@kromaticlanturn, Awesome collection you have there… Best of luck for the PSA submissions. Nice to see a bit of diversity amongst the collection too, some Japanese and some varying sets!!!
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Hey yalls,
Quick collection update. I sat down over the past month and really thought about what I want my collection to be. Ultimately, I want my cards to trigger good emotions when I see them. In 10 years, I want to look back and be happy with the collecting choices I’ve made. I’ve decided that I’ll be collecting solely based off of the art in different cards, and how it makes me feel. This decision was a relief, not gonna lie haha. It takes the pressure off of chasing after high priced items that I may want only because of reputation. Here are some of my recent pickups:
These works of art are from the Movie Commemorative VS Pack released in 2003 for Jirachi Wish Maker. I just absolutely love these cards. Nishida and Harada really outdid themselves here. Gen 3 will always have a special place in my heart. These were the last main series Pokemon games I played, until coming back for Sun and Moon. The first shiny Pokemon I ever encountered and caught without using Gameshark was Swablu in Sapphire version. So, Altaria will always have a special place in my heart. I see myself picking up a shiny Swablu card in the future.
Who ever knew a Linoone could be so stunning!?
Next up, here are a couple of my favorite mons, in some of the best art I’ve seen of them. I think this may be, not only the most menacing portayal of Sableye, but maybe the most menacing Pokemon card I’ve seen period. Imagine waking up with that staring at you haha. Absolutely awesome. Lastly, here is the beautiful Flygon by Nishida. I had to grab one after writing about it in the Giant Art Thread. www.elitefourum.com/t/the-giant-art-thread/19155/556
And I can’t forget a Raichu! This Pokekyun Raichu is absolutely gorgeous and unique. Honestly, it’s hard to find a Pokekyun card that ISN’T gorgeous and unique.
Thanks for looking, guys! I greatly enjoy sharing my love of art with you all!
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Stunning artworks throughout! Very enjoyable to watch and read! 
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Hands down best modern I’ve seen. Raichu is stunning as hell. And that Suicune holy crap.
I’m glad to see the decision you made is rewarding and fruitful to you! God help me with my mine…
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That Jirachi is absolutely gorgeous, I want one now
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You have amazing taste, those are gorgeous cards
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Oh man I love all your VS cards. That has become one of my favourite sets recently.
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Very nice. Forina’s Breloom is one of my personal favorites. I really want the Jirachi and Altaria too, though!
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Hey yalls!
Wow, it’s been a bit since I’ve made any updates. There hasn’t been anything spectacular in the pickup realm for me over these past few months, but I figured I would share some things that caught my eye.
Firstly, I HAVE to give a big shoutout to @brendantheclayboy on the recommendation of picking up Crystal Clear version for GBC!! This game has been absolutely awesome, and definitely more of a challenge than the original and beloved Crystal version. There are amazing twists in this game, and I LOVE the story arc with Mr. Fuji!! Here’s the team that got me across Kanto and Jhoto, and ultimately, helped me win the title of Champion against the Elite Four! Awesome fun!
Next up is a Southern Island Marill, encapsulated in some weird, custom case. So I have to be transparent here, but OF COURSE I bought this solely because of the amazing Pikablu label. I asked E4 if anyone knew anything about the grading company, and it turns out, it’s most likely just a custom case created by a random eBay seller. Thanks for the input everyone! E4 is so amazing for getting to the bottom of odd-ball cards and the like. Amazing community, I tell ya!
Here’s the post about this strange “Pikablu” case: www.elitefourum.com/t/japanese-grading-company-southern-island-pikablu/32733/1
Next are just a couple cards I actually picked up for less than $1.50 each! I love the art on these. That Galarian Slowbro is one of the coolest depictions I’ve seen of a Slowbro thus far.
Here are just a couple cards I picked up on a whim. The artwork of the Blastoise e-reader is stunning and really unique. Not too long ago, I was browsing Blastoise cards on Bulbapedia, and came across this guy. As soon as I saw it, I had to have one! Not only is the Charizard artwork amazing, but I thought it would be cool to pick up the Indonesian Upnormal Coffee promo. I’m a HUGE coffee person, and just the thought of a coffee shop releasing a Pokemon promo was really intriguing and cool.
On to my favorite recent pickup. Since I started getting back into Pokemon collecting, this Totodile Half Deck Marril has eluded me. Illustrated by none other than Nishida, this Marill is easily one of the most beautiful depictions of one of my absolute favorite Pokemon. Nishida is definitely one of the best artists in the hobby. Who else could make a Marill look like a beautiful, legendary Pokemon?!
Lastly, and sadly, there weren’t any Raichu cards in the picture for the past few months. I know, blasphemy! But don’t worry! I did happen to pick up this Battle Figure Raichu on clearance at a Game Stop for $5! I couldn’t pass him up when I saw him.
Anyways, thanks for looking everyone!
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Now this is an amazing collection, those GB games bring back so many memories. Can’t even count how many thousands of hours I spent playing these growing up lol
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Thanks so much! Oh, you and me both! Over the course of the past few months I’ve probably put about 100 hours into Crystal Clear haha. Once you start and get the team you want, it’s hard to stop!
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DUDE! Amazing collection update. Absolutely stellar Arita Slowbro! The totodile Intro Marill is incredible indeed. Took me forever to find one myself. All hail Nishida.
Just love your devotion to your favorite Mon’s, so naturally your updates are always going to appeal to me (especially since we like many of the same in our top Mon’s)!
And I save this note for last–I’m so glad to see you pick up Crystal Clear. It’s just so amazing isn’t it!? Sounds like you’ve yet to get everything explored, and there’s so much to it. Everything, down to the shiny hunting mechanics, developer characters, and all, is do well thought out and executed. It brings me a great deal of pleasure to have brought it to anyone’s attention. Like I said before, a must have for any gen 2 lover who still likes playing the games! The guys who created it are deep devoted fans. Yeah the Fuji arc is great!
Awesome my dude!
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Yup, thanks so much for the suggestion! I’ll definitely be playing this for hours…and hours…and hours to freaking come haha. I’m sure my wife would thank you for getting me out of her hair for a while haha. Thanks again, man!
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Hey yalls,
So, this is a seriously big day for me. I just received my cards from my first ever PSA submission! I was SSSOOOO incredibly excited when it came in the mail today, and immediately snapped some pictures and came to E4. These are all cards from my childhood that were pulled from booster packs at different times. I submitted these cards to PSA in September of last year. I’m buzzing and freakin’ vibrating with anticipation to share these with you guys, so let’s just get right to it.
Up first are TWO Crystal Golems! If you can believe it or not, both of these cards were pulled from two different packs, one right after the other. I have learned so much from participating on E4 over the course of the last year, that I’m actually not surprised that the Holo version received a 6. In the top, right corner, there is a small binder ding…I was so incredibly meticulous when I was a kid with my card collecting, that I’m actually a little shocked that I allowed that to happen. But, hey, it happens to everyone I guess! Still, I’m incredibly happy with the returns, and am so excited to add these to the collection.
Up next, are two amazing Charizards! I honestly can’t remember opening the Base Set 2 Charizard, but oh, I remember the Dark Charizard. When the Team Rocket set released in 2000, I was sleeping, eating, and friggin’ drinking the set. I remember buying 5 booster packs of Team Rocket the day I found ol’ Charry-boy. The first 4 packs all had non-holo rares in them, then the last pack contained none other than Dark Charizard! I was absolutely over the moon, and nervously and extremely carefully placed it into a penny sleeve and right into my holo binder.
And finally, the serious grades. Here, no, your eyes are not deceiving you, we have a 1st Edition Neo Genesis Lugia!!! I wish I had a great story about pulling this guy, but it was just a typical school day, and I happened to pick up a pack on my way home from school at the corner store. I was SSOOOOOOO hoping to get that 10! That sort of money would really be life changing for my family. But, I’m still completely thrilled to have gotten a 9. After receiving the card back, I can tell you that it is in absolute PERFECT condition, aside from right to left centering on the front. All-in-all, a beautiful card, that I will now hang on to for the rest of my life and pass on to my kids. Now, for the Umbreon:
Nostalgia story-time:
Every year as a kid, my family would take a week long vacation to Wildwood, NJ. Needless to say, Pokemon merch was EVERYWHERE. You could not walk 10 feet on the boardwalk without seeing a Pikachu or a Pokeball. There was a pier near the beginning of the boardwalk called Seaport Village that only had a few small shops and an outside theater at the back. To most kids, this pier was very uninteresting since there were no rides or amusements. This was actually my favorite pier out of any on the boardwalk. There were so many cool things to see! Those small shops had all sorts of crazy things in them. One was a shop dedicated to Halloween animatronics, another had assortments of all types of shells and sea creatures in bottles of formaldehyde for sale, and another even sold custom bikes and kites. I used to walk in and out of the shops, treating it sort of like a network of museums. I wandered into one shop, my grandma following close behind, and saw almost nothing Pokemon-related, aside from a small box on the front counter. The box had Japanese writing all over it, and the only distinguishable text was the Pokemon logo. The box was filled with packs of cards, the likes of which I had never seen before. Firstly, each pack had about 30 cards inside. 30 CARDS!! There were also images of trainers on the front and a large VS stamp on the top. They were marked $9 each. I begged my grandma to get me one. We went back and forth for a bit as to why the packs were so expensive. She had bought me packs in the past for at most $3 or $4 each. I can’t tell you what amazing stories and claims I came up with about the packs to make them seem as though they were worth the money. She gave in and bought me one pack with a mysterious masked man on the front. At this point, I didn’t own Gold, Silver, or Crystal versions yet, and had only played them a handful of times when friends would let me borrow their cartridges for a few hours at a time. However, I knew enough about the Generation 2 Pokemon to know that some of my favorites were Murkrow, Girafarig, Houndoom, Marill (Pikablu), and Umbreon. She bought me the pack, and with it in hand, I bolted back to our motel room. I burst in the door, grabbed my binder and some sleeves, dove into the bedroom and closed the door, and jumped on the bed. With the concentration and skill of surgeon, I carefully opened the pack. And then, I saw her. A BEAUTIFUL, sleeping, 1st Edition UMBREON!!! I stopped for a few minutes and just stared at it. It was easily the most gorgeous card I had ever seen. I remembered that there were 29 other cards in the pack, and continued on. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Fully evolved Pokemon were common cards! I was completely blown away, even to the point that I started to cry tears of excitement. I honestly couldn’t believe that I had the opportunity to own such amazing and unique cards. I remembered thinking that my friends back home were going to be SSOO jealous!!! I put the cards into sleeves, then into my binder. Umbreon was put into a top loader and propped up against a lamp on the night stand next to the bed so I could fall asleep staring at her. I gathered my wits and went out screaming to my family about what I just experienced. I took them in the room and showed them all of the amazing cards I just uncovered. My grandma must have been very moved by all of this. The next day, she went back to the store and bought the remaining 6 Vs packs and gave them to me. I was so grateful for all of this and attempted to make her dinner that night as a thank you. I was only about 11 at the time, so she had to help me out a little with that haha.
All in all, this Umbreon is easily one of my top 3 favorite cards of all time. I will never sell this card, regardless of the value. My grandma is actually still around today. After I get done writing and posting this, I’m going to give her a call and just thank her again for being such a fantastic and loving grandmother over all these years.
Anyways, thanks for reading, guys! Be good to to your grandparents, they love you more than you know!
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One of the absolute best collection updates I’ve ever seen man. Thank you so much for sharing. Beautiful experience, reminds me of many places around NY I would go to. Incredible story! VS cards are the top tier ever made and I enjoy looking at the binder on a frequent basis for those. It is really special you got to know about them as a kid—I had no idea and never saw one ‘til years later—and even when I did I let the stupid border issue prevent me from appreciating and jumping in. I’m glad to say that is but a memory now.
This is why that time in our lives was so special. Not just Pokemon itself, but all of life at the time. But regarding Pokemon, the way in which we experienced them in isolated and special pockets of joy and excitement.
Cheers man, what a phenomenal return; it is made even better that they are YOUR cards. Really stoked for you dude!
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The Girafarig (Kirinriki) Post
Hey yalls,
It’s been a while! I thought I would finally make a post for my Girafarig collection. There’s no real grandeur here, just a humble collection of a mon about which I’ve always felt passionate. Since I was a kid, I’ve loved Girafarig. Often misunderstood, Girafarig is still a mysterious and obscure mon that not much is known about. Fun fact! There were actually gender variants of Girafarig for the 4th and 5th generations! Take a look here, the female Girafarigs look to have less of the dark brown coverage on their backends. They have one less spot that is dark brown than males. I’m not entirely sure why this was dropped in later games, but it’s still a cool piece of trivia!
- male Girafarig (Gen 5)
- female Girafarig (Gen 5)
Stegosaurus was my favorite dinosaur as a kid, so as soon as I learned that Girafarig has a small brain in it’s hideous tail (much like fossils of Stegosaurus suggests it may have also had) I was in love. It’s name being a palindrome was always cool, and the typing is a very unique and useful one in the games. All around, I would say Girafarig is absolutely one of my all-time favorites, if not THE favorite. Anyway, lets get on to the collection.
Up first is my graded collection so far and a my251 sticker. I thought the figure was awesome, so made sure to pick it up.
I am going for a master set of all English and Japanese cards released. I know the 2001-2002 Tropical Mega Battle VS Will’s Girafarig is super duper rare, but maybe some day I’ll be able to get my hands on one. As far as I can tell, approximately 11 English copies were distributed as part of full sets to winners of the event. So there is hope! Here’s a pic if anyone is curious.
Anyway, on to the binder! Aside from the Tropical Mega Battle Giraffe, I have all other English cards released so far. For Japanese, I am currently missing only 3:
- Mirage Forest (EX Legend Maker) 044/086 non-holo 1st edition
- Bastiodon the Defender art variant non-holo unlimited #489
- Phantom Gate (Phantom Forces) 070/088 non-holo unlimited XY4
Here’s a better view of one of my favorites, and one of the more rare variants. This is the exclusive alternate art for the Bastiodon the Defender half deck, illustrated by the same artist, Midori Harada, as for the Secret of the Lakes release. You can literally only find this art variant in the Bastiodon the Defender half decks.
I love to always take a step back with my collection and think about how I got here. So here’s another story haha.
Nostalgia story-time:
It was the height of the Pokemon craze in my neighborhood. Everyone I knew was collecting Pokemon cards, watching the anime, and most of all, playing the games. My life-long obsession was blossoming, and Generation 2 had finally released in North America. My parents didn’t have much money when I was growing up, so I couldn’t get one of the new Silver or Gold versions at release. At school one day, I convinced a kid I knew to just trade me one new Pokemon from his Gold version into my Blue version after school. The school day was over, and I sprinted the mile home as fast as I could, grabbed my gameboy and link cable, hopped on my scooter, and frantically dashed to his house. When I got there, he was rather unenthusiastic and offered to trade me a Sunkern for one of my strongest Pokemon. Of course, I obliged. I was getting a brand new, never-before-seen Pokemon! We hooked up the link cable, and as he was scrolling through his party, I stopped him. The image before me was so intriguing, so whimsical, and so odd.
“That one, I want that one.” I was determined, and looked at him dead in the eyes as if revealing my plans to conquer the world. “Well,” he hesitantly said, “For Girafarig, I’ll need your Mewtwo.” “Done!” I exclaimed. I could catch another Mewtwo, but who knew when I would be able to get my hands on another Girafarig. We went to trade, and to my utter dismay, we discovered that Gen 2 Pokemon couldn’t be transferred to a Gen 1 game. Devastated, I scooted home and told my mom what happened. She could tell how upset I was, and just let me know that sometimes life is disappointing, and that the important thing was to not let our disappointments get the better of us. I nodded and accepted my situation. I dreamed about Girafarig later that night. Nights before I would go to bed, I used to lay awake, wishing that I would wake up in the Pokemon universe the next day, mainly so I could go out and catch a Girafarig. “I’ll get my Girafarig someday,” I promised myself.
A month later, my mom surprised me with a copy of Silver version!!! I could not contain myself. I sat right down on the floor, booted it up and played for hours. I made sure that I caught one of every single Pokemon species I could find in each area. Then, when I was walking around near the Ruins of Alph, what do I see?
I was ecstatic! I caught it immediately, and it remained on my team throughout all of Jhoto and Kanto. The moral of my story: Things have a way of falling into place, as long as you’re patient, diligent, and have clear set goals. In time, you’ll be able to catch your Girafarig.
All in all, Girafarig is amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to give my thread a gander. I’ll leave you with a poem about my favorite Giraffe.
~ Ode to Kirinriki ~
Graceful, fierce, powerful, and free,
A misunderstood dichotomy.
A vigilant sentinel with razor teeth,
And a psychic power that lies beneath
The façade of a snapping, spiritless glare.
And none of the other mons should dare
Misjudge the force or will within
The sweet giraffe with spotted skin.
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@kromaticlanturn I absolutely loved that story. Shoutout to mom, the real MVP.
That Harada artwork is fantastic.
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Wow, these stories are heartwarming! You have a great collection, I especially love the Nishida artworks! I think Karen’s Umbreon could pair lovely with the Alakazam from Expedition, they share a similar aestethic and Kusajima nailed both!
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@caughtatpoint Thanks so much! Absolutely, mom always came through and I’m very grateful for that.
@expedition Thanks! Yeah collecting just makes me reflect. And I love sharing my little collecting journeys haha. I couldn’t agree more about the Expedition Alakazam! I’ve always loved the sinister art and feel. I’ll absolutely have to grab one some day.
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It would be so sick if you got the trophy giraf one day!
Everyone knows the best pokemon get almost if not always exclusively banger artwork. This pup is no exception. Boyo. And oh that exclusive has been noted, I’ll be sure to pick that up. Harada, man. One of the greats for sure!
Needless to say I love it man. Absolutely stellar. You know what I love? That I know your sick lineup. I can see your gym page in my mind, with your trainer card with the kromatic badge behind, and 8 surrounding mons (that as a gym leader you select from for your lineup of anywhere from 1 to 6 subject to mood or challenger of course), and I love it.
My favorite thing about it in g/s/c was that it was normal typing with psychic. First of all, that is awesome. Second, you couldn’t touch it with ghost moves. Underrated beater with amazing stats. I picked it super early on my friend in our roster build (like in the first 25, which says a lot), and he was surprised, until I started kicking his ass with it and countering his counters. Amazing stuff. I do love to see a Girafarig collector of any flavor, but that it is you to come to the efourian table with it I couldn’t be more pleased.
I just realized how much I have to say about this amazing post man. Your story is so great; it just brought me right back to that excitement. I felt it man, I feel this post big time. Brought a huge grin to my face. Your Mom sounds like a fantastic mother.
That eternal, slowed down moment in time. I reminisced at your statement. I loved so much taking every inch in, taking my time in each town, catching every mon, exploring the depths, relishing and enjoying it so thoroughly. The sheer thrill of it all was breathtaking and invigorating.
Absolute top tier collection addition post my friend! Prost!
Now… I wonder what that 8th mon is?
Oh, that’s right, it’s Steelix 
(though I could also see it being Lanturn or Ampharos)
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