Solemn Star's Collection

[SolemnStar]

If you want to help me, check out my Buy/Trade thread

Its no fun to go on an adventure alone…

Collecting Interests/Niches/Goals

abandoned goal
: Inactive/ passively/ intermittently collecting
“I’m workin’ on it”
I want to do this, but haven’t started
Complete!

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Legend Maker ‘Uzumaster’ set Master set with all swirls
every EB games stamp promo(yes, all of them)
living dex up to ultrasun/ultramoon when pokemon still had a national pokedex.
every mainline pokemon video game in english and in japanese for gameboy CIB

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Card Sleeves (It never ends)

Summary

I have a thirst to document all the card sleeve basic colors I can in different versions. A main goal that I’m close to is every Dragonshield color. All I need is “Baby Blue”. Likewise I’ve tried to locate the circa 2002-2003 special sleeves from Ultra Pro. Mainly I want one of each color in the “Metalized” series. But there is also “Satin” and some other holo pattern sleeves. I have other sleeves that I have imported from Japan. In the hunt for the perfect gold color sleeves to put gold cards in, I found one from Japan. For now accept my haphazard photos of the boxes of sleeves. If you want to see me go over my sleeves I’ll leave you with some videos too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M17u867XZzo

TCG gold card sleeves compared
Every TCG sleeve in every color I have - compared

FireRed/LeafGreen master set with all possible swirls
ex Team Rocket Returns Master set with all possible swirls
e-Series and “ex” set era card binders

Summary

ex Unseen Forces Binder

Dragon Shield Matte Blue
Dragon Shield Matte Sky Blue
Dragon Shield Matte Midnight Blue
Dragon Shield Matte Umber
Dragon Shield Matte Copper

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ex Emerald Binder

Dragon Shield Matte Apple Green
Dragon Shield Matte Green
Dragon Shield Matte Olive

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ex Delta Species Binder

Dragon Shield Matte Silver
Dragon Shield Matte Midnight Blue

Promo sets Binderses

Summary

I tried to determine the best way to do promos. I really like promos because they express a history of the TCG from a pure gameplay aspect, to collecting across every set in the era. I combined base set through black and white in one binder because they will simply fit, and means fewer binders; less wasted space. This will include weird outliers like ancient mew, “best of” promos and southern islands. Pop series will be their own binder when I get to it.

Legend Maker master set in Traditional Chinese

Summary

crossed out cards are ones I’ve collected. Uncrossed out cards I still need.

Aerodactyl
Aggron
Cradily
Delcatty
Gengar
Golem
Kabutops
Lapras
Machamp
Mew
Muk
Shiftry
Victreebel
Wailord
Absol
Girafarig
Gorebyss
Huntail
Lanturn
Lunatone
Magmar
Magneton
Omastar
Pinsir
Solrock
Spinda
Torkoal
Wobbuffet
Anorith
Cascoon
Dunsparce
Electrode
Furret
Graveler
Haunter
Kabuto
Kekleon
Lairon
Machoke
Misdreavus
Nuzleaf
Roselia
Sealeo
Tangela
Tentacruel
Vibrava
Weepinbell

Aron
Bellsprout
Chinchou
Clamperl
Gastly
Geodude
Grimer
Growlithe
Lileep
Machop
Magby
Magnemite
Omanyte
Seedot
Sentret
Shuppet
Skitty
Spheal
Tentacool
Trapinch
Voltorb
Wailmer
Wurmple
Wynaut
Cursed Stone
Fieldworker
Full Flame
Giant Stump
POWER TREE
Strange Cave
Claw Fossil
Mysterious Fossil
Root Fossil
Rainbow Energy
React Energy
Arcanine ex
Armaldo ex
Banette ex
Dustox ex
Flygon ex
Flygon ex
Mew ex
Walrein ex
Regice
Regirock
Registeel

2024 Trick or Trade Halloween holos with swirls on the pumpkin Pikachu logo

Summary

I was made aware that the holo pattern is visible in the pumpkin pikachu logo. So the hunt began. Its a limited scope, affordable and fun goal. I love Halloween, so it seemed like the perfect goal for me.

Sinischa

Ogrepon Teal Mask

Pikachu

Okidogi-NEED

Mimikyu-NEED

Flutter Mane-NEED

Munkidori-NEED

Fezandipiti-NEED

Gengar

Darkrai

Hexa swirls for what I know can get them.
both types of holo pattern for the transition in scarlet/violet promos
both types of holo pattern for the transition in black/white promos

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all sword/shield blackstar promos with this swirl

really random obscure variants across the ages
NearMint-Mint condition sun/moon era Alternate Art Full Art tag teams
quadraswirls for everything that can have it English/Japanese excluding cards with holo borders (“ex” era ex pokemon) with the original cosmos holo pattern.
all variants from products(not player reward stamp/professor programs etc.) as they release in contemporary sets

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full set of no symbol jungle holos
e-reader series master sets
HeartGold/SoulSilver era master sets

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1 of every single english card that you can get from booster packs
consoles

Summary

When I set this ambitious goal, I was quite naive to the cost of cards in general. I got back in at the exact wrong time. Despite things cooling off, its going to be a long road, and I know I’m not alone. Its also such a vague and almost pointless goal to set. It says nothing about your priorities.

pokemon special edition gameboy light console

Summary

Many years ago I was super into trying to buy good nintendo handheld games and learned what some of the hidden gems were. The nintendo gameboy light was just a gameboy pocket with a front light more or less. But the hue of light is this really beautiful sort of tealish green color. it feels like cool freshness. There is a pokemon special edition of the console, but the price, even then, was quite high for anything usuable, let alone in shape to look pretty on display. Repair on them was also not much of a possibility because parts are not easy to come by. I gave up that goal, and felt that in terms of playing, a gameboy advance was probably still suitable, and it is. I can enjoy this from afar in someone else’s collection

Mewtwo Black Star Promo #12 WOTC signed by Christoper Rush

Summary

Christopher Rush is a name to the Magic The Gathering card game what Ken Sugimori is to Pokemon in some sense. Very iconic for so many classic early art. When you see christopher Rush art, you can’t decouple it from the feel of Magic. I had no idea that he drew a pokemon card ever. As a kid I never aquired the card and never met anyone with it. Likewise never saw it in legendary collection because that set sucked, I hated it, I was sick of yet another reprint of old cards. So I never opened much of it. So I never saw it reprinted in that set either. Fast forward to now, and if there were any artist I’d love to have a signed card of, it would be this truly unique card. Sadly, in 2016 Christopher Rush died at just 50 years old. He shaped and built a path for the very concept of a trading card game. And i admire and thank him for his mark on what I enjoyed with so much of my time when I was young. I cannot get a photo with him, or to have him sign my card. I don’t know how I would feel about buying a card he signed for someone else. But knowing there are likely not many at all, I’m okay with letting this goal pass. Fate may offer me a chance, but I’d likely not be able to afford it if I felt it was right. I’m still not sure. But still, I am sad we lost him. I had quit playing magic just a few years before his passing, and in my mind it marked the true end of Magic the Gathering for me.

PSA 10/BGS 9.5+ master set of 1st edition neo destiny cards

Summary

This one is a bit silly. I am not much of a graded card person. I feel like in most cases graded cards are truly a shame. This was an early goal before I really even knew what the deal with them was. I didn’t know much about the shadiness of grading companies. But still, I had wanted to have the absolute nicest copies of the shining cards from neo destiny, my favorite and most cherished childhood set. As a kid I worked very hard opening tons of packs to get them all, and trading to get what I couldn’t pull out of packs. But I did it! So I wanted to get new ones, this time in first edition and as flawless as possible. I realized how difficult and expensive that would be. Charizard alone makes me realize this is simply not feasible for me. I’m sure I’ll just get some scuffed up copies for a set binder eventually.

contemporary master sets as they come out

Summary

Similar to the goal of “every card”, this is kind of a silly goal. But also due to the brick wall that has happened with availability issues from surging sparks set onward, its made this goal die fast. However also due to the introduction of masterball and pokeball special reverse holos into prismatic evolutions, I am uncertain if I can achieve a complete set.

Thread Under Construction

More to come…

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Edit log

2024-12-31T23:21:00Z formatting, added legend maker Chinese.
2025-01-02T08:00:00Z added more goals
2025-01-16T04:38:00Z filled out Chinese legend maker details. slight formatting refinement
2025-01-19T08:03:00Z Added stories to all the goals I abandoned.
2025-01-19T19:11:00Z filled out the portion for 2024 trick or trade cards with swirls. Moved “contemporary master sets as they come out” to abandoned goals with explaination. Added “Every color Dragon Shield card sleeves”. Added link at top to my buy/trade thread.
2025-01-21T06:02:00Z Filled in Card Sleeves Section, and changed it from “collecting dragon shield sleeves”.
2025-01-25T01:05:00Z Changed goal title of ex and e-series cards. Added the first entry to it of my unseen forces binder
2025-01-27T00:47:00Z added a new goal Promo sets Binderses
2025-02-03T08:00:00Z Added images for ex emerald and ex delta species binders.

[eievui]

I like how you laid your thread out so colorfully and with the emojis XD. Gl on your journey. Thats quite a goal!

[SolemnStar]

recently noted that I added and updated some cards to my chinese legend maker set. This is the only time a full set was made in chinese between base set and the printing that started again in 2019 for traditional chinese, and later Simplified Chinese for Mainland China.

After I completed my Full swirl master set in English I felt like the chinese Legend maker set would be another very unique collection goal. Not wildly popular, I thought it might be worth going for. I had noticed at some point in maybe 2023 some time, that a ton of sealed booster boxes of Chinese legend maker hit ebay. I didn’t think anything of it since I had no idea that it was anything special. I wish I had known then what I know now! Later on I saw packs start hitting the market in a big dump. Obviously these would have been the packs without holographic cards in them, and the holos were all sent to grading, because not long after I began to see chinese legend maker holos pop up in graded encapsulations. Lots of the grades are all over the place, so whoever sent them in didn’t seem to know anything about grading, just sent them all off.
Even now as I essentially have no choice but to buy graded cards, I’ve won a few for essentially the cost of the grading, which is frustrating. I’d have paid you $15 for the holo either way dudes. Come on…Well, whatever! It was fun opening the packs.

Also I’ll just add here since its relevant, i decided to hang onto the pack wrappers, why not. For some time now I’ve been doing this for booster packs. You can use tarot card sleeves, and booster packs, unopened or empty will fit perfectly. This is also the case for promos in those silly cellophane wrappers. Then if you want to go the extra mile, you can get 3x5 inch top loaders which PERFECTLY fit the tarot card soft sleeves. Its like God himself ordained this exact combo of totally unrelated items to come together so wonderfully. Just note that a full and unopened boosterpack will not fit in the top loader. I mean, if they made extra thick ones, we’d be golden, but alas.

Here is me opening it. It started as me recording my package opening since I’ve been scammed lately and I don’t open my mail without recording it to prove I was not sent the correct items. So I cut it to right when I saw I got the booster packs and kept rolling and just opened the packs right away. I was looking forward to this for about a week. It was enjoyable. I only got one repeat of cards I had bought singles for. And I didn’t get a single repeat in any of the packs, which makes me think that a sequential entire booster box might not have overlap? Or I just got lucky. This is uncharted territory!

https://rumble.com/v69vxl1-pokemon-legend-maker-chinese-booster-pack-opening.html

^ me opening booster packs live. Gross long finger nails because I was caught off guard that they came in the mail, sorry. At least they are strong and healthy and devoid of green infecteous amoebas.

[SolemnStar]

About a month ago I opened a bunch of trick or trade packs with my friend in the hunt for the swirls on the pikapumpkin logo. I got exactly half! For his help, I sleeved up a full set of the 2024 trick or trade cards for him. He isn’t actively collecting, but its fun to open cards together and have some help. We found that the cards perfectly seeded too. We got exactly 7-9 of every single card, holo or non-holo. So essentially each one of those containers will give you 3 or 4 full sets. I wonder if the previous years are similar? I’ll have to buy a ton more of these. Its super affordable still. And I love ripping packs. If I get extras I’ll definately trade or give away any to fellow swirl hunters who might be interested.

[SolemnStar]

last night I went through my unseen forces cards and finally made a set binder for it. I’m not sure if I chose the right colors for the card sleeves. I do think it looks nice though. I gave the unowns a ruins of alph feel by giving it the copper and umber colored sleeves. It always takes longer than you might expect to do this. I double sleeve my holographic cards, but I don’t sleeve non-holos unless they happen to be expensive. I take extra time to pre-stretch out inner sleeves to prevent damage. I’ll just shove 2-3 cards into the inner sleeve first, and that helps. I’m very cautious. It adds loads of extra time, but its worth it.

Real talk though, tossing out this many top loaders makes me realize how much card collecting is microplasticing me. I am my own worst enemy. Curse you, me! Pretty much all of them just weren’t nice enough to save and re use. I don’t reuse anything if its too messed up.

I am working now on getting all my ex era binders finally started. I just have a big box of toploaders with cards i’ve bought for years.

[SolemnStar]

added Promo sets Binderses

I’ve just had all these promos clogging up my collection and I love promos and needed to get my ducks in a row! I put it off because I wanted to keep the binder space as compact as possible and consistent as possible. And I think I figured I could squeeze base set through black and white into a 9 pocket binder. This should include any variants.

Now, why did I choose a 12 pocket for scarlet and violet? If you notice, the number of promos has increased each era since black and white where it became consistent as the modern days. sword and shield had 307 promo cards! Including standard(non error) variants, this is really cutting it close! I think we will likely see around 330 promos total by the end. Going by the most tepid increase generation to generation was sun/moon to sword/sheild. Which was a %117.50 change. This would give you exactly 360 cards, maybe 361! Another metric to judge it is a moving target. But right now scarlet and violet is at 186 promos roughly. they keept jumping around in the actual set number and skipping some. But that is the real number as far as I can tell. At this time in the sw/sh block roughly, it was roughly 184. I’m just going by the set numbers. And we are in a special set after set number 8. Which for sw/sh was fusion strike, so I’m counting right up against the last card before the brilliant stars prelease promos. And that matches up. Now, where the difference lies, is that sw/sh also had V-union cards. However we now have many variants. We also now have etb promos, and each one has a pokemon center logo variant. I am simply cautious. If I am wrong, then well…I might downsize, but I felt it would be safer to just go with a bigger binder.

[SolemnStar]

more ex era binders!

I like this holo pattern. At first I didn’t see it as much, but I really do think I came to appreciate it. This set is just another fun one in general. Tons of awesome gen 3 heavy hitters with two different arts for the legendaries in it. I fussed over sleeve colors for a while on this. The “ideal” color scheme I started with wasn’t contrasty enough. DS green classic and matte and then apple green. I ended up with apple green, green matte, and olive green! I think they capture the widest range of green while being noticable and fitting the greens of this set logo and pack/boosterbox color scheme.

This was one I dreaded for a while. The color scheme for this set had me worried. But I ended up settling on silver and midnight blue dragonshield sleeves. And you know what? I think sometimes keeping it simple works. The booster box has a deep navy blue I drew inspiration from since the set logo is just plain gray/silver. Ironic considering the colorfulness of delta species cards in this set. I picked up a ton of new cards for this set from someone all at once, so it was time to set this binder up.

I was able to finally binder up one of my favorite things, the weird nordic donald duck magazine cards! First time for any of them. Both Larvitar and the Arita Dratini have the set symbol like a reverse holo, but are non holo! And I added my prerelease metang. They fit perfectly at the end of the page after card 114 azumarill which has a placeholder for now. As you can see I put a placeholder at the end of each page to help me not mess up card spacing.

What I nearly forgot was that I have accumulated 3 sets of these special donald duck magazine cards! reverse holo dratini for comparison. None of them is spectacular condition. The fronts on all are good enough for the binder. So I’ll eventually trade the extras away to collectors that share my passion for these fun obscure variants from the far north of Europe.

[SolemnStar]

I’ll be playing with First post for a while after this to add this all in.

In brief, I expanded my hunt for the

swirl from the Sword and Shield black star promos to the X and Y black star promos. I figured I should try since fewer and fewer of this era of promo is being listed. I wanted to get a foundation started. What I have left will surely be an uphill battle. If anyone would be so kind as to look at the copies you have with swirls that I don’t have yet, I’d be grateful. It is entirely possible though, that some of these cards won’t ever have the right swirl for one reason or another though. You never truly know. I scoured every single ebay listing for all cards that could get this swirl. So here are the results of a frenzied saturday looking at hundreds of listings. Lets get into it.

I took a lot of time to photograph and edit these, please appreciate how much effort that can take!

I had bought one that was better before, but the seller shipped it weird, and it got bent in half in the mail. This copy is rough, but I’m happy to have it.

This one came up almost instantly on the search and I didn’t see many others.

there were a few of these to choose from thankfully! This one looked best

As I recall, this wasn’t the only one, but this one had a good location.

Got lucky on this one. A few copies are up for sale by someone who knows what they have for a lot of money. FOund this one for a few dollars! Yahoo! That person may be my best bet though at this point if I give in.

this card is inexpensive, so I bought a bunch and crossed my fingers and found this.

Another that is abundant and cheap, so I bought a bunch, and I have several extras, this one was my favorite.

One and done here. Good location, but hard to see. THe listing photo was just right to barely see it. I was lucky.

The only one I was sure had it. Okay condition, okay price, I feel lucky. Watch out swirl, he is going to gum you to death!

This one was lucky too and its in good shape. None of these cards is “near mint” by most people’s standards by the way. So assume “good” is lightly played. If you want to follow along in my footsteps, prepare to lower your standards.

Several copies are out there,its fairly common, but the location is a bit cramped.

when a card is really rough I note the condition on the inner sleeve. But this was inexpensive, and mostly unobscured so I took the W and moved on.

Another one I feel lucky to have bought for a decent price and good shape with a nice location.

a bit of story time on this one. So I couldn’t find a single listing with one evident, its hard to see the holo on this card. But there was one UK seller who had several copies, this is why I NEVER rule out overseas sellers. Despite shipping being high, the price was very low. And it said 10+ available. So kept adding to cart until I hit the limit. 47! 47? I added them all, and bought them. After a issue with the shipping, the seller reached out to tell me they had tons more. They sent me photos of the box. They must have hundreds, probably over 500. They said they used to work for a distributor for pokemon cards around 2016, and that is where they got them. Out of kindness they sent me extras, so in total I got 60 copies. In those 60 copies none of them would be mint condition, but probably the best you’ll find. Some were kind of messed up, but thats okay. I sorted out the ones with the swirl I was looking for, and this was the absolute nicest location. If you want to do the same, the seller should still have the listing. I only probably bought at most %10 of what they have. I’d reach out first, they seem eager to sell them off, and you might bet a bulk discount if you buy a ton of them like I did. They weren’t sent in sleeves so, be warned this isn’t a card person, just a regular person…not that you and I aren’t regular people.
Alternatively, message me if you want a copy.

This mewtwo seems to have one fairly commonly, but the xy100 mewtwo doesn’t. I know ive seen one a long time ago, but it was a sold listing in rough shape as I recall. Thought I had one, but it was this one. So oops, I have 2 now.

An easy one to find, I have several now.

The cool placement one is destroyed, and it will go in my cool swirls binder. The other one is much better condition and will go in the promo binder. Not expensive thankfully.

I bought several of these blind, and hoped to get one, and I did. Just one. There is no better feeling than that. It feels like you just barely made it.

Another one with a story…This listing was sealed, and overpriced, I knew it was because it is clearly a biohazard, with what looks like a suspicious brown skidmark on the cellophane…but man was I desperate, and it was a bit of a backfire. Because after dealing with the doo-doo wrapper with gloves on, I was greeted by the most damaged bent up card of the lot I bought in this whole adventure. So I overpayed and got something in a biohazard wrapped and it was damaged. Great. Oh well, I’ll just find a better one at some point that isn’t $100000000

This is a very inexpensive card. If you are a collector of holo bleed, every copy I bought had holo bleed. Several had a swirl but the location on this one was basically perfect!

inexpensive and abundant to find with this swirl. Low hanging fruit if you want to find one.

surprisingly easy to find with the swirl, just might be hard to see due to the busy artwork. Turns out I had one already, oops! I have 2…this is a common theme.

There were a few of these up but in pretty rough shape. I’m happy enough with this one though. I love this art, TOKIYA is a favorite of mine.

I saw a few of these, so I had some choice. this one was good enough, and its unobscured. Lovely art too!

I think absol just might be a cool pokemon. But so many absol arts are amazing to me. This one is awesome and so I bought another copy that was nicer because this one is pretty scratched, but the only copy I saw with a swirl so I pounced on it voraciously! The pickings were slim.

strange, this one was really affordable considering it was snorlax. I bought 2 copies, the other one was a mere $5 or so and in worse shape, but I couldn’t pass it up in case this one had a hidden flaw.

surprisingly easy to find a swirl on this one despite the lack of real estate, its just perfectly located! Can you believe this beautiful art is 5ban graphics? They used to make really pretty art, and I’m not sure what happened that they are now so sterile feeling.

Another one where I think the swirl is common, but the dark background hides it. Reverse engineering the holo pattern I saw several listings where I was %90 sure they had the swirl in the same spot.

I know I’ve seen this card with the swirl on it a long time ago, but at the moment, looks like someone must have cleaned them out. But I was happy with this one.

Another one where the swirl is in a black void. But seems to be fairly common.

I accidently bought two copies of this but decided I would be fine with two of them. Did you know I got manaphy the original way back when it came out? You had to play through and beat the original Pokemon Ranger game, and you’d get a manaphy egg that you could send to pokemon diamond and pearl. Mine turned out to be adamant nature…I still have it out of nostalgia…and spite, and no there is no soft resetting it.

This one I bought in a slab from tcgplayer of all places. They sent it with this really cool 3d printer keychain, and a 3d printed slab display stand(which I obviously didn’t need, but the thought was lovely). Never had anything quite like this before. Go buy stuff from them and say the crazy swirl guy sent you.

Nobody has ever been as excited for getting a copy of this inexpensive, abundant meloetta card than me when I pulled this one from the envelope. After buying practically every single one of these I could find, the very last one that came in, had it. I was elated. You’d think I pulled a Moonbreon from a lone booster pack. This was a true victory!

This one should be easy to find, I saw several others, a few from the guy who knows what he has and even more beyond that. Inexpensive, but nice.

And finally this is the last one. Hard to see, but I used some sorcery to notice this one. I saw others, but this one was way cheaper and nicer than the others. I don’t know how I knew it was there. I just saw the holo pattern, and realized it looked the same as on a listing where you could see the swirl. I see this holo pattern in my sleep.

Besides that, there were definately some swings and misses. Here are some others I was unsuccessful with, but they need to go in the binder anyhow.

There is also a volcanion I missed, and a few others I just didn’t see any copies I wanted.

Another fun pick up was this. These groudon and kyogre both accidently had their holo cutouts swapped on some copies. It doesn’t seem like its wildly rare, this one was on pure accident as it was bought on tcgplayer without photos. So I’ll probably try to get the kyogre one and get a fixed version of both too.

So I have other stuff to share, but since this was a huge task, and thematic, I thought I’d just do it in one big push. I hope you enjoyed this. Again, if you have any cards with this swirl from any era, reach out please. It doesn’t have to be a blackstar promo either. I do want to see how many I can get! I’ll eventually get around to updating my buy/trade thread with some info on specifics…eventually…

Have a nice day!

[bbobrob]

Nice update! Was fun to see cards I don’t normally see and am not too familiar with.

I’m a bit surprised it can be hard to find a swirl for some of these promos, as I thought, with the large number that have been printed, surely many of them would have the swirl pattern. But maybe the swirl in this holo pattern is in a much larger repeating pattern, so it’s not as abundant on the full holo sheet? Or is it just cause the listings are getting thinner and thinner for these promos.

Some of the placements on these are great: Celebi (the Komiya one), Zygarde, Lucario, Pangoro, etc.

[Parallax]

Amazing update. I love these type of galaxy “HD” swirls. That Braxien is amazing and is my favourite placement of your latest update.

Am i right in saying this type of HD swirl is only ever on English cards?

Congratulations on your latest haul, and great job on the photography!

[SolemnStar]

@Parallax

@Parallax

Amazing update. I love these type of galaxy “HD” swirls. That Braxien is amazing and is my favourite placement of your latest update.

Am i right in saying this type of HD swirl is only ever on English cards?

Congratulations on your latest haul, and great job on the photography!

I’m funny in how I am sort of annoyed by the term “HD holo” or “HD swirl”. It bugs me that anyone ever called it that. I won’t get on my soapbox about it though, afterall, “sunbreon” is far more egregious

I love this particular holo pattern, and I’m sad that it has been phased out, but its been with us for a long time now, since part way through black and white era. The braxien card is really nice, and as I said, its super affordable and I’ve seen tons of copies with the swirl on it. Such an easy pick up for swirl fans.

Well, I promised the drifloon person I’d examine a curiosity about it. However no, it was used in pretty much all the euro region languages. But thinking about it, I don’t see it in japanese in my mind’s eye. It feels weird that they wouldn’t.

Thank you for your reply, is far from over!

@bbobrob

@bbobrob

Nice update! Was fun to see cards I don’t normally see and am not too familiar with.

I’m a bit surprised it can be hard to find a swirl for some of these promos, as I thought, with the large number that have been printed, surely many of them would have the swirl pattern. But maybe the swirl in this holo pattern is in a much larger repeating pattern, so it’s not as abundant on the full holo sheet? Or is it just cause the listings are getting thinner and thinner for these promos.

Some of the placements on these are great: Celebi (the Komiya one), Zygarde, Lucario, Pangoro, etc.

I’ll go into it in detailed structure at some point. But to cut to the chase, there are two issues with some cards. Some cards just have little real estate for the holo. But the real problem is when the card is printed on the same sheet as other cards. This means that it will not be printed across several areas to have a chance to get the swirl to line up just right.

Definitely one issue is just that there aren’t many listings to get a feel. Not even price being the issue. Just, nobody is selling it. Especially if its a rough copy, why bother selling it? So I can’t tell. I will tell you this info, the holo pattern is 6x6 inches. For comparison, the original cosmos holo on base set era wad 2x2 inches. And that particular swirl shows up 1 time within it. So do most of the others too. However again, hard to say! I bought soooo many volcanions(not shown for whatever reason I forgot), and that kyurem card. Not one had the swirl. Same for the darkrai too! So many darkrai! Yet I saw some listings with the swirl where there were just a handful of ebay listings. One thing I’ll point out is something you may not even have considered…someone else did what I did before and cleaned out the swirls already. Someone did! And they relisted many at a high cost. I didn’t buy anything from them(yet). So with the lucario I bought a huge batch from one tcgplayer seller. Zero. I bought from another seller, and got like 3, so it makes you wonder doesn’t it? You can never know. I only just started looking, so I am very hopeful but realistic. Some might not be possible. I will say one that I know probably isn’t. The greninja 24.

I have a friend who has been obsessive over that promo for years. YEEEEARS. We have not once seen the swirl on this. I have checked the black and white era eeveelution promos, and the same thing.

sorry for the long response, I didn’t choose the swirl life. It chose me. I have no idea how I ended up here. But thanks for the questions. Its exciting to share the info.

[bbobrob]

A thorough response as expected of the swirl master!

For whatever reason, in my mind, I had assumed all the promos were just printed on their own sheet (of one individual card), so I was surprised to hear that some were really hard to find. I guess it may not necessarily be that way, leading to biases towards which promos may have a better chance at a swirl.

@SolemnStar

I will tell you this info, the holo pattern is 6x6 inches. For comparison, the original cosmos holo on base set era wad 2x2 inches.

This was another thought I had, and it seems you’ve confirmed it! The real estate of the holo sheet probably made swirls more scarce for these promos too (once in a 2x2 pattern vs once in a 6x6 pattern is a huge difference).

@SolemnStar

One thing I’ll point out is something you may not even have considered…someone else did what I did before and cleaned out the swirls already. Someone did!

This is something I hadn’t considered, but it’s interesting that someone may have noticed the scarcity and opted to make a market move.

@SolemnStar

I have checked the black and white era eeveelution promos, and the same thing.

Uncut sheets of these promos have floated around. I can attach some images here, but they aren’t high resolution or anything. The sheet has quite a few filler cards though, and I don’t see any swirls in any of them. You could probably try to reach out to someone that owns a sheet to try and confirm if any swirls exist in the pattern, but maybe it’s possible that there were holo sheets that were used that didn’t have the swirl pattern? (Maybe the same applies to the Greninja)

The last filler card in the top row in the second picture kind of looks like this orb+swirl combo that was recently posted on E4:

[mrbubbles]

Just an amazing and informative write-up and pictures @SolemnStar. I did not expect the amount of cards you need to buy and go through to increase your chances of having swirls. That is some real dedication. Based on what you wrote, I am assuming that you are posting cards with swirls which look the nicest correct? Based on your experience and observations, do you keep a track or catalogue which cards are easy or hard to have swirls? I loved your post and your follow up analysis. Really well done work.

My favorite is the Giratina since it looks like it just came out of a wormhole!

@bbobrob That Sceptile card!!

Cheers!

[tstark20]

Loving the niche stuff; genuinely had no idea those trick or trade cards looked so amazing.

Cosmo Holo gang never stops winning.

[SolemnStar]

This is a huge revelation! I’m so dialed in that I probably don’t need more than these photos, they are clear enough. But if someone took a proper photo of these I’d be elated. I mean really if there is a chance that any of these critters have the swirl I’d be happy. My guess is that by cruel fate, the thing I’m looking for is on the text box or behind the opaque part of the card art. It happens.

@bbobrob

This was another thought I had, and it seems you’ve confirmed it! The real estate of the holo sheet probably made swirls more scarce for these promos too (once in a 2x2 pattern vs once in a 6x6 pattern is a huge difference).

Yes this was information I wanted to share in a larger write up.

As far as that sceptile, I have to be honest, I fear other people deciding to like that part of the holo pattern because its lowkey awesome. I have my own names for all the types of swirls on this era of holo pattern. This one I call the black hole. its both a swirl and an orb so at first I called it a sworb, which is funny, but not could be confusing to read or hear. The swirl I’m seeking I’ve called the arrow swirl, because they look like two entwined arrows. These are just my internal usages. Thus why I don’t even name them in the collection thread. I will have to dig it up, but I bought a whole bunch of this one awesome darkrai to swirl hunt and have one with him holding the blackhole.

and yes like @mrbubbles said, it looks like the naruto thing. I forget what its called. But I thought of the exact same thing, plus a kamehameha wave from dragonball.

And yes I do have a few extras of some. I am showing the ones off that I’m putting in my actual promo binder. I forgot to add this final shot in of after I bindered it all up. I will probably pick up any affordable other promos, the low hanging fruit to fill in the blanks more too. Per my obsession with sleeves, each card has sleeve colors that match their type.

[bbobrob]

The color-matching sleeve is a detail I can get behind!

I am not too familiar with the new generation of the “cosmos” pattern (well, not new anymore, as there’s another version out there now), but the swirl-orb pattern is a pretty neat one (especially if you get it lined up like in that Sceptile!).

Look forward to hearing about more swirl misadvetures!

[joponnes]

One just can’t not love your dedication on such niche collection goal, the swirl on every card creates so awesome and unexpected connection betweem everything that this surely is an impossible to replicate and one of a kind collection super happy to witness these kinds of collections especially during the times when the masses are all hyped about the same modern chase cards. Found also some cards that i’ll add in my wants too, especially the giratina is a beautiful one and surprisingly cheap!