A friend of mine has recently started collecting WotC-era Pokémon TCG flip coins, and I have been helping him verify them. However, we’ve run into several discrepancies - coins we’ve found listed but have not been able to verify. Our original source (Bulbapedia) has also proven to be incomplete. Documentation on these is lacking, probably in no small part because they were far less desirable than the cards they came with. I’m creating this thread in the hopes that perhaps a member of this board can help us along.
So far, we’ve compiled the following list of English / International WotC-era coins;
Coin : Trait
Chansey : Black Circle Perimeter
Chansey : Blue Copyright
Chansey : Black Copyright
Chansey : Mirror New Back
Chansey : Starlight New Back
Chansey : 2000 Copyright
Pikachu : Toys R Us Pokémon League
Vileplume : Confetti
Vileplume : Mirror
Vileplume : Starlight 1999 Copyright
Vileplume : Cosmos 1999 Copyright
Vileplume : Starlight 2000 Copyright
Vileplume : Cosmos 2000 Copyright
Eevee : Starlight Eevee : Mirror
Aerodactyl : Light Brown Mirror
Aerodactyl : Light Brown Starlight Aerodactyl : Light Brown Cosmos
Aerodactyl : Dark Brown 1999 Copyright
Aerodactyl : Dark Brown 2000 Copyright
Starmie : Starlight
Pikachu : Metal
Alakazam : Cosmos
Lugia : Metal w/ Copyright
Lugia : Metal No Copyright
__________
The coins we have been unable to identify are bolded. We’d appreciate any help verifying these coins, as well as any leads on coins we might’ve missed.
Here is a useful thread with a sheet of all English coins, that @credits used to collect in the past. It’s last been updated in 2018 by the looks of it though, so not sure how up-to-date it is. But I think he stopped collecting them since last year and only focuses on Energy cards now.
I think @joshius also collects coins and might perhaps be able to help with some of the questions.
@llyrwenne , yes use the link @quuador posted
I was heavily involved in coins and believe the checklist is one of the most complete compiled.
It is in excel format and when clicking on the coin name cell, will provide an image of the front and back of said coin.
From your list they should all be in there.
Unfortunately I had to give up that collection due to financial issues
Let me know if you have any further questions.
Edit: these are only for english released coins though, so it wont help and i cant help with japanese releases
Thank you both. I had already found the thread in question, and though very helpful, some questions still remain. I notice that both the 1999 Cosmos Vileplume and the Cosmos Aerodactyl are marked with a question mark in the sheet, and the latter of the two is missing information and does not have an image in the image file. My friend and I aren’t sure whether the Cosmos Aerodactyl even exists - it’s listed on Bulbapedia, but we haven’t been able to find any pictures or listings of one. It looks like you weren’t able to find one either, correct?
Yes, if the information or image is missing I never actually set eyes on one personally or never came across images or information in my researches.The Cosmos Aerodactyl may just be because whomever entered the info thought it may exist based on the general information of other releases. One could assume that if there were say 4 variants that they would exist across the board but you quickly see its never as easy as that
Most of the images were scans of my personal collection. I had 200 unique coins of the then listed 365.I collected them over many years, way back when you could get a lot of 100 coins on ebay for $10! Those were the days, lolWith the many hours of research the information I collated was as accurate as could be, needless to say, there are most probably discrepancies here and there.
I suspect the same might be true for the 1999 Cosmos Vileplume. Every Cosmos Vileplume we’ve found has been 2000 copyright. Ordering a 1999 Cosmos Vileplume from trollandtoad gets you a 2000 Cosmos Vileplume. A PSA graded “1999” Cosmos Vileplume we found turned out to be 2000 copyright too.
I notice you have no image of the Mirror Eevee either. It’s listed on Bulbapedia, and trollandtoad has a listing for it separate from their Starlight Eevee listing with its own image, but though their Starlight image and Mirror image are clearly of different coins, there’s no distinguishable Holo pattern between the two, and the Mirror coin is out of stock.
I don’t suppose you have any information on the exact distribution of all these variants? Any way to identify different prints of the same product containing a different Holo pattern print of a coin? Is one Holo pattern the US release and the other the UK / European release? Or was this just a mess of the factory printing the coins with whatever Holo pattern they had available?
All of these questions and the generally poor and inconsistent documentation are incidentally exactly what attracted my friend to collecting these coins. It’s a piece of TCG history that few have shown much care for or interest in. It’s as much a collection as it is an attempt at documentation and preservation of this forgotten and neglected part of the TCG.
@llyrwenne, I would suspect the same too. The main reason they are in the checklist is to have held out hope to actually find one, one day. And tbh in the beginning during research I did not keep images and sources for information which was done later for confirmation. But the “?” was just an assumption on my behalf.
T&T is a roll of the dice at best. While I wouldn’t disregard that their listings are true as you have described, what is listed and what you actually get can vary.
During the extent of my researches, I didn’t record every way coins could be obtained. Just the most proficient way that was found. Many coins were released in various ways so that column was merely to add to the collation although messy and incomplete.
You have certainly hit the nail on the head! I wish I could have continued to collect them and contribute. People like you are very hard to find in the coin world and most that I ever conversed with ended up a dead end. It’s just one of those collections that many peoples eyes light up over because they look AWESOME gathered together especially with the history and documentation to support what they are, but then they quickly fade away.
As for anyone, my work is for you to use and expand on. The most probable way to ensure anything would be to open product but as you know, older product is getting rarer and staying sealed for value so that becomes an expensive endeavor and for a single coin.
I wish I could be more help but my time with coins is done as I don’t have them anymore but do still have the scans to look back and reflect upon. It was fun in the many years spent though.
Just now seeing this. II know I never did finish tracking down all the wotc variations so it very may well be that some are listed that don’t exist. I also have a hard time sometime differentiating the different foil types. I only know if they are different and I often get the names confused lol. I will get some pictures together of all the different variations I have found next time I am pulling my collection. I never documented anything, I just bought lots of coins on eBay and made sure to keep one of each for my collection. I had 296 unique coins last time I got them together for a count. That was quite some time though lol
Hey to you both. I am “the friend” mentioned in the OP. Currently I am collecting any flip coin distributed in the first two TCG generations, both English and Japanese, and believe I am nearing the end of the endeavor. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the experience since you’ve both dabbled in coins.
These are really just not widely collected. Learning about them and finding them for myself has felt like sifting through other people’s trash. There are very few listings, they are in very poor condition, and people have a really hard time identifying them.
For as hard as they are to find, I am sort of struck by how much HARDER they are to find now than they were 3-4 years ago. It wasn’t long ago that there were regularly lots of coins for sale that you could easily pick up for cheap and sift through. I only started seriously collecting these last year, but I’d handled and bought/sold lots of them several times before and expected them to be far more common than they currently are. Where did they all go, I wonder? If they’re not widely collected then they probably have not reached collectors. I know there was/is also a trend to turn them in to necklaces and charms, which could have taken some out of the market. But it’s one of those things that has totally dried up. I am glad I got in when I did.
The most comprehensive resource, other than the list put together by credits in 2017, is the Bulbapedia article for coins. But it’s not without its flaws, including some iffy scans and incorrect information here and there. I can confirm a Mirror Vileplume (1999) and Mirror Aerodactyl (1999) that are not listed as well as undisclosed variations between the Japanese Pink Mirror Chansey distributed once in each generation (different backs). I also don’t believe Cosmos Aerodactly (1999) exists. It seems like it should exist, but I have cycled through hundreds of them and have never seen one. If anyone has one of these please show it to me so I can just know it’s out there.
Many of the Japanese coins are best imported right from Yahoo Japan. There’s not many in the US and the markup is immense. Even after expensive shipping it’s still cheaper this way. But at the same time, I brought a few duplicates over to try to sell myself and they don’t really move. The coins are weird in that they’re really rare, really expensive, but nobody wants them either. I don’t know what to make of that.
All my supposed “Mirror Eevee” have shown up with sparkles. I have one more promising lead that claims there are no stars in the foil which has just shipped. Hoping this is finally the flat finish.
I am hoping to finish my research and my collection itself this year after which I will publish any revisions or clarifications on the master lists out there.
Wow I had COMPLETELY forogtten these existed… used to have a bunch of the chansey ones I used in tournaments. Love finding things like this in these forums
As a kid I just threw them out. I didn’t play the game itself so they had no utility and I didn’t know what to do with them. I vaguely remember at one point trying to put coins with their matching Pokémon in my binder but that didn’t last long.
I think this is true for a lot of kids of the day. They were a novelty and lots of actual players used dice instead of coins in gameplay. These were trash. The first time I ever thought to buy them as an adult was to use them as themed tabs in my binder to separate my sets by gluing them to card stock, but the experiment didn’t really work out. But since I had several of them I came to appreciate them more and realized these were in real danger of falling through the cracks.
My limits are currently set at Gen I and II only, which has been very challenging despite the small scope. I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would be to do the entire history of coins considering how many minute variations they contain and how poorly they’ve been preserved by collectors.
