Wow great post Jason! It is eerie how similar our younger years were. Perhaps a lot of people share those similar experiences as well. I felt like I was right there with you reading your post. The part about not having money or the ability to find cards is huge. I think that is a major driving force why people collect when they are adults.
The point about the video games is really interesting. The same thing happened at my school, more with my younger brothers class. There was this huge revival of red and blue and the guys got ridiculous with it. Initially thinking the game was "uncool’ they probably quickly realized there is nothing else out there like it.
I started playing competitvely as soon as the game came out, At one point in 2000-01 I was ranked among the top 50 players in the world in the DCI. I also finished consistently well in the East Coast Super trainer showdown finishing top 8 once. Funny fact; I knew Jason Klaczynski when he was 14 years old, I never imagined he would stick with the game for so long. Around 2002-03, as some of you may know, Wizards of the Coast tried to eliminate/regulate age groups of Pokemon TCG so as to curtail players into Magic the Gathering. This was ultimately one of the leading factors that caused the lawsuit between Nintendo and WOTC, and caused WOTC to lose the license to the game. After this happened I almost lost all interest in the TCG, and me as well as most players assumed the TCG was over (the Ruby Sapphire cards being released by nintendo were never expected to flourish). After all this, I turned to collecting, really the only thing to hold onto my memory of the game. This was also very easy to start doing at the time because many of the cards became worthless. I continue even to this day, albeit not as seriously as some people here. Due to nostalgia, I continue to play old WOTC unlimited with a few older players, I have even created my own format, banning some old classic staples such as SER, Murkrow (the most underrated card in the history of the TCG in my opinion), and others that made many otherwise playable cards unplayable. Right now, my goal is to finish “pimping” a few decks I have created with some missing reverse holos, and others. I don’t really have the will anymore to hunt down ridiculous promos that used to be 1/100th of the cost 10 years ago. My love for the classic game is what keeps me going. If anyone ever wants to play, hit me up.
@cbd1235 (Or Jason is it?) I loved reading your story! Thanks for chiming in! I think that’s awesome that you went from the kid with hardly any cards to being a prominent collector in the pokemon community. Do you have a collection thread? I’d love to check it out.
I think you painted the scene back in school with pokemon cards very accurately. And several of us have also noted that Pokemon totally went out of vogue and you did get made fun of if you were still in it. Around here now I think people have loosened up somewhat but most people would if not verbally, mentally make fun of me for how much I’m into collecting them now.
Really enjoyed the read. Thanks for posting!
Oh and I totally agree that GB Venusaur is one sick card! Without a doubt my favorite Venusaur artwork!
Wow that’s great thanks for sharing Cody! I sadly never got much into the game, mainly just collecting and the gameboy game. That’s great you were able to collect when everyone else offloaded their cards. When you say if anyone wants to play, do you play online?
Nah I meant for real haha, if anyone lives in Texas lol. I didn’t even know you could play the game online. I have not really kept up with the TCG after Nintendo took over, in my opinion the card game kind of spiraled out of control and lost much consistency (way too many over-powered pokemon, pokemon EX, etc etc…It went from being a strategic card advantage based game to being based entirely off your evolution line)
Ah ok haha gotcha. Well no I don’t know if you can play online or not. I was asking since your advertisement to play sounded like maybe anyone would be able to play with you. Ya it is silly that the HP has gone up along with all the attacks in orders of magnitude since the original era.
I was in 5th grade at the time when Pokemon really started appearing. I had a friend named Chris who came down one day during Recess to show us some of his cards. He told us what they were and talked about the show. I remember he had one card that I was completely mesmerized with: Alakazam. It was holographic and as purple is one of my favorite colors, I was immediately drawn to it.
Later that week I got my first Base Pokemon Booster Pack and decided to open it up on the bus the next day with a few friends who were also very new to it. As they gathered around, I opened up my pack and went through the cards slowly one by one. I love dragons and so was absolutely entranced with the fact that my first rare card was a Non-Holographic Dragonair. I loved the artwork and heard someone saying they’d trade something for it. It was a kid who I didn’t know who said that the “Star” Symbol meant Uncommon and the “Diamond” was Rare. He offered to trade his Magmar for it and me being the gullible kid that I was thinking on a monetary level, traded it for him. I later told the story to my friend Chris that day and he told me I got cheated but thankfully was able to get my card back and have the kid apologize.
And that’s how it started. My favorite types to collect were water, normal, grass, and psychic. Eventually I traded an Arcanine for my friend’s Alakazam (he didn’t care if it was Uncommon, he loved Arcanine the most and traded his Alakazam to me). I remember getting so many cards but there was always one card I tried to get that I never could: Gyarados. For years I tried to get the original Base Gyarados from friends or packs. I got Dark Gyarados, I got Misty’s Gyarados, and even Giovanni’s Gyarados. I finally got the Base from a friend of mine named Cleber. I traded soooo much, including my original Alakazam for that one card and have it to that day. That’s when I decided to start collecting Gyarados cards.
I got the game for Christmas and fell in love with Mewtwo from the whole story centering around him throughout the game (they don’t tell stories like that anymore in games) and then catching him, I was so pumped for the movie. After that, I started collecting anything Mewtwo related too and it’s my second largest collection after Gyarados.
I had a lot of cards over the years and for about 4 years forgot about them until I found them again when looking through my basement. I kept everything in such great condition and decided I’d try to sell them in our garage sale. My entire collection besides my favorites? I sold for 10 dollars in a binder that’s worth 50+ dollars alone. I sold them to some Japanese tourists who had a daughter who loved Pokemon, so in that sense I don’t feel too bad as they must have been soooooooooo happy. After that, I realized what I was left with and really started continuing my Gyarados collection to what it is today.
Soooo yeah. Sorry that was so long winded!
I have a funny Venomoth story too that I’ll have to tell some time. Maybe in a separate thread.
Thanks for sharing! Don’t need to apologize for long winded that’s the point of this thread
I enjoyed reading your story. We all have similarities, but everyone has there own nostalgic story to tell and its fun to hear everyone’s perspectives
HOLY COW! I’m going through your photo bucket collection. Wow. I knew you had a large collection with some very rare cards, but I didn’t realize you owned so many trophy cards. The illustrator alone is amazing, let alone all those trophy cards and then even the Mint 10 Masaki’s, Mint 9 University Magikarp, Fan clubs, etc.
Its incredible. You must have invested a fortune in your collection!
I would say I’m batshit crazy. I don’t want to think about how much is in the cards, but I did get a lot of them years ago when they were a lot more attainable price-wise. I used to also sell a lot of cards for many years which made all of this possible (I also put a few scholarships towards cards, do you think that was what they had in mind?). I haven’t been selling lately so I haven’t been buying lately. But hopefully I’ll get back into the selling game this summer
Wow well its a super impressive collection. When I get around one day to posting my collection, maybe you can pretend to forget about yours while you check mine out
Collections aren’t for comparing. Each is a unique expression of love for the game. There’s so much personality in collections. I can’t wait to see yours. I know Jason can’t either. It’s always great to see what people have chosen and why.
Ok one more comment about @cbd1235 's collection then back on topic for anyone else who wants to share.
Jason, I also love your gem mint GB collection. I’m currently working on acquiring all of mine in at least 9 or better. I have several to send in that I’m pretty excited about. We’ll see how they fair
Ok now we can go back on topic to the subject of the thread
No worries. It takes a lot for me to feel compelled to post on my collection thread. Maybe I’ll do a bunch of mini updates this summer with random stuff I have.
