The best cheap set with the vibe of something special

General
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Hi, I wanted to make myself base kanto pokemon cards collection. Have some questions as a noobie:

  1. It doesn’t need to be as low as $100, but somoething north the $1000 would be nice. Artworks cards with a perhaps needed budget of even $10000 are out of my reach for now sadly. What type of cards would be still cheap, but somewhat desirable? Like pokeball reverse-holo, or some other type holo type? But I don’t know if there’s majority of these cards allowing to at leat, have a 3/4 of the set, and if it would stay in the budget.

  2. I found this thread about diffrent holo patterns on cards. I was wondering whether I should go for any specific one in hope of there being enough of 151 cards to complete a set - or it’s widely known that there isn’t so many cards and pattern varies? Like, is there, at least a majority of the kanto cards, with some kind of reverse-holo effect available so the collection could be build?
    Holo Pattern Appreciation Thread
    Unique Japanese Reverse Holo Patterns - #6 by qwachansey

  3. If cards with holo are outside of the budget, what should I focus at? Some kind of team rocket cards or first edition? Remember, we are talking only about kanto pokemons and the collection possible to build at least at majority.

  4. Does japanese cards, are also better choice when considering cheaper cards? When considering quality, it’s obvious on full artwork cards - but I don’t know if it’s the same case with cheaper ones, and is it worth the hassle.

  5. When trying to find a card for example on cardmarket - how to filter the cards with a pattern, if it’s possible? Like this Gyarados is the holo?
    https://www.cardmarket.com/en/Pokemon/Products/Singles/Garchomp-Half-Deck/Gyarados

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The japanese 151 set has pokeball and masterball reverse holos for nearly every Kanto pokemon. Theres around a dozen pokemon that dont have them due to them being ex cards in that set. Base set through team rocket gets you nearly all 151 pokemon (you can get Mew as a cheap wotc promo). With the exception of charizard, you can get pretty much all 151 for well under $100 per card. They would all have that classic wotc look to them as well which is nice.

Japanese cards are generally cheaper across the board.

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I think a simple goal is great to start :slightly_smiling_face:
When I re-entered collecting I set several binder goals. One year later my goals are now completely different because I’ve learned so much.

I’d recommend collecting the original 151 in modern full arts. The cards are accessible, fit your budget, and make for a stunning binder

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If I were collecting just the first 151 I would settle with just illustration rares as I love the look, and most are cheap.

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But could I just use other reverse holo cards with diffrent pattern for the place of missing ones? It’s doable to fill the blanks with them?

set with these cards would be easily $5000, what are you even talking about?
18 cards from 151, would be $300, that’s 133 still to go

Every card with these illustrations is $20 minimum which put price at $3000 minimum
How that relate to the budget I wrote about?

EDIT.
found some info
https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonTCG/comments/1742b5b/complete_master_set_of_151_japanese_all/
https://imgur.com/a/151-japanese-complete-master-set-english-uniques-rKVG2jy

What would be cheapest Charizard/Venosaur/Blastoise reverse-holo?

From what I see in that video, from set 151 is missing
Arbok
Ninetails (masterball reverse there’s one)
Wigglytuff
Alakazam
Golem
Kangaskhan
Jinx
Mew

WAIT.
Does only japanese version of these cards, got masterball holo effect?

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@thsigma already mentioned it, but the cards from 151 you mentioned are missing are the ex’s, thus arent featured like the other cards but all 151 are in that set. Also to answer your question, yes japan only received the pokeball/masterball reverses for the 151 set.

As for what I recommeneded the Japanese arts are much cheaper, and you could go that route.

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Congrats on starting your new collection, rocendroll, and welcome to the forum!

As others have mentioned, you would have to collect Base, Jungle, and Fossil to get all 151 Pokémon. The recent Scarlet & Violet 151 set would also get you all 151 Pokémon—this set has reverse versions of the cards. Base, Jungle, and Fossil are fairly cheap to complete, but do not have reverse versions of cards, only holofoil. In general, Japanese sets tend to be a bit cheaper and have better print quality (particularly with modern sets, as you mentioned).

To put a couple more, lesser known, sets on your radar:

Vending Series was printed from 1997-98 and was only released in Japan. The set contains many of the original 151 Pokémon and has some of the richest history in the hobby. It contains both gorgeous and off-the-wall artwork. The cards are generally more expensive than Base, Jungle, and Fossil. There are only a few holofoil cards in the set and they are quite rare. That said, you could likely put together a set for around your budget.

It is south of the Kanto mainland and includes some Gen ii Pokémon, but I would also put Southern Islands on your radar, which is a magical 18-card set from 1999 (2001 for English) that I always recommend as a good first set to complete.

In my opinion, you cannot go wrong collecting anything from Base, Jungle, Fossil, Rocket, Vending, or Southern Islands. Also, as I am sure you are aware, condition has a big impact on price of cards, where a “Moderately Played” copy of a card with some scratches might be under a dollar, a “Near Mint” version of the same card could be several times as expensive. This means that you could put together a Moderately Played collection of Base, Jungle, and Fossil for the price of a Near Mint collection of just one of these sets.

Whatever you decide, please update us on your progress. No one knows what the hobby will look like in 5 or 20 years, so have fun, collect the stuff that speaks to you, and do not pay too much attention to hype bros or doomers.

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90% of full arts cost $2, especially Japanese ARs

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Thank you for your answer. it was quite hard to get traction at first, in this new world of pockemon cards for me. I felt quite lost, but now It’s much more understandable.

You see, maybe you can advice me. I was thinking about collecting full artworks. But as of now, I cannot afford it, therefore, was looking for something cheaper.
As from my understanding, collection of reverse-holo normal kanto region cards with illustrations in frames - would be cheaper that full artworks one. Does that seems like corrent assumption?

If so - maybe that’s good idea to collect cheaper, holo cards in english and more beatiful looking, full srtworks ones in japanese since they are both with japanese letters which give more space and priority to the artwork and better produced.

One pinch of salt in my eye, is now that, these english cards weren’t produced as reverse-holos in english. So now - I have to ask, is there a possibility, they would be? Maybe some reprint? Is it possible? If not, it’s kind of impasse. I wanted a collection of english cards. Some kind of holos would be perfect. Is there some kind of diffrent holo collection of kanto which could be build with english cards cheaply?

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GOAT answer, thank you! That what I was looking for.

  1. Do you think, there is a possiblity that reverse-holos of current Scarlet & Violet 151 set, would be reprinted in english as well?

  2. From what you’ve mentioned, I found how the “Vending Series printed from 1997-98” looks here:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/pkmntcgcollections/comments/sjtjwi/complete_vending_series_masaki_cards/

  3. If I’m correct that’s how Southern Island set looks like - and thank you for mentioning that, I would really like to colect Togepi, since I pretty much consider it as a base set pokemon in my point of view as it was in an anime so often.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/PokeGrading/comments/1dx3iwd/found_my_southern_islands_set_i_got_as_a_kid_are/
    I also see that some of these cards, have holo effect, but with an english naming. So - reverse holos like pokeball and masterball are only present in japanese - but there are some other reverse holos available in english? If so, which one?

  4. I’m aware of the condition, that’s why I’m setting a budget relatively high for cards as $1 each… I don’t mean it to be psa10’s, but just wanted to have them looking nice. I wouldn’t be grading them, I’m collecting because of nostalgia and nice look of the cards. I was thinking about getting two collections, one in english with some variant of illustration in the frame and one in japanese being full artworked. I think that would be a good middle ground since the first ones would maybe be cheap to obtain and the second ones more beautifully looking and cheaper in japanese as well.

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If you want all cards to be the same variant then your best bet would be the 151 pokeball reverse holos (not masterballs) in japanese if youre in it for the art, but even then there is no single holo set that keeps all the pokemon from 151 in the same category. Example is in 151 english and japanese there is no common ninetales or reverse because its rarity is above that. Youll have SIRs, ex’s, and other rarities thrown in. I only recommended full arts because even though theyre not all from the same set youll eventually have them all in similar art styles which imo looks better.

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holos can be various, it doesn’t need to be same variant

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So what are you asking then? If you don’t care about holo variants and art rares. I suggest collecting sets up to the neos for gen 1 (If your concerned about the big three, Dark blastoise and Dark charizard nonholo unlimited, with base 2 or legendary collection venusaur) if you want something that appears nice other then that just collect 151

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Unseen forces alphabet is dirt cheap. Even graded 9s I don’t think any are over 50$ while most are simply the cost of the grading fee plus raw

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Wowowiwow! This set looks amazing

Was unseen forces the only set to get the full alphabet soup treatment?

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Crown zenith is still a good set after all this time.

Not only that, but it has very good (and cheap) Galarian Gallery arts.

  • Chill Vert
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That looks so satisfying…

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All the neo sets had some unowns that could be made into a set. But they didn’t go in order and the R was a promo.

Then D&P did a few unowns in each set in order.

But unseen forces has them all together as one and they’re all Holo. Very OCD approved. Plus the ? And ! Unowns are great touches

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Hi, did you know about these reverseholo patterns?

By Vending Series you’ve meant these?

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Southern Islands are also a great find, thank you!

Overall,

  1. I think Scarlet&Violet have only one reverseholo pattern right between al of the sets?

  2. Sword & Shield and Sun & Moon as well only one?

  3. Well on SV Shrouded Fable there was this one

    image
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  4. Next one is XY series with just vertical holo lines, and this ones

    image
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  5. Black and white with these

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  6. And several others older but with a quality I’m not going to pursue
    https://www.codedyellow.com/reverse-holo-patterns/

  7. OFC besides Legendary Collection which is unattainble for me at this point, maybe the cheapest cards.

Is there any list/data containing all of the reverse holo patterns? You encouraged me really foe this to make it neat, so I think I decided, that for this eng Kanto151 reverseholo collection, I need to get my hand on as many eng reverseholo pattern as I can. Any help would be greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

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Those ones are bootleg.
Here’s a link to the Vending Series sets.

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