The Question of the Day is a way to facilitate community discussion to help members ponder the unanswered questions of the world that are somehow relating to the hobby. Questions are many times open ended and up to interpretation. Feel free to post your thoughts in as much or as little detail as you’d like.
Helpful Considerations may or may not help some people focus their answer, these are blurred to not bother those who have their own ideas.
Today’s Question: QotD: What is your limit to species collecting?
Helpful Considerations: Cameos? Do stamps featuring your species count? Or even more out there, what if the card has the name of the species (e.g. Kamex Mega Battle or decks named after the mon)? This is a suggested question.
I won’t be collecting every cameo or plush. I want ~oddish~ cards. Just because the best pokemon ever decided to grace the background of another card doesn’t make me want to add it to my collection lol.
That being sad, if I do see a cool cameo I will grab it but I don’t consider it part of my main collection haha.
All print variants (First/Unlimited Edition, non-holo/reverse holo, stamped/promo variants etc.)
No cameo, no non-TCG, no box toppers/oversized cards
No sealed product featuring
Sometimes I do pick up non-TCG items like figurines or the oddities because I think they’re cool. But the prime focus, especially since limited on space, is the binder.
I am not wealthy enough to collect every language or go into stuff like the Poker cards. I think the Cradily poker card is the most expensive raw cradily merch
I’m just starting to collect every Froakie printed ever but i have all English ones. I’m collecting only the TCG cards. I’m not collecting cameos for froakie bcs they are too expensive like one of them is a champions festival (also with stamps for finalists) so i never gonna have all of the cameos so my ansver is: My limit is on every variant card of Froakie. Not cameos, only TCG.
I’ve excluded cameos (hard enough as is without including the Pokémon Illustrator and trophy cards, haha)
I collect all languages and variations for the first 25 years (up to February 27th, 2021), and after that only:
All English Pikachu in every variation
One of each non-English exclusive artwork (e.g. Japanese promos or S. Chinese cards), without caring about multiple variations
Only exception are the Base Set reprints, which I still get in every language and variation
I’m primarily focussing on officially released cards, with all unofficial ones (unofficial stamped cards; repeating misprints; print run variants; sample/prototype cards; etc.) as nice-to-have bonuses
Seviper:
I collect close to everything that features Seviper, so very small limits (see 3.1 and 3.2).
All TCG cards including all languages/variations
All TCG cameos in all languages/variations
Everything non-TCG if it features a Seviper: non-TCG cards; stickers; pogs; posters; figures; plushies; etc. etc. Basically everything, no matter how small the Seviper cameo is, with the only exceptions being:
Items that feature the entire gen 3 (or gens 1-3, or perhaps even all Pokémon) - e.g. the Hoenn playmats or Pokémon Roadshow poster
Although I make some exceptions on rare occassions, I’m not going after any unofficial custom made stuff from Etsy and alike, and also avoid knock-offs of existing products (e.g. Chinese Wei Toys Seviper figure that’s a copy of the Data Carrier figure without its base)
Links to both of these collections (Pikachu split up into multiple parts) can be found in the main post of my collection thread, to give you an idea:
And I can also refer to my WTB threads, to give you an idea of some items I’m still missing (ignore some of the unrealistic prices):
Depends on the species as I collect quite a few Pokemon to different degrees.
I have a lot of focus on non-TCG items within my collection, and because of that, I’ve chosen to not focus on collecting all languages when it comes to the TCG.
In terms of cameos, I will pick them up if they are particularly interesting or cheap, but I prefer my Pokemon to be the focus of whatever the item is. Especially since Rayquaza is one of my main collections. He specifically requires a bit more pickiness since he’s so popular. But, I might feel differently if I only collected a Pokemon that was a little more niche! I absolutely love the collections that basically are deep dives into a particular species.
Every official all-language TCG Slowpoke Slowbro and Slowking print variant including mega and regional forms
One artwork of each Slow cameo, any language or print variant
Whatever non-TCG and plush I like
Fun errors I find
I do NOT collect:
Every single cameo print in every language
Every known error printing or repeating error
Unofficial print variations like light and dark print runs (the exception to this for me is Chinese slim and jumbo pack variations. I do collect those because it is a reliable difference between official products)
Theoretically cards over a certain price point. No Slow cards have been prohibitively expensive at the time of purchase, so I haven’t hit this limit. But if some pop 5 trophy Slowpoke comes out, there’s a good chance it would fall in this category
I omit cameos and misprints/errors unless they were made during the design process. There are an unknown amount of possible variations for miscuts and crimps, so I don’t even look their way.
My main Haunter collection is English and Japanese TCG with cameos, excluding trophy cards and misprints. I may be looking to expand to more languages in the future.
Anything outside the TCG is not necessary, but not unwelcome either.
I don’t have any super strict limits, I’m happy to get a bit of everything. But I do ignore the idea of purchasing cards once they pass a certain threshold. I focus more on the TCG, plush, and figures!
He specifically requires a bit more pickiness since he’s so popular. But, I might feel differently if I only collected a Pokemon that was a little more niche! I absolutely love the collections that basically are deep dives into a particular species. 
