Human nature got the better of you MUHAHAHAHAHA @xzini
Noone can escape the lessons of human nature through the teenage years… Its good that you have confessed your crims against pokemanity because now THE UPCCC/E4 POKEMON COURT OF JUSTICE SENTENCE YOU TO LIFE IN IMPRISONMENTS!
Biggest success:
A couple of years ago I took a punt on a job lot of Pokémon cards at £80 from eBay. The pictures were not great as it was of a big box with a bunch of stuff in not really showing any specific cards however I could see lots of opened booster boxes and packs and some original sealed theme decks. The guy said there were holos in there but he was a antiques dealer and didn’t really know much about Pokémon, so I thought that means hopefully he wont realise the true value if there are rare cards in there.
Any way when the box arrived I opened it up and found that as I thought all of the packs and booster boxes were opened however all the cards were still there including the holos most in Mint condition (There was around four booster boxes). A mix of base set, fossil, jungle and team rocket mostly. Not only that there were about 10 WOTC theme decks (half opened/half sealed) and about 5 sealed original base set Pokémon folders and a few other bits and pieces. I definitely made my money back and much more from this lot! I graded the unlimited Charizard base set card from this lot and it got a PSA 10 which is worth about £500 now and if you divide the number of cards I brought for the £80 I probably only spent a few pence on it 
.
I don’t have a picture of the original lot of all the cards (I wish I took one) but there is a picture below of the job lot I sold on after I had picked out all the best cards I wanted to keep. I almost made my money back from this sale alone.
Biggest regret opening this box (I cannot justify spending the money on another one now):
mistake: selling my base set booster box for $450 in 2013 just months before the prices jumped to a grand
mistake: not purchasing a PSA 9 1st edition Charizard when the prices were $1000-1300 for over a year. now they’re $2200+ 
triumph: buying a ton of different PSA 9 Charizards from a variety of sets before the 20th anniversary nostalgia shot prices up
triumph: Purchasing 12 different 1999-2000 fossil 4th prints for under $30.
triumph: purchasing my 1st edition PSA 9 base set blastoise cards for around $300 each literally 2 weeks before prices jumped to $700 a piece.
This is what @cullers was lecturing you about the other day xD… NOW GO BUY THE DAM CARD BEFORE ITS 4,400+
Always ill throw things at you 
I might just make a run for the PSA 10 before it hits 10 grand.
Just this week I’ve had 3/4 offers for one of my psa10 charizards. The one today was for 7000.00. I don’t sell my PSA 10 charizards but it’s nice to see the nice values.
not a PSA 10 1st Ed but my PSA 10 rayquaza gold star just got am offer of $1600. I paid about $50 for it 6 years ago
I recently had a bad Japanese purchase.
It was a bulk lot, which had a photo of almost every booster pack. With some ex series boxes, and some world’s championship decks.
It said, “some are sealed, some are not sealed”
Sigh… Took a risk, turned out 97% was all opened. No cards included, and only 5 xy packs sealed. Burnt!!!
what did you pay?
@hisoka107 nearly 60000yen.
Yeah, I would go for the 10 to because that thing is getting out of control. I wanted to secure it and i payed 4kusd for mine in 2015 around march, but i was not happy with that copy. Im going to open a box within next 2 years for sure.
That’s some serious bad luck, how that seller had to heart to actually send that rather than cancel or at least including a ton of free stuff I have no idea.
I blame myself for not reading Japanese properly. His description was sketchy, it actually had a few thousand cards, but nothing to do with those packs. Just random bulk, so I had some moneyp made back from that. But just terrible to showcase all the packs, and all of them were opened. Vague descriptions should be avoided. Happens alot on ebay as well I guess.
It was a deceiving listing by the sounds of things so I’m sure the fault isn’t all yours by a long way.
This is the huge risk, but half the time it pays off big time. Like that huge lot id didnt get ༼ つ ಥ_ಥ ༽つ That i will forever be but hurt about.
The description was insane on that recent one, and this doesnt usually happen, so I had to grab it…
Gets it in mail, has all ex’s/goldstar missing 212,000JPY down drain all packs bent in half…
$7000? i need to get one before they go out of my price range 
forever already practically out of my price rnage
I think the greatest triumph anyone can make is to simply start collecting. There is a finite number of all cards, sealed product, and just collectibles in general, and if you have any interest in getting them at all it’s better to start sooner rather than later. Anyone who’s done their research can see how much prices have risen in recent years, and although I certainly wasn’t early to the party, I definitely would not be where I am today with my collection had I not started when I did. Some stuff (ex. Legendary Collection, Neo Destiny Shinings) would certainly be out of my price range.
Consequently, the worst mistakes mostly have to do with not taking advantage of an opportunity to buy. A few of mine that come to mind: Prerelease Clefable, Full Art N, old school Pokemon-exs.
Greatest triumph : All the sealed product I have opened the past 2 years.
Greatest mistakes: All the sealed product I have opened the past 2 years.
No regrets here though. Some of the boxes I opened in the past 2 years (most opened last year) have gone in value to 2-3x what I paid for them. Had I kept them all sealed though and not been churning through inventory, I wouldn’t have had so many great boxes and cards pass through my hands and wouldn’t have had those wonderful experiences.
In hindsight though, being able to selectively go back though and cherry pick 5 boxes or so to keep sealed I could have done very well for myself, and would likely have enough to sell off and have the bravery to finally buy a 1st edition base box (looking at you gold star-less ex deoxys, ex delta species, ex team rocket returns and a couple of my PSA 8 ridden jungle 1st edition boxes).
Based on the prices I’ve been seeing for PSA 9 Zard sales and non-Zard PSA 10 sales, I had a feeling that a PSA 10 Zard would fetch $7000+ in the market right now. So it’s nice to see actual confirmation of that.
That means my investment has officially jumped more than tenfold since 2009. 
I was browsing my local craigslist and found a big collection of base set cards. Base set Charizard, blastoise and shadowless venusaur as well as 80+ first edition shadowless commons, rares, trainers, and energy cards. They had them listed for $500, then $300. I sent a message saying I would offer $150 not knowing exactly what condition everything was in and they accepted right away. After recovering the cards I was shocked to see everything in NM- Gem Mint condition, I ended up buying it to make money and easily ended up making twice my money back.
I also just found a Base Set Psa 9 Charizard on eBay few days ago I snagged for $135.