I’ve got an ultra pro sleeve. Would it be considered an official Pokémon sleeve?
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Source for ray sleeves?
Its officially licensed, Ultra-Pro manufactured three sets of sleeves that matched the Japanese “Rulers of the Heavens”, “Magma VS Aqua: Two Ambitions”, and “Flight of Legends” pack artwork back in ‘04/’05.
Unfortunately, there are counterfeits of these sleeves floating around out there.
Genuine versions of these sleeves will have the little Ultra-Pro foil stamp in the bottom corner on the side that is transparent, counterfeits will not and will generally have worse print quality.
Avoid buying these from an eBay seller called “Kruk Cards Inc”, they have a bundle for all three sleeves but they’re all repros/counterfeits.
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folks, we’ve seen it all. Counterfeit ultrapro sleeves. What a time to be alive. Thanks for the info!
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Every time I see certain sleeves I can’t help but think the pattern/artwork for some of them would make amazing binders as well. Would love to put my Piplup line in a ‘Baby Blue Eyes’ binder.
I’ve always struggled to use Mecari. I can never find what I want. Should I be translating my searches before putting them in?
In case anyone was wondering, these are what the counterfeits look like (my pictures before I returned my order):
The official ones look like this (not my pictures) - notice the Ultra-Pro foil stamp:
If you don’t care about authenticity then the repros are fine to put in a binder - just beware they feel cheap and the print quality is not amazing (the Pokemon TCG logo looking bad was the first thing that gave them away as being repros back when I bought them).
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Should’ve gave the ray to a big rayquaza collector.
hmmmm….
I mean you can get 20 of them for $12 from the one eBay seller I warned about (plus you get 20 each of the other two designs too).
Legitimate packs of these sleeves go for around $40-60 right now but you only get 50 sleeves in a pack… I’m not really sure what the logic was there but it seemed to be a standard thing for Ultra-Pro sleeves back then.
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I always translate my searched beforehand, i’ve had quite good results with “pokemon card shield” ポケモンカードシールド with the pokemon name i’ve tried to find, maybe just replace the “pokemon” with the pokemon name
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You can do what @joponnes recommended. You can also try using the translated name rather than the localized name (ex: use “Hinoarashi" instead of “Cyndaquil”).
Alternatively, you can use proxy selling websites like Zenmarket to browse listings and let it do the translations and stuff for you.
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Yes, i always check the japanese spelling for pokemon names for example from bulbapedia, for example for those cyndaquil sleeves i would straight up search ヒノアラシカードシールド
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@rattrocker @joponnes That a lot of help thank you
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New and exclusive sleeves are being given out to the winners of the Southeast Asian Premier League tournaments. I believe that means only 36 will be given out.
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Does all ultra pro sleeves have those stamps? Because im checking mine (I also collect sleeves, official Pokemon sleeves and Ultra pro) but I’ve only seen those stamps 2004 - 2016
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I haven’t bought new Ultra Pro sleeves since I was a kid (20 years ago) so I wouldn’t know (Dragon Shield & KMC are my preference now).
That said, I do believe that you’re correct - last year my wife bought some ultra pro sleeves and I don’t believe that they have the foil stamp on them.
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Hello everyone!
I’m really happy to see that there are more sleeve collectors out there!
I recently started working on a website that aims to list all of the official Pokémon sleeves.
It’s still very much a work in progress, but the database is slowly growing and I already have some nice features like filtering by product category, series, release year or even a specific Pokémon.
I’m trying to get has much information as possible about each one, like the product it came from, the release date, the characters featured on it and more.
When it’s done it will hopefully be the best resource out there!
Here is sneak peak at what it looks like right now (note that I haven’t put much work into the visuals yet).
The search page:
A detail page for a sleeve:
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Welcome to the Forum!
And holy smokes, that is pretty neat! I hope it goes well.
Do you have any interesting info on any? I have been saving interesting sleeves from purchases over time and have a bit of a collection.
Also, will this include sleeves you can obtain from Japan? I’ve imported a few types of sleeves as they often get really cool ones that never leave japan.
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Thank you!
I’ve been learning a lot since I started, for example I had no idea that Elite Trainer Box Plus where a thing.
They seem to be a mini version of Ultra Premium Collection boxes and they come with sleeves!
I have a collection myself, mostly focused on ETB sleeves but some other cool stuff as well.
Yes I would like to include Japanese exclusives, as well as Ultra Pro licensed sleeves.
Right now I’m focusing on North American/European releases, working from most recent to oldest releases.
Honestly it’s a massive undertaking, but with enough time I hope to have pretty much everything on there!
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sick! Let us know and keep in the loop here. I like the idea of working backwards from easiest stuff to least easy stuff. And yeah, for a short time in sword and shield the PC ETBs had special sleeves, but they changed that to be giving a stamped promo instead, which was more popular with fans.
We have a fair number of people who, even if we aren’t sleeve junkies, occasionally import some of the pokemon center japan sleeves. I have a fair few as I’ve said.
Something you might want to consider(consider, it could become a mess) is the nature of the sleeves. That is, are they glossy backs, matte backs, textured or smooth backs. Holographic/shiny backs. Are the insides white, black, silver or gold? Is the window glossy or matte? Some sleeves have been revised when released in ETBs I know, so have two variants, e.g. one that is matte on the window, or glossy on the window.
Its a big endeavour, and I think its a bit daunting, but its a cool thing, and you will learn a lot! Enjoy the growing pains. I’ll dig up some of my more unique ones and try to post em’ with good scans. No promises on sleeve quality. But maybe it can help where stock images don’t exist.
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