I’ve been collecting Pokémon cards since I was 6 sprinkled in with some Yugioh, action figures and even baseball cards at one point.
When I was younger obviously I was limited to what my mom could get me. As I was older I used birthday money to buy some Yugioh and Pokémon cards circa 2004.
Around 2011 I remember buying some base set packs and opening them up along with some Yugioh tins. I would buy vintage to open for fun. Can’t do that anymore because of how expensive vintage is.
Now that I’m in my late 20s early 30s I am really intentional with what I buy. So it’s mostly graded vintage. More focused on cards to complete sets and ones that hold nostalgia.
From collecting EVERYTHING Pokemon (and a bit of Yugioh) since i was a 5 year old to now my eeveelution (like 98%) collection. A few years back i wanted to collect again; i basically collected my whole childhood and later in my teens; i would always get overwhelmed and then stopped and the cycle repeated. Now (since circa last year?) I decided to focus on eeveelutions, with a bit of Sprigatito, Floragato and Meowscarada. Works perfectly! I took a tiny break last few months, that helped with not getting overwhelmed and loosing interest
My collection started off getting old cards from a friend. Then evolved into the occasional pack/deck whenever my parents had extra money. I didn’t care about getting certain Pokémon, and didn’t bother looking at set lists. Didn’t even know set lists were a thing. I guess I just assumed all the Pokémon were in the set. Whoops. I just liked all the cards that came out. The Magma/Aqua set was my favorite. Then I stopped a bit after Platinum and kinda just had the collection sitting in my closet.
Now that I’ve come back, I’ve decided only Eeveelutions and Skarmory. So I’ve narrowed it down a lot.
Even as a kid, I was always interested in completing sets. When Pokemon first came out in English I would buy booster packs when I had enough money. We didn’t really know about variations of cards back then and just relied on the set numbers. I stopped after gym challenge as I was getting older but I always kept my cards.
I didn’t buy anything new until around 2011 when I started getting into collecting again. I decided to keep my collection manageable that I would only collect up until 2003 era cards. I now wanted to collect variations as well (ie. Shadowless, unlimited and so on). I would mostly buy bulk lots I found online. Now I generally looks for specific cards. Always ungraded if I can find them.
Pokemon was my 1st TCG experience as a kid, both from a collecting & pack opening perspective. From there a family member introduced me to MTG and I collected and played it quite a bit. I never really focused on completing sets or having goals, I just collected anything I could. I actually didn’t really play the Pokemon TCG itself that much, I just loved the games/anime and enjoyed the cards a lot since it was one of the first times we could see non-pixelated art of the Pokemon. It was also very popular at school and well everyone has written quite a bit about the “Pokemania” so I won’t bore you with that.
Anyway, I also played & collected Yu-Gi-Oh very briefly when it came out. Had the Yugi and Kaiba starter decks. Sadly I lost all those cards at some point and so I’ve been slowly collecting them back as well just to enjoy for nostalgia reasons mainly. I played all those cards without sleeves or anything.
These days my collecting hasn’t changed too much since being a kid. Back then I never owned graded cards like I do now, for example. I never would have thought of keeping anything sealed or closed up. I definitely collect way more than play TCGs though, even though I wouldn’t mind actually playing more again at some point. So far I’ve just been collecting the cards I always wanted as a kid, but could never obtain either due to money or other difficulties. I also just didn’t have all the same knowledge and understanding I have now between ages 7-12 or so .
What I really enjoyed though was when I returned to Pokemon & MTG collecting is how all my memories came back so strong. It was like lights going off in my head and all the cards that I wanted and remembered all came back to me so quickly. I have to admit I spent a lot of money once this started happening, but I don’t regret it at all. I really love collecting these cards, just like when I was a kid.
I’ve learned to appreciate and enjoy a lot more cards as well. For example, I really glossed over the E-Reader sets as a kid and I’ve learned to appreciate them more than before and hope to collect more of them. Same can be said about Japanese, I knew very little about them as a child and now I’ve been collecting them a lot more. In addition I’ve slowly warmed up to modern Pokemon and enjoy a lot of the cards there as well. One thing for sure is the Pokemon company has not forgotten their old fans. I really enjoy some of the sets and artwork and enjoy collecting them more and more as I get into it.
Overall there’s definitely a lot of enjoyment you can find with collecting over the years. I hope to continue building on it all more. It’s been a lot of fun!
My journey has greatly evolved since I got back in around 2014.
I started with exclusively collecting sealed WOTC. I had this vision of recreating a card shop from my childhood. From there I moved onto slabs, and continued in this direction for a very long time. It wasn’t until 2021-ish until I started completing binder sets, and I grew to appreciate binder collecting. I stopped for a while to focus on a trophy card I’ve always wanted, and just completed that goal. Now I’m on a new journey focusing on collecting cards for my favorite artist.
Oof right in the nostalgia feels, bet there’s not a person on this forum who hasn’t had this childhood/teen fantasy (And a few have obviously followed through!)
I’m still very much the collector I was when I was a child: see a card, like it, want it in my collection. No real desire to collect sets or species, I’m definitely a visual collector. No real rhyme-or-reason why my brain likes some cards and not others. The only thing that’s changed since childhood is greater appreciation of rarity, history and age. Joining E4 and Smpratte (and the other E4 veterans) greatly influenced that appreciation, which has led to me adding things like Masaki promos to my collection, which in all honesty probably wouldn’t otherwise be there.
Half the fun for me is opening packs, the other half is owning the cool cards I pull from those packs. My whole collection is centered around that dynamic.
Keeping light packs sealed and selling bulk is something that has changed. Ideally I would just sit on the bulk forever and open unweighed packs to have the full, unadulterated opening experience.
when i first got back into the hobby in late 2020, i went for english only. then it was mostly the older the stuff. after time went by, i realized these cards were less enjoyable to look at, so i sold them. now it’s mostly special arts aside from my dex binder collection which spans from gen 3 onward. in both areas, the hard rule is no yellow borders. they’re just so ugly compared to the neutral white-grey.
Went from collecting different pokemon here and there to collecting mainly around full art trainers and stuff around them + collected more than just japanese and english.
I have always been a set collector. Even as a kid all I wanted to do was finish each set that released, What has changed for me is how fast I complete a set. I used to spam finish a set with a couple weeks of release but these days its more of a slow burn.
I´ve collected the big three (YGO MTG PKMN) since I was a kid, that helped me tremendously with getting “bored” with one franchise, so I just switched to another one for a while. For me it was basically PKMN, YGO and then MTG until I was 18 or so - then I had to pause for a while due to university and a loss of interest, picked it up again a few years later and never looked back, although I really don´t collect YGO anymore besides some VERY occasional pickups and not selling my core collection.
As of now, I mainly collect wotc with modern pickups sprinkled in from time to time
Collected anything and everything Pokemon as a kid in 1999. Favorites consisted of Mewtwo, Alakazam, Scyther, Gyarados, Nidoking and a few others. Wanted only a few cards and enjoyed opening packs until I saw the first movie and was gifted a Collectors Guide - suddenly wanted an English and Japanese Mewtwo collection.
Early 2000’s - Eventually abandoned Pokemon in favor of Yugioh, loved playing the game, card art, and show. One day decide to be nostalgic and buy 3 old packs. Last one had Shining Gyarados. I had 5 Gyarados cards in total now. Solidify it as my favorite - collect English and Japanese Gyarados.
I was very lucky since my favorite store imported Japanese items including packs. I start falling off when Gyarados wasn’t in a set.
In college collected minorly due to expenses. Randomly search for Gyarados cards and see I’m missing a good number. Started looking through forums on livejournal, came across a place called UPCCC and kept an eye on it for information for about 2 years until eventually joining in 2014. Learned a ton from folks and was helped by many.
Collection exploded.
2019 start changing search habits, find more enticing items, changed priorities and passed on a lot of minor stuff for big goals. I’m at a point now where I feel like if I want to stop, I can. Happy with how my collection has turned out.
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