A European friend has generously offered to middleman cards from Cardmarket to me, but I’ve been stumped on what languages/sets to prioritize, so I’m wondering how everyone else prioritizes languages.
Magnemite runs the full gamut, so here’s my ranking from easiest/lowest priority to highest. Note that a lot of this has no solid basis in reality and is mostly just what I think is the case.
English/Japanese: plentiful, easy to get
French/Italian/German: also plentiful, just slightly less accessible to me
Dutch/Spanish: bit more uncommon
Modern Korean/Modern Traditional Chinese: (probably) common but require more specific middlemen
Modern Portuguese
Indonesian/Thai/Simplified Chinese: Even more specific middlemen (Simplified might go with Korean/Traditional Chinese)
ADV/DP Korean, ADV/DP Portuguese: a lot more niche
Reverse holo Polish: Past here I have no clue how to categorize
I never really had prio over one language above another, since I simply collected all of them. When I decided I would start collecting all languages and came across CardMarket, I simply bought all cards I was missing at once.
But if I had to order the languages on difficulty to get, keeping in mind that I live in Europe - and without counting niche promos and unlimited edition Japanese cards and such:
English
Japanese
Dutch (I’m Dutch myself, so the ones I wanted were never hard to find)
German/French/Italian/European Spanish (although some Reverse Holos of certain sets took me quite a few years to find, and I’m still missing two German promos)
Thai/Indonesian/Traditional Chinese (multiple middlemen for each of these languages)
Portuguese/Latin Spanish/Korean/Russian (multiple middlemen for each of these languages)
Polish/Simplified Chinese
5, 6, and 7 hugely depends on the middleman, though. Some take a while to find, but will then help you A LOT. For some languages you have to find a new middleman willing to help for almost every new set release. They can probably all be on the same line tbh.
For Thai, Korean, and Traditional Chinese I also know webshops at which I bought some cards, although their stock is pretty empty lately.
For me the easiest languages to get are Chinese, Japanese and Russian (since I live here). It’s almost impossible to even find english cards for a decent price, especially vintage. I was lucky at once when I got a few reverse holos and holos from ex Delta Species locally. For the japanese and chinese I use my friend’s service, he has a chinese guy who can buy anything from their marketplaces.
I don’t get exactly what you mean, but I prioritize my mothertongue, then english, and lastly japanese.
This due to how the cards used to be more available at the time (I collect vintage) and to get a better connection with them since I can understand what’s written on them (japanese exclusives aside).
But if I have to give advices on collecting I’d say “go for japanese if you only care for artworks, cause they usually costs less”.
Still you have to consider the difference in releases between japanese, english or other languages or you will miss something.
Depends on what are your goals.
Full sets? An artist? An evolution line?
I have some clear collection rules and am prioritizing languages based on the rules:
Collect post-XY modern, with focus on Asian promo list and FAs
Mint cards if possible
If I decided to collect one card, I’ll try to find all TPC releases first, then other Asian subsidiaries; TPCis are nice to have and not musts
So my priority is (top to bottom):
TPC releases - includes Japanese and languages whose releases are managed by TPC through the Pokémon Asia program. (Pre-SM Traditional Chinese isn’t in my collection scope for now.)
Japanese - with respect to it being the first language released in franchise and the print quality.
Traditional Chinese - my native language. Recently Chinese card buyers in general had been shifting to Simplified Chinese, which caused TC prices to drop and made my pursuit easier.
Thai - has a lot of reputable local sellers on eBay so generally easy to collect. Only problem is that some cards were announced but never issued, but for those you just can’t get them anyway.
Indionesian - comes after Thai due to difficulty collecting:
Prices can be influenced by Japanese, who for some reason also like Indonesian cards (i.e. Pikachu VMAX Sealed Tournament promo).
Absurd amount of promos, with some of them not even confirmed if they’re actually released or not.
Weird release windows such as releasing multiple sets on the same day (S6H, S6K, S6a were on the same day; S8 and S8b were also on the same day) or giving out tournament promos a month after event.
Asian subsidiary releases
Simplified Chinese - originally I would put it directly after Traditional Chinese, but eventually decided to lower its priority as it’s really difficult for me to collect for now:
Although it’s also printed in the same factory in Japan, pack fresh cards suffer from a LOT of line scratches on the back which wasn’t seen on Japanese or other Asian languages. My guess is that the cards were sent to a different factory for packing where they were scratched by the machines.
I tend to find local marketplaces in addition to eBay for more selection, but marketplaces in China are kind of like closed circles (requires WeChat, specific Chinese apps or Chinese phone numbers) and hard to navigate, and not many middlemen are willing to middle those.
Market trends in China are similar to Japan, where modern chase cards get flipped to unreasonable (to me) prices and spiked at seemingly random times.
Korean - printed in its own factory so quality is closer to TPCi instead of TPC. Can find some hard-to-find stuff on Bunjang, but language barrier and the large amount of non-selling listings (either out of stock, “in negotiation” or WTB posts) makes it harder for me to navigate.
TPCi releases - to me TPCis are mostly just nice to have, if I had the chance to pick up a decent copy within reasonable price then I’ll bite, otherwise I won’t look for them actively. The priorities below are based on my past experience of how often I ran into cards in that language which I eventually picked up.
