GreyCards "Card of the Year" and Tangela master set thread

[GreyCards]

Hi everyone,

Been lurking for a while and decided to post my collection. Add me to the list of people who got back into the hobby via 151 after really only being interested in base set and the few sets after from school days.

I decided a fun way to approach being out for so long would be to look around what I’d missed and find my favourite card from every year. I am essentially only interested in Gen 1. I did also try to get a varied spread of Pokémon which made it a fun puzzle i.e. if I take this card/Pokémon from 2018 then I could free up 2007 to be something different. Here’s what I got, taking about 2 years:

1995:

1996:

1997:

1998 (cheated and got 2, vending series is too fun):

1999:

2000 (also couldn’t decide this year!):

2001 (again 2, took me a while to go for the Shining Gyarados):

2002:

2003:

2004:

2005:

2006:

2007:

2008:

2009:

2010:

2011:

2012:

2013:

2014:

2015 (I asked my wife to pick her favourite Pokemon, then card for them from any year):

2016 (2 cards as connected art. I really struggled to find good copies of these to send for grading - if you have any, or 9/10s please let me know!)

2017:

2018:

2019:

2020:

2021:

2022:

2023 (2 cards as the Zard is the one I saw that brought me back to the hobby, but the Poliwhirl is so good):

2024:

My 2025 pick(s) are out for grading!

Now I am up to date, I need a new goal. So for 2026 I plan to do all Tangela JP and EN cards, plus all base set variants. Thanks to @Quuador who was very helpful providing resources and guidance on how to compile the list. Turns out Tangela is likely to be one of the easiest Gen1s to do, though still over 100 cards!

Thanks for reading!

[slowqueen]

Thanks for sharing your collection, I absolutely love the cards you’ve chosen! That 2006 ‘forever alone’ Omanyte card is a favorite of mine as well. And the HGSS Slowking is a great one.

[joeshmoe3491]

I love seeing collections like this cause some of these cards I’ve never seen. Specifically that Snorlax is an interesting one I’ve NEVER seen or heard of before. Where’d you find it?

[decoypalmette]

What a lovely collection! Truly enjoyed seeing a lot of variety from both modern and vintage. We also have similar tastes especially when it comes to wotc: I love kizuki Abra, gym Ivysaur, southern islands Togepi and that fukuyama Psyduck

[Quuador]

As mentioned in our PMs, best of luck with your Tangela collection goal.

And I didn’t knew you already had such an amazing completed collection. I love how you can see the card style change over time by collecting one of each year. And you’ve chosen some absolute bangers. You’ve got excellent taste in artworks and Pokémon!

PS: One small correction though: although the Topsun cards have ©1995 copyright years, the first Topsun set was released in March 1997. Since the Game Boy games were released in February 1996, there aren’t any Pokémon cards from 1995. The only Pokémon-related products from 1995 are some magazines/books with screenshots of the upcoming games, as well as a prerelease poster. The very first Pokémon cards would be the Bandai Carddass Part 1 set, released in September 1996 (or perhaps the Pokémon Club sticker-cards of May 1996).

Greetz,
Quuador

[GreyCards]

Ah thanks, I did wonder where the ‘dad joke’ I think @smpratte mentioned a few times came from. Is it this?

[GreyCards]

Honestly I spent a LONG time just looking through all sets for every year from various resources. I presumably missed a lot of promos and oddities, but they tend to be expensive anyway

[crindy]

i love this format and the cards you’ve chosen!! the hypno-clefairy connected pair especially is so good