A year ago, I created a thread asking what you had achieved thus far at the half year mark in the collecting sphere and whether your goals had been shifted due to being priced out or you started a new journey all together.
We are now at the halfway mark for 2025, and the same questions present themselves:
What have you achieved thus far in 2025?
What could you have bought in 2024, that you cant buy now in 2025?
Are you priced out due to the boom?
What are you hoping to achieve before year end?
I’ve been focusing on art pieces, learning how to play the Cursegar and Garchomp Decks, rearranging my favorite binder and Gengar cards that I have neglected over the years.
Downside is I liquidated a lot of my Pokemon to acquire this card. The cards were liquidated before the boom, and the intent was to rebuy them. However, I’ve since been severely priced out.
I’ve recently acquired a PSA 7.5 1st Edition Charizard that I’m head over heels for and hoping to get PSA 7 copies of Blastoise and Venusaur before year’s end. Replacements in lower grades than I originally wanted. Between now and then I’m going to continue working on finishing my WOTC era decks and focus on being grateful for the cards I have.
I have sold a bunch of stuff to achieve a Disneyland trip for the family. I honestly wasnt buying cards for a couple months because this hobby just feels bad right now. I have been slowing buying cards again but I doubt I will reach my goal to finish up the SV era by the end of the year.
I’m pretty close to completing the reverse Expedition set now (<10% to go!). After not making too much progress on it for many months, I decided to buckle down and focus my searches on the missing cards for a bit, and it seems to have progressed well. The only “big” card left is one of the reverse holo Gengars. I hope to complete the set by the end of the year.
For the rest of the goals, not too much progress has been made. Still need to organize my cards and haven’t done any trades at all this year. Also haven’t made any progress on two of the art projects I was alluding to in my goals—one of them I completed for Secret Santa last year (unless there’s another project I forgot about…). I’ve been a bit short on free time this year, and I’m not sure I’ll gain much of it back anytime soon.
I’m happy with how things have been progressing this year though. With the completion of the Expedition set coming up, I’ve been thinking about what might be next. And I think I’ll probably start to work on some side species collections, which I’ve picked up random cards for but never really focused on.
I’m also happy with some recent sales that were relatively large for me. I’ve had a handful of cards that I graded back in 2021 that I never cared to put up for sale, but with the market as it is, some of the prices hit the feels-worth-selling-to-me threshold, and the sales have definitely helped boost the coffers.
Pretty much none of the stuff I am focused on collecting has been too affected by the recent market, so I’m basically still buying the same as I’ve always been.
I finished my eseries binder this year and am currently one card from completing all 1st edition non-holo trainers. These were my two main goals and I hope to complete the second one soon too.
My progress in 2025 has been pretty slow, mainly due to focusing on other things in life. What I’ve mainly been seeing is some pretty significant growth on many of the cards I bought in 2022/2023. Can’t believe how high Masaki Gengar has gotten lately for example, and I managed to get a NM copy quite cheap in 2022. In addition, many of the WOTC cards I bought have recovered or gone up in value a lot.
Anyway, for my vintage collection I’m down to many of the 4 figure and high 3 figure hits at this point for most sets I’m trying to complete still (Neo Shinings, etc). In the meantime, I’ve mainly been accumulating the odd modern card or other vintage bargain I can find (mainly Japanese).
Since mid-late 2023 I’ve been trying to improve my financial position before getting back into heavier Pokemon collecting. I feel in the next couple of years I may even be able to go for the odd 5 figure card more easily, which definitely wasn’t the case when I first started collecting. I also have quite a few others I could unload or sell if I have to at some point.
Last but not least, I also collect the odd MTG card. Vintage MTG is looking like a pretty good value these days compared to vintage Pokemon. There’s only a few cards I’d want to scoop up there for now, so I may look at some of those the next while as well if I can.
To be honest, I have hardly made any purchases this year, because of constant changes in my life (for better or worse, I dunno). I have only slightly filled blank spots in my collection of Porygons, I have not bought anything for several months. I thought to save money for Fan Club Porygon , but this did not happen, I decided to buy another FC promo.
This was the year I was planning to work on my Japanese XY textured full arts binder but I haven’t accomplished much. I don’t feel bad though. I was spending quite recklessly since covid and it’s refreshing to have a slower-paced year.
The main collection acquisitions I’ve made have been new signed cards. Going for quality over quantity. Here’s my most recent addition.
I think other collection goals have impacted my progress.
