for the kanto starters. In fact, I completely missed johto, which is sad but hey what can you do.
For ex collectors who have looked, all of these cards are really, really hard to grade and the Sceptile is impossible. I started looking for this trio in January 2020 and was lucky enough to pick up the Swampert early and then the Blaziken later in the year after first getting a mislabeled Ex Battle one. I graded at least 15 Sceptiles over time, never getting better than a 9. Really tough card. The Sceptile never comes up for sale or auction, ever, so I jumped when this one did a few weeks ago.
Sceptile is pop 6, Swampert is pop 14 and the Blaziken is a fake pop 23 which should really be 10-15 since a large number are mislabeled. After two years, it’s time to move on to the next collection goal, and that’s the fun of it.
A monumental achievement. I’m super happy for you! And sad at the same time that I passed on that Blaziken hahahaha. But I’m happy it went toward such a noble collection goal
Mad PROPS! I also liked these starters the most, and with hundreds of hours playing this game on the bus to high school. Great to see their rookie cards all together like this.
