A simpler time. A peaceful time.
3 Likes
I remember when a friend and I went to the corner store and bought a pack of base each before meeting up with the rest of the group. I pulled a Blastoise and everyone went crazy. Then he pulled Charizard and my poor Blastoise was left in the dust
3 Likes
I remember mowing a lawn to buy hotwheels but I secretly bought a pack of base set 1st ed at a shop called Harvey Norman and pulled a chansey in my first pack.
That was my first pack ever and I’ll never forget that excitement when I saw it. 
Had to hide it as my mum was very anti Pokemon and still calls it “devil worship” to this day.
6 Likes
I remember buying and opening my very first pack of Pokemon cards.
It was the summer of 2004, right about this time in August, and I was big into Yu-Gi-Oh! I had just seen the YGO Pyramid of Light movie in theaters and had heard about the “Exclusive Pack” booster that had released to coincide with the movie.
I had saved my allowance (which was something like $1 a week) and had just enough for the pack plus some change for sales tax. I had convinced my Grandpa to drive me around to a few stores and shops looking for the pack. My Grandpa was disabled so getting up and out of the car over and over was hard on him; after running into a few duds I ended up deciding to go in alone and have him wait in the car, watching for me to come out.
It took a few more tries but eventually I walked into a card shop that had the pack. While the cashier was ringing me up I had noticed that there was a box of Pokemon cards on the counter with Regirock staring at me - it was a booster display of EX Hidden Legends but I didn’t really know anything about it. I was super into Pokemon Ruby version at the time and so I asked and the cashier who was also into Pokemon told me about the pack and that you could get Metagross in it if you were lucky.
I asked how much it was but the total priced combined with the YGO Exclusive Pack was a few bucks more than I had on me (I was a broke 9 year old with probably $5 or $6 on me lol). The cashier must have felt bad after talking with me about Pokemon and decided to let me have a pack and let me choose between the four pack arts - I chose a pack with Regice on it because I thought it looked the coolest at the time.
Anyways, I was feeling like a boss and told the cashier to keep the change and I walked out of there probably with a single dollar to spare and two booster packs - the YGO Exclusive Pack and my very first Pokemon pack, EX Hidden Legends.
While I don’t remember all the cards that I had pulled from the pack, I do remember pulling the reverse holo of Rain Castform and thought it looked so much cooler than the hand-me-down cards that I had gotten from cousins and friends growing up, what with the water energy symbol embossed onto the card and all.
And thus began my journey from YGO to the Pokemon TCG. Over the next few months and into Christmas I started asking for Pokemon cards and got my first theme decks as well as more boosters from then-new EX FireRed & LeafGreen. I continued to play both through middle school before losing interest around the time that the Black & White series began.
Fast-forward to 2021 and Celebrations had pulled me back in and I’ve been collecting and playing since.
Perhaps one day I’ll get a still-sealed pack of EX Hidden Legends with Regice on it.
TLDR; My very first pack was EX Hidden Legends and I had gotten it for free because a card shop owner felt bad that I was a few dollars short while also purchasing a Yu-Gi-Oh! pack. I pulled the reverse holo Rain Castform in that pack and the experience got me seriously hooked onto Pokemon cards (beyond just getting a few random cards from cousins and friends as I had in the past).
5 Likes