No doubt the cards are unique and it’s a shame that we will never see many of them on the English side of collecting. However, as a master set collector and having ocd when it comes to collecting, I just can’t get myself to do it.
There is still so much English that I don’t have that I can’t afford the time nor money to get into it. Occasionally I’ll pick up some of the promos like the Scream set ( I also collect some vending series, VS, and Cardass). I’ve been in the hobby for 5ish years now and have no intention on starting a serious Japanese collection. I have an affinity for what I collected as a kid which was English cards and that drives my modern collecting habbits.
I appreciate the Japanese cards from a distance and am accountable for taking one less collector out of the supply/demand equation.
I wouldn’t want a Japanese set card over an English set card, but the fact that there are more copies of any set card including 1st ed shadowless base than a good many of these japanese promo cards is exactly why they are so popular. The fact that a lot of these promos offer original art that has not been duplicated for a set, and that these promos have small print sizes of a few hundred to a few thousand is why they’re becoming so popular and the prices are beginning to skyrocket. Hell, I can’t believe what I just witnessed today on pwcc. That play mew went from a few hundred bucks to cracking $2000 in value in under a year. Congrats for having the foresight to purchase and own a copy by the way.
When I got back into collecting again, Japanese cards was a good entry point since it was more affordable for me. I just got hooked to the promos and exclusive cards and switched my collecting goals to mainly Japanese. I really enjoy the Bandai Anime collections which, irrespective of the language is still nostalgia due to the anime art featured on it.
For some reason the Japanese Promo’s are more my taste of cards, I just like the writing, exclusive releases (love the stamp’s as well) and there is so much more variety of them than any English set.
That’s why I almost exclusively collect Japanese cards with the focus on the promo’s.
I definitely agree. I think there’s a huge appeal to collecting exclusive Japanese promo cards.
However, one thing I always notice myself, is that I lack the emotional connection to the cards. I didn’t grow up looking at Masaki promo cards, I did grow up looking at English set cards. I have a way harder time reselling any English set cards I know and love and have memories of, than Japanese ones I picked up along the way because I liked the card. There are exceptions of course, I fell in love with the VS series, since the Gym series might be my favorites sets, and this felt like the spiritual successor.
I guess it boils down to: I can really appreciate Japanese promo cards for what they are, but usually there isn’t this “I have to have it myself” connection attached.
I feel it’s naturally progression to move onto japanese cards after feeling ‘fulfilled’ with English.
I have basically moved on from English to now collecting everything Japanese from vs series, masaki, grand party To corocoro to play promos, paying the price now for sleeping on Gengar. Unique art, english is always left out of the good stuff.