International Pokemon Oddities collection

I have been collecting for quite a bit, but never got around to properly documenting my cards. My lovely girlfriend recently got me a scanner for Christmas, so now I can hopefully do my piles of cardboard justice!

I run the Pokemon fansite Pokumon.com. It seeks to document the rich history of the Pokemon TCG from its origins until now. My collecting habits also reflect this, as I love collecting cards that others might not have ever seen or heard of before. My collection has no real focus besides that it is mainly consists of promos from past events / campaigns. The cards I collect are not necessarily the most expensive, but many are definitely quite obscure.

Much of my collection is in raw cards. I kept most of my stuff in binders / shoeboxes for the longest time, but with the rising prices of some cards I might send stuff off to PSA when things calm down.

To start off with a more well-known card from the origin country of Pokemon, Japan, here’s my well-loved 1999 Tropical Wind. The original owner shipped it to me in this plastic plaque in an original official TCG sleeve, and it’s been in there until I cracked it out to scan it.


Next, let’s go to another island country, Indonesia!


These came from a local toy shop called “Toys Kingdom”. Purchasing a certain amount of product would get you a random one.


These are from an event at the local coffee chain, Upnormal Coffee. I believe it was a teaching event where players learned how to play the TCG and were given these.


These are randomly found in a local chocolate brand’s boxed chocolates, Choki Choki. You usually get energy cards stamped with the Choki Choki logo, but these two golden cards were the rare pulls.

Moving on from Indonesia, here’s some Korean tournament winner promos

Korea started running national championships in 2012 that distributed Victory cup promos. Along with Japan, these cards were given to the top-placing finishers for each of their national tournaments. The Korean versions are actually a fair bit more rare due to the fewer number of regional tournaments.


Korean tournaments also distributed their own stamped participation / prize promos. here’s the Korean Garchomp series, given out during 2016 alongside the Japanese versions from the Kamex Mega Battle (also in 2016)

Next, let’s take a pit stop at Thailand before heading back west.

Thailand held its own regional tournaments that distributed stamped promo cards, and these culminated in a national championship that distributed the Jirachi. Considering this was the first year that Thailand had any semblance of competitive TCG play, they sure got a lot of promos!

Heading West, let’s swing over to Europe and take a gander at these cards

These were given to various attendees of Pokemon Day events throughout the DP era in Europe. Certain countries had exclusive promos with the Pokemon Day stamp on them, so it was a real trek tracking all these down as an American.

Lastly, returning to my home country of America:

During 2007-2009, Pokemon distributed stamped promos at various conventions in the States, such as San Diego Comic Con, Origins, Wizard World, and Games Expo. The Games Expo Squirtle in particular is very rare, as the event was so poorly attended that the company behind it went bankrupt and never held it again.

That’s all for now! I have many more cards to scan, but alas too little time. Hopefully you enjoy viewing this little trip around the Pokemon TCG world :blush: If you’d like to learn more about the Pokemon TCG’s history, be sure to check out my website!

47 Likes

Those event promos are fantastic!

This was awesome to see! So many great promos. Love the collection so far and looking forward to seeing more!

Wow, some of these cards are awesome! I think my favorite of these are the Upnormal Coffee promos. Regardless of the fact that these cards are reprints, so interesting to see how far-reaching Pokemon is.

Holy moly i love those promos

All beautiful cards! Very cool

I love unique regional promos. Really cool what certain regions decide to make a promo. Speaking of regional cards, I need to add that Thai Eevee to my list of cards to get.

Amazing pieces! Can’t wait to see what else you have :flushed:

Damn, so many cool promos

Amazing collection. Just keeps getting better

Love those Pokemon Day promos!

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Wonderful post. I especially love the wind

cool collection :grin:

Very cool. I’m curious about the promos like the partnership with upnormal coffee, does the head pokemon company people handle those relations? Or is it regional offices that agree to the partnership, and then it get’s approved by pokemon international? I wonder how they’re kept track of!

I loved this thread, specially that tropical wind grail, obscure and rare cards are truly the best. Also tropical wind release year is 1999!

Really liked how obscure that choki choki brown stamp looked like on otherwise so majestic gold cards :grin:

You’re totally right! Had a brainfart and wrote 1997 :stuck_out_tongue:

Usually regional promos are handled by each regional office, which roll up to TPCi. If anything needs to be specially printed I believe there are regional printers for some places, while others piggyback off of other country’s.

There are loads of neat local partnerships. For example, Indomaret is an Indonesian convenience store chain (think 7-11), and they distributed stamped promos for a while with purchase:

Additionally, each regional company didn’t necessarily roll up to the global one. For example, KFCs in Indonesia distributed special promos, but KFCs globally didn’t:

KFC also wasn’t the first fried chicken chain to partner up with Pokemon for special promos. Nene Chicken in Korea partnered up during the BW era to give out special holos of the BW starters:

pokumon.com/article/nene-chicken-pokemon-set/

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@humanforscale Huh makes sense, thanks for the answer!

Another fun pile of cards–sealed Play! PPP Promos from the final season of the Pokemon Players Club.

These are some of my favorite promos due to the way they were distributed and their artworks. You can learn more about them in this article on my site: pokumon.com/pokemon-players-club/#Season_5_2007

Of note is that the sealed Turtwig pack contains all 3 starters :wink:

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wow, tropical wind is something. congrat.