Speaking to another Gyarados collector, they made the suggestion that the Star Foil variant may come from the Italian Starter deck:
Haven’t been able to verify yet but I don’t see it as unreasonable since we’ve seen variants from similar situations. I was able to actually get another one when I vacationed to visit some friends in San Diego. I went to a card/comic/toy shop called “TC’s Rockets” and apparently missed bumping into Gary and another Gyarados collector by the IG handle of Jurrasic Karp two days earlier. Chris, the employee there, helped me out with purchasing it - I HIGHLY recommend anyone to check it out. It was a huge wave of nostalgia seeing toys, cards, and items from my early childhood. The place is MASSIVE! I might share pictures of the place later, but definitely look them up: tcsrockets.com/
@nidokingdom , they’re certainly more interesting than the typical cookie-cutter stock art! Saw you eventually make an IG post and loved seeing so many different kinds! Reminds me I still need to get back to you about the GB Mini Cards. I’ll get on that when I get some spare time - I recall coming across a pamphlet or commercial from Japan that had more info on their distribution.
Anyways, some updates. I’ve been building a display over the last few months and have been doing some deep dives and uncovering some stuff I’ve never showcased. However most of this is new stuff:
Got a lot of Animation Mini Cards. I don’t know too much about the set yet, but I had been keeping my eye out for the ones that feature Gyarados. I know they’re on the back of some larger cards and pop out much like Vending Machine cards do:
I apologize for the quality of this picture as their holographic nature makes them hard to photograph - pictures don’t even do them justice. These are Meiji Chocolate Rainbow Stickers. There’s 2 versions of each that I know of. They remind me of Ghost Rares from Yugioh with their florescent background:
Far from good condition, but I’ve been looking for this Topsun Gyarados for a few years now and was happy to find one for cheap:
The back of this series always features the main Pokemon featured in the main card. So say you have a Pikachu, the back label also displays a Pikachu:
Been picking up more Nagatenien stuff as of late (they’re the Japanese noodle company that does a lot of Pokemon promo stuff) and got this Nagatenien Variety Sticker:
I LOVE finding Gyarados stuff that depicts it using moves like Dragon Rage and Hyper Beam as I believe them to be iconic for the Pokemon. So I was thrilled when I finally got this Bandai Advanced Generation card:
Did another exchange with
@nidokingdom and traded for this sticker and Banpresto postcard - now I just need the Blastoise set and this one in holographic:
Thanks again, Dominic! Also shout-out to
@chopin for our recent conversation about postcards - it’s been a joy learning more about the postcard side of the non-TCG.
And speaking of post-cards. Also a major shout-out to @thedude1990 for our recent convos as well as this awesome trade - been dragging my feet on checking off my postcard and Topsun list so I was overjoyed that he helped me fill in some empty spots!
Just need a Dialga card and a Gyarados/Sharpedo card and my Topsun part of my non-TCG collection SHOULD be complete unless I missed some I’m not aware of. I admit to not being as well informed about these sets as some others.
I was especially excited about the figure postcard since I’ve been slowly moving away from cookie-cutter stock art items of Gyarados since I no longer can afford the space to keep them and have been instead focusing on unique depictions.
One of which is this original display for a Bandai Full Color Stadium Gashopon Figure (Part 6) Display which had, you guessed it, Gyarados:
The back is blank but I also had to get the figurines to match the set:
Speaking of displays, I’ve been thinking of getting some cut-outs of the old school Pokemon Stadium 2 advertisements since Shiny Gyarados was basically treated as a Gen 2 Pokemon. I lost the piece of paper I had that I had written down where the pages came from, but I’ll be able to find them again:
I’m very fond of the one on the right, as that page is familiar to me when I read the magazine as a kid - the joke about “kicking butt” stuck out to my teenage mind.
Also finally got this Banpresto Jumbo of a classic:
Also does anyone have info on this figure? I’ve had this for a while and never was able to find info on it when I first got it. I have 2 other figures (Mew & Bulbasaur) that have the same kind of “energy” tag attached to them but don’t know where they came from:
Also I forgot to take photos of these so I’ll just use the listing pics - this is from Pokemon Center Hiroshima where Red Gyarados is the staple mascot. They’re called Nishikido Momiji Manjyu and feature Gyarados in the center of the box. Momiji Manjyu are these sweet buns with bean paste inside:
Also incredible thanks to @weekendwolf for pointing me to a seller who, though I knew and had done dealings in the past, I did not realize was selling some very exciting Gyarados stuff. Wicked thankful as these have been hard to come by, especially the Himeno Poker cards which I first came to know existed thanks to @qwachansey . The seller also included this He also included this Televi-Kun Appendix Card -
Thanks again you two!
And last but not least. Incredible and whole-hearted thanks to @thedude1990 again for something I’ve been looking for casually for almost as many years as I’ve been collecting Gyarados. Even if I don’t come across the regular version, I now have the rarest version in hand.
As some may recall, as a kid my LGS had access to a lot of Japanese stuff including Japanese displays, magazines, toys, cards, you name it. It’s what inspired my non-TCG side of collecting. I remember flipping through the magazines and comics and seeing tons of merchandise that my store never could get it’s hands on despite how many things they DID get. One of the items I was drawn to were these Pop-Up Cards (middle-left):
When my family got their first computer, I tried looking for Japanese product but due to internet limitations, dial-up, and my child mind not being equipped to do deep dives like many of us can now, I never could find info on anything I had seen, including these. I curse myself for not picking up the magazines, displays, etc. that were available at my LGS as I see them now as incredible resources for the non-TCG.
Fast forward to around 2010 (I can’t remember the exact year), but I was looking for Gyarados items and stumbled across someone’s live-journal who had some pop-up cards and I saw an image of the regular Pop-up card that featured Misty’s Gyarados from the TCG. It was one of my favorite images of Gyarados and the post talked about there being a gold version that existed. However, a few years later, the user deleted their account and consequently all of their posts. However, in search on livejournal led me to a Gyarados collector named “Swampeh” who had a ton of non-TCG items that helped my original list all that time ago who would showcase pictures like this:
Though I don’t care to own all of the figurines and more bulky items of Gyarados, it gave me another spark I needed for my collection, and so I had been on the lookout for the Pop-up cards since then. Never forgetting what they looked like and hoping that the gold card did indeed exist.
Multiple attempts to contact sellers who either had bulk Pop-up cards and such were unwilling to open their sealed items to check for a Gyarados. Worst yet, none of them could recall Gyarados even BEING in the set nevermind even seeing them. The few who said the Gyarados existed said they didn’t believe the gold Gyarados existed.
In hopes of getting a long-awaited non-TCG grail out of the way, I finally put it on my buy list. And a little while longer, after no success on Mercari or Yahoo Japan @thedude1990 posted a link on my IG. I’ve been finishing up my display this past month and I’m happy to say that this grail makes the perfect centerpiece for my Gyarados collection. Better yet, the listing also came with the Dragonite, making the perfect counterpart I needed:
I don’t know if you know how much this means to me, but this has been one of my most important additions in these last few years. An item I didn’t even know existed and never seen, finally made it into my hands. Thank you so much again, man. I sat down with this thing for a long time:
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