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 moments in your collecting experience made your heart skip a beat? (this was a suggested question)
Helpful Considerations: Seeing the shiny edge of a Nintendo Ex era holo poking out of a booster pack, finding your set card grail in a pack, making an amazing trade?
Its about the hunt for me. Searching through stacks of bulk, pages and pages of listings, a storage unit of boxes, all to find some great cards really gets the heart feeling good. Along with that its about the hunt for others goals, no better feeling than coming across that crazy card that will top someones collection just right and hooking it up.
I’ve had a couple of moments that really stand out to me from my collection journey:
My first Polish card was found on Mercari EN of all places, which made my heart race, and then again when it arrived raw in a sandwich baggie in a pwe (it was fine, but a nerve wracking few seconds to say the least).
When I won not one, but two Tropical Wind 2007s (Spanish and Portuguese) at the same time, seconds apart. I swear my heart was going to beat out of my chest, not only because of the auctions, but also because I was rushing to set up the wifi after my wife and I had just moved.
The super late (or early morning…?) auction in which I won my Battle Road Roseanne’s Research for a fraction of market- yet another nerve wracking few minutes.
And most recently, I found a BW Korean League Zone 2013 (English Stamp) promo that’s on its way to me now, an extremely rare card that I missed last year. I couldn’t believe it when I saw another copy had surfaced.
These are only a few of my memories with my collection, and these memories bring back those rushes of feelings and I can remember exactly where I was in those moments. Collecting is so special to me because they’re not just cards to me- they’re little memory fragments I keep safely in my binder, and many of those have been exciting little victories, no matter how small.
I’d have to say one of my first cards in the journey. I’d only been collecting for around a month, and had no frame of reference for how valuable or rare something is, so this seemed so much worse to me than it actually was.
The card was delivered via a mail slot on the front door. My roommates at the time had a dog, I loved that guy so much, but he hated when mail came through the slot. I actually heard it happen from upstairs. He barked for a few seconds, then went quiet. I knew then and there that it didn’t survive. Went downstairs to confirm, and sure enough…
It’s hard to tell, but that’s a puncture from his teeth from one side to the other. Some creasing in a few other places as well. The red wasn’t there when it happened, this thing’s been in a box for like 8 years so who knows what it could be?
Anyway, yeah I wasn’t very happy about this one. Thank you for giving me a fun story to tell, Yoshi!
I started to spontaneously bleed from a tiny crack in my fingertip as I was re-sleeving gem mint 1st ed fossil holos. I have thick calluses on my fingertips but this is not a common problem to me at all and there was no pain so it caught me completely by surprise. It took me five cards before I noticed the blood, and I noticed it because it dripped on my other hand and my jeans, that’s how much it was. It could’ve easily destroyed three Articunos, a Ditto and a Gengar. There was a Dragonite on the table as well.
Afterwards I had to laugh of course. The fucking odds of me spontaneously bleeding from a finger, something that happens maybe once every three years, at the exact moment I’m sorting through my very best Fossil holos, handling them unsleeved, and then not a single card is affected despite me holding each of them millimeters away from the trickling wound.
There are many moments that I can recall that made me in shock and very happy to be collecting.
The very notable ones would be,
Purchasing my PSA 9 1st edition charizard. That was my first huge purchase at the time and sold pretty much my whole collection to get the 5.5k I needed to purchase it.
Meeting many artists like Himeno, Harada, Arita, and Saitou. Watching them draw on each of the cards I got was definitely an experience I won’t forget. Getting to go with my mom to a couple of the events made it even more memorable since she has always been supportive of my hobby since I was a kid.
Lastly, getting to message and talk to many long-time and newer artists of the TCG and asking them questions about their favorite pokemon, cards, or memories.
I think finding this card in a bulk pile! Id been hunting for 3 years and got 2 psa 9’s previously! I had very little hope on finding a 10.
You can see it around 20:00 minutes into this video - its a little cringe to look back on as i maybe got a bit over excited but it was a really nice feeling. My most recent video is the grade reveal. I’m so happy to have 1 of 4 psa 10s in the world.
When I found out I could buy Japanese cards/promos, etc. for much cheaper on Yahoo Japan, I went to town back in 2012, first card I bought from there was a Mint Ancient Mew with the “Nintedo” error for a whopping 1,000 JPY (around $9 US).
When I saved up $3300 (biggest purchase of my life at the time) for a sealed base set booster box, opened it on video, and 100% thought it was fake because I didn’t realize how small the booster boxes were in person!
A good moment was opening some 151 with my mom, and she was a good luck charm. She pulled 2 Charizard SIR cards. That rocked. traded one away, i regret that.
I have so many great pack opening memories, some of which seemed to defy logic at the time, like pulling both the holo and reverse holo Charizard from one legendary collection booster.
Pulling a holo Base Zapdos was my first hit from a booster pack as a kid, that was a moment.
That said, I think I got most of my heartbeat-skip moments during the early ex era. I opened a ton of ex dragon packs and ended up getting most of the ex holos apart from Dragonite. Every time I opened a pack I’d slightly separate the cards so I could see whether there was a glint of silver peeking out at me, and if there was it was an instant rush moment.
I was running a Pokemon League a few years back at a local game loft in my community. I had made several decks for kids to borrow and play with. We needed a few more so I asked the guy that ran the place if I could look the the loft’s cards. He directed me to the bulk and binders buried in the back. The first binder I opened was a complete set of 1st edition Neo Destiny cards, including T17 and Shinnings!! I quickly flipped the other binders to see they all contained mint vintage cards. My heart just jumped it was a once in a collectors dream find!
I will note as exciting as the find I did let the game loft know the value of the cards and helped them find a buyer. They used the funds to improve the game loft.
Buying base set packs from japan with shadowless artwork and they both turned out to be heavy. I opened both of them before Christmas last year and pulled a Shadowless Blastoise. I was so enjoying it and independent on the grade, this card will be with me forever!
When you are a vendor at some convention and you can give some v or ex cards to kids that are genuinely happy with that card. That genuine happiness is so nice to see. Any mini coop moments make me skip a heart beat.